Moving your nursing license to another state?
An offer letter in one state, a license in another — and every board of nursing publishes the rules for that move. Board & Border puts them on one page per jurisdiction, quoted word for word from the official sources, dated, and linked to the originals: which board takes the application, the steps it states, the fees its own schedule lists, the temporary permit most nurses never hear about, and what it says about the Compact.
No board, staffing agency, license service, or employer is behind this site, and it determines nothing about any application — it points to the sources and keeps the record of what they said, and when.
One page per jurisdiction, in the board's own words
Each page opens with the same docket: the applying board as the state states it (including the states that run separate RN and PN boards), what the board itself publishes about compact participation, the board's published contacts exactly as published, and the date the sources were last checked. Then the pathways as the board describes them, the published process, every stated fee, and every stated timeline — each one a verbatim quotation with the source linked beside it, and a change log recording what was captured and when.
These are potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of eligibility or of which pathway applies to any situation; confirm applicability with the board itself. Every fee on every page is quoted from the sources, not a total calculated for you.
The provisions nurses find last
Every state page opens its process section with the same three rows, because they are the questions a recruiter answers in the first fifteen minutes and a relocating nurse almost never finds alone. Whether this state authorizes practice while the endorsement application is pending — the temporary permit, its duration, its conditions, and its cost as the board states them. How the board states verification of your existing license must arrive. And what the board publishes about fingerprints and the criminal background check. Each row quotes the board's own published documents, word for word, with the source linked beside the quotation — and where a board publishes nothing on a question, the row says so plainly, because an absence you know about is worth more than a guess.
The ways an already-licensed nurse enters a new state
Board materials describe up to three routes, and each state page quotes how that state runs each one — who applies, what the board states it requires, and the amounts its fee schedule lists. In broad terms, as the boards describe them:
| Pathway | Who grants it | As the boards describe it |
|---|---|---|
| Licensure by endorsement | The new state's board of nursing | An application on an existing license from another state: verification, fees, background check, and any state-specific requirements the board states |
| Multistate privilege | The home-state license, under the compact | Where both states participate and the board's stated conditions are met, a multistate license issued by the primary state of residence |
| Temporary permit | The new state's board, where offered | Time-limited authorization to practice while an endorsement application is pending, on the conditions the board states |
Which routes exist, what they are called, what they cost, and which board runs them differ by state — some states run every nursing license through one board; California licenses RNs and vocational nurses through two. That variation is the reason this site is organized one page per jurisdiction, in each board's own words, with the compact's own published materials on a page of their own.
Jump straight to a state's page
51 state pages published — the full index. Click a state to go straight to its page; muted abbreviations aren't published yet.