South Carolina

The pathways, as the board describes them

Endorsement, and who it is for. The board opens the route by naming the two situations it covers: "This application is for an RN who is actively licensed in another state and is either moving to South Carolina as a permanent resident, or holds a license in a non-compact state and seeks to practice in South Carolina." The LPN page opens the same section with the same sentence for its own license type — "This application is for an LPN who is actively licensed in another state" — and the board's FAQ states the non-compact case directly: "Applicants moving to South Carolina from a non-compact state are required to apply by endorsement." RN licensure; LPN licensure; FAQ.

The sixty-day clock, and which license it produces. For a nurse arriving from a compact state the board states both a deadline and a consequence for applying too early: "If you are currently licensed in a participating compact state and relocate to South Carolina, you must apply for licensure by endorsement within sixty (60) days of declaring South Carolina as your primary state of residence." and "If you apply for licensure before establishing South Carolina residency, you will be issued a single-state license." The multistate license is conditioned on a form: "A multistate license will only be granted once you submit the Declaration of Primary State of Residence Form along with acceptable residence." RN licensure.

What counts as proof of residence. The board publishes a closed list, introduced as "Proof of primary residence must be established with one of the following:" and running "Driver's license with current home address"; "Voter registration card displaying home address"; "Federal income tax return declaring primary state of residence"; "Military Form #2058 (State of Legal Residence Certificate)"; and a W-2 "issued by the U.S. Government or one of its agencies, divisions, or bureaus indicating declared state of residence." RN licensure.

The multistate privilege, as the board states it. The board states the practice right and the two limits on it: the compact "allows registered nurses (RNs) or licensed practical nurses (LPNs) who hold a license in one compact state to practice in other compact states without obtaining an additional license."; "Nurses practicing under a compact license must follow the nursing laws and regulations of the state where the patient is located."; and "If a nurse relocates and establishes residency in a new state, they must apply for licensure in that state." For telenursing it states that "the nurse is required to meet the practice standards of the state in which the patient receives care." RN licensure.

Moving between compact states, as the board's FAQ states it. The FAQ answers the timing question a nurse mid-move actually asks: on a move from one compact state to another, "it is the nurse's responsibility to apply for licensure by endorsement." and "The nurse may not wait until the former license expires to apply in the nurse's new state of legal residency." It states what may be practiced on meanwhile: "The nurse may practice on the former home state license only UNTIL the multistate license in the new NLC home state is issued." and what happens after: "Upon issuance of a new multistate license, the former license is inactivated." It defines primary state of residence as "The state (also known as the home state) in which a nurse declares a primary residence for legal purposes." and states that "Only one state can be identified as the primary state of legal residence for NLC purposes." FAQ.

Who the compact route is not open to. The compact page states: "Those who do not meet the new licensure requirements may still be eligible for a single state license." and that "Nurses with an original NLC multistate license will be grandfathered into the NLC." Compact page.

Examination history the board requires. "Applicants who have not passed the NCLEX within three (3) years of graduation must re-qualify by completing an approved nursing education program and demonstrating knowledge, skills, and abilities of a graduate nurse." RN licensure.

Nurses educated outside the United States. The board states that general and nursing education "must meet the standards required of graduates from nursing programs in this State who are candidates for licensure." and that verification "must be provided by a certificate from the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools or another board-approved credential evaluation service." Where the education is not verified as equivalent, "the applicant may still qualify for licensure by completing a supplemental course prescribed by the Board within an approved nursing education program and, upon completion, successfully passing the licensing examination." RN licensure.

The published process

Practice while the application is pending. The board publishes a sixty-day temporary license for a nurse licensed in another state, but only on its LPN licensure page, and under the heading "Graduate Nurse Temporary License". There it states that "applicants may request a temporary license to practice nursing in South Carolina for up to sixty (60) days while their application is being processed." and that "To qualify, you must provide proof of an active nursing license from another U.S. state or jurisdiction." Most of the application must come first: "All required documentation — except the criminal background check and license verification — must be received before a single-state temporary license can be issued." The license does not extend: "Please note that the temporary license is valid for sixty (60) days only and employment is not permitted once it expires." And orientation counts as practice: "Orientation is considered the practice of nursing; therefore, you must hold a valid license to participate." The RN licensure page carries the same heading and cites the same statute, but describes a different authorization, for new graduates awaiting the examination: an unlicensed graduate "may be temporarily authorized to practice nursing under supervision while awaiting to complete NCLEX testing, for a period of ninety (90) days." That route requires the applicant to "Have never taken and failed the NCLEX." and to have "Submit a completed application for licensure by examination to the Board and pay the associated fee." The RN page describes no sixty-day license for a nurse licensed elsewhere. Both texts are reproduced as published and reconciled nowhere; which of them reaches a particular applicant is for the board to determine. The fee schedule prices the license at "Endorsement w/Temporary License", "$110", and separately at "Temporary License Fee", "$10". LPN licensure; RN licensure; fee schedule.

Verification of the existing license. The board states which license it wants verified, and it is not necessarily the current one: "Verification is required from your original state of licensure by examination." It names the route — Nursys, to "request electronic verification be sent directly to the Board of Nursing" — and the fallback: "If your licensing state does not participate in Nursys, you must contact that state's board of nursing and request that verification be sent directly to SCBON." It states that its own form is optional: "A license verification form is available as a courtesy, though use of this form is not required." Electronic verifications "may be emailed directly from the issuing state board to: nurseboard@llr.sc.gov". RN licensure.

Fingerprints and the background check. The board now publishes this, where the pages captured Aug 30, 2026 did not. "All applicants for licensure in South Carolina are required to undergo a criminal history background check in accordance with Section 40-33-25 if the Nurse Practice Act." — the sentence carries the board's own if where of is evidently meant, and is reproduced as published. On sequence, the board is explicit twice. In the endorsement section: "Once your application is received, the Board will provide detailed instructions for fingerprinting." and "Do not submit fingerprints or request a background check before receiving instructions from the Board." And under what to expect: "The SC Nursing Practice Act requires all nursing applicants to submit a fingerprint based criminal background check." with "Do not have your fingerprints or criminal background check processed until you have submitted an application and received instructions from the Board." The board adds one condition for applicants without a social security number: "If you are applying with an alien registration number, you will not be able to have your fingerprints processed until you obtain a social security number." RN licensure.

The three rows above answer the questions an experienced adviser raises first, from the board's own published documents, or record that a question is not answered in them.

Continued competency. The board requires evidence with the application: "Applicants must provide documentation of continued competency within the past two (2) years by meeting one of the following requirements:" followed by four alternatives — "Completion of thirty (30) contact hours of continuing education from a provider recognized by the Board (continuing education certificates required)."; "Maintenance or renewal of national certification by a certifying body recognized by the Board."; "Completion of an academic program of study in nursing or a related field recognized by the Board."; and "Employer verification of competency using the Board-approved Employer Certification Form." RN licensure.

Fees, as stated in the sources

All quoted; none totaled.

The schedule's own frame. "Fees to be paid by applicants for a license as registered nurse or as licensed practical nurse under provisions §40-33-30, §40-33-32, §40-33-34, §40-33-35, and §40-33-38, and other fees under §40-33-50 shall be amounts as shown on the following schedule:" Fee schedule.

Endorsement. Under the heading "RN and LPN Endorsements", the table states "Endorsement without Temporary License", "$100"; and "Endorsement w/Temporary License", "$110". The two lines are published for RNs and LPNs together, quoted cell by cell as the table sets them. See the practice-while-pending row above for the license this second line prices. Fee schedule.

Temporary license. Under "Miscellaneous Fees" the table separately states "Temporary License Fee", "$10". Fee schedule.

Renewal and other stated amounts. The same table states "RN/LPN Renewals", "$75"; "Reactivation of an Inactive License Less than 5 Years", "$50"; "RN/LPN Reinstatement of a Lapsed License Less than 5 Years", "$135"; and "Returned Check Charge", "$30". Fee schedule.

Verification. The only verification amount on the schedule is "APRN Verification", "$5". No amount for verification of an RN or LPN license appears on the board's schedule; the Nursys route the endorsement section names is priced by the national system rather than here. Fee schedule; RN licensure.

What any of it means for a particular application is for the board to determine.

Timelines, as stated in the sources

All quoted; none calculated.

The sixty-day clock after relocating. A nurse licensed in a participating compact state "must apply for licensure by endorsement within sixty (60) days of declaring South Carolina as your primary state of residence." RN licensure.

How long an application stays alive. "Applications for licensure are valid for one year from the date of filing with the board." The board states what follows if it lapses: "An applicant who fails to attain licensure during this period shall submit a new application, application fee, Criminal Background Check, and required documents." RN licensure.

Order of processing. "Applications are processed in the order in which they are received." The FAQ states the same rule in its own words — "Applications are processed in the order received." — and states no target for how long that takes. No processing clock for an endorsement application appears in any captured source. RN licensure; FAQ.

The examination window. "Applicants who have not passed the NCLEX within three (3) years of graduation must re-qualify by completing an approved nursing education program and demonstrating knowledge, skills, and abilities of a graduate nurse." RN licensure.

The sixty-day temporary license. As the LPN licensure page states it: "the temporary license is valid for sixty (60) days only and employment is not permitted once it expires." LPN licensure.

The graduate-nurse temporary license. Ninety days, for the examination route rather than endorsement: "for a period of ninety (90) days." The board states one extension: where the examination is not offered in time, "the licensee must submit a written explanation and obtain Board approval for an additional thirty (30) days." RN licensure.

Renewal. "Nursing license renewals open February 1, 2026." and "all nursing licenses expire on April 30 of every even-numbered year." RN licensure.

What any of it means for a particular application is for the board to determine.

Source map

Change log

Oct 1, 2026 · Correction: the sixty-day temporary license and the orientation rule are still published. Since the Sep 5 rebuild, the practice-while-pending row said that no temporary license for an endorsement applicant appeared anywhere in the captured sources, and the Sep 5 entry below listed the orientation rule and the sixty-day temporary license among what the board had stopped publishing. That was our error. The board's LPN licensure page has published both, in new words, in every capture since Sep 5: under the heading "Graduate Nurse Temporary License", "applicants may request a temporary license to practice nursing in South Carolina for up to sixty (60) days while their application is being processed.", for applicants with "proof of an active nursing license from another U.S. state or jurisdiction". The row described only the RN page's section under the same heading, which is a ninety-day authorization for new graduates. What did go on Sep 5 was the earlier wording, "The Board may issue a temporary license for up to sixty (60) days pending completion and approval of the application.", with the two published bars on it, which no current page states. The orientation rule moved from "Orientation is considered the practice of nursing in South Carolina." to "Orientation is considered the practice of nursing; therefore, you must hold a valid license to participate." The practice-while-pending row now quotes the LPN page's license and the RN page's graduate authorization side by side, the timelines section quotes the license's sixty days, and finding (3) below, which read the fee schedule's endorsement temporary license as possibly a fee that outlived its route, is withdrawn: the license the fee prices is published. Finding (8), new: the RN and LPN licensure pages print the same heading, "Graduate Nurse Temporary License", over two different texts citing the same statute, S.C. Code Section 40-33-36 (D)(1) — a ninety-day authorization for examination candidates on one, a sixty-day license for nurses licensed elsewhere on the other. Neither is reconciled here. Found on Oct 1, 2026 while writing the September change record; no source was re-captured, so the checked date stands. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-10-01. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Sep 27, 2026 · Sources re-checked; the board corrected the telephone number on its landing page. All eight sources re-captured through this jurisdiction's capture recipe. The nursing board's landing page read "Telephone: (803) 896-4770" and now reads "Telephone: (803) 896-4550", the number the board information page and the agency contact page already gave for Nursing. The agency's directory still lists "(803) 896-4770" under Accountancy, so the change is the board replacing another board's number with its own. That resolves the telephone half of finding (2) below: it was accurate when written, and the board has since corrected its page. The postal-code half is unaffected — the board information page still gives "Columbia, SC 29120" and the other two still give "Columbia, SC 29210" — and the offices row now states only that disagreement. The board's site also relabeled navigation links across its pages; no wording this page quotes moved, and every other quotation still traces. This is a change at the board, not a correction of ours. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-10-01. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Sep 5, 2026 · Rebuilt after the board replaced its site. The nightly review found three of this page's six sources returning a relaunch stub — HTTP 200 with a 1,791-byte body reading "404 - Page Not Found" and a meta refresh to the agency root — and twenty-five quotations on this page no longer tracing to anything the board publishes (portfolio queue FA-Q-20260905-02). The review changed nothing, correctly. This entry records the rebuild.

What the board stopped publishing. These statements were on the board's pages on Aug 30, 2026 and appear nowhere in the eight sources captured Sep 5, 2026. Searched: the RN licensure page, the LPN licensure page, the fee schedule, the compact page, the FAQ, the board information page, the nursing board landing page, the agency contact page, and the two endorsement application packages the licensure pages link (RN_LPN_Endorsement_Electronic_PKG.pdf and CertificateOfEduEndorsement.pdf).

1. The orientation rule. "A current South Carolina license or temporary license is required to practice nursing in this state. Orientation is considered the practice of nursing in South Carolina." — with the statement that beginning orientation without a license was a violation of the Nurse Practice Act. This was the sharpest provision in the earlier sources for a nurse with a start date, and no current page states it. 2. The sixty-day temporary license for endorsement applicants, "The Board may issue a temporary license for up to sixty (60) days pending completion and approval of the application.", together with the two published bars on it — discipline pending or a restricted license elsewhere, and a list covering prior convictions, pending charges, sanctions and certain foreign-educated applicants. The fee schedule still prices this license; see section 02. 3. The verification products by name. Licensure QuickConfirm and Nurse License Verification were each described, with their source conditions and the statement that "Nursys will not track temporary licenses and employer must verify licensure directly from the state issuing the temporary permit/license." The endorsement section now names Nursys as the route and describes neither product. 4. The pre-1982 examination sentence for nurses educated outside the United States, and the flat statement that a compact resident of another state is "not eligible to reinstate or reactivate your license in South Carolina."

What the board added. The criminal background check, which the Aug 30, 2026 sources did not mention at all and which this page then recorded as an absence with the pages searched; the sixty-day clock for applying after declaring residency; the single-state versus multistate consequence of applying before establishing residency; the residence documents the board will accept; continued-competency evidence; the one-year life of an application; and the renewal cycle. On the absence this page previously recorded: it was accurate to the sources then captured, and the board has since published on the question. That is the ordinary case the absence convention exists for, and it is why an absence is recorded with what was searched rather than as a statement about the world.

Findings. (1) The board publishes its compact membership three times in three wordings across two pages, and its own dedicated compact page is still the one place that never states it. (2) The board publishes its own contact block on three pages and the three disagree twice over. The board information page gives the postal code as "Columbia, SC 29120" where the nursing board's landing page and the agency contact page both give "Columbia, SC 29210" for the same street — an apparent transposition on one page against two. And the landing page states "Telephone: (803) 896-4770" where the other two give "(803) 896-4550"; the agency's own directory lists 896-4770 under Accountancy, so the board's landing page appears to publish another board's number. All three are shown as published and none is corrected here, which is the rule; but the disagreements are the kind a nurse only discovers by mailing documents to the wrong place or reaching the wrong office, so they are stated plainly in the docket rather than left for a reader to notice. (3) The fee schedule prices an endorsement temporary license that no current licensure page describes, which is either a fee that outlived its route or a route the rebuilt pages dropped by accident; both readings are consistent with what is published and the page states neither. (4) The board's background-check sentence carries "in accordance with Section 40-33-25 if the Nurse Practice Act", the board's own if for of, reproduced as published. (5) The FAQ carries "click the "License by Endorsement" dropdwon", the board's own spelling, in a sentence this page does not quote. (6) The endorsement route is now published once per license type rather than on a single page, so a nurse holding both an RN and an LPN license reads two pages. (7) The relaunch left no redirects: the three removed addresses answer HTTP 200 with a stub rather than a 404, so a fetcher trusting status codes records a working page with no content — the same hazard this page's Aug 30, 2026 entry recorded for a guessed URL, now true of the addresses that were correct.

Capture pending: the RN and LPN endorsement application instructions, the Declaration of Primary State of Residence Form, the Employer Certification Form, the Nurse Practice Act at Title 40 Chapter 33, and Internet Archive captures. Automated or AI-assisted decision-making: none located; the terms artificial intelligence, automated decision, and algorithm return nothing across the eight captured sources, and that scope is recorded in research/ai-disclosure.jsonl. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed Sep 16, 2026. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Aug 30, 2026 · Page created. Six first-party sources captured mechanically through this jurisdiction's capture recipe; bare curl serves every one of them in full, with no user-agent pinning needed. Findings: (1) an address hazard worth recording before anything else — the obvious guess, llr.sc.gov/nurse/endorsement.aspx, answers with HTTP 200 and a 1.8 KB stub carrying a meta refresh to the agency root, so a fetcher that trusts status codes records a working page with no content; the real page is bonendorsement.aspx, reachable only from the licensure index; (2) South Carolina states its compact membership on its endorsement page and not on its own compact page, which describes the compact's effect without ever saying the state belongs to it, so the docket row quotes the endorsement page; (3) the orientation rule is the sharpest thing in these sources for a nurse with a start date — classroom instruction and reading policies and procedures count as the practice of nursing, so the license or temporary license has to exist before day one, and beginning orientation without it is stated as a violation; (4) the temporary license is real, sixty days, discretionary in the board's wording, and separately priced at ten dollars beyond the endorsement fee, which the schedule also states at two amounts depending on whether a temporary license is requested; (5) two bars on the temporary license are published, one for discipline pending or restriction elsewhere and one listing prior convictions, pending charges, sanctions and certain foreign-educated applicants; (6) neither fingerprint nor background check appears anywhere in the six captured sources, which is recorded as an absence with the pages searched rather than assumed from the near-universal practice, and the board's only criminal-history language is the temporary-license bar; (7) the board publishes no processing clock for an endorsement application; (8) the same mailbox is published in two cases, "nurseboard@llr.sc.gov" on every board page and "NURSEBOARD@llr.sc.gov" on the agency contact page, and the board's own pages give the street address without the postal code the agency page carries; both are shown as published; (9) the applications page expands its license-type sections through script, so the endorsement application document itself was not retrieved — a fact about the transport, recorded as capture-pending rather than as an absence. Automated or AI-assisted decision-making: none located; the terms artificial intelligence, automated decision, and algorithm return nothing across the six captured sources, and that scope is recorded in research/ai-disclosure.jsonl. Capture pending: the RN and LPN endorsement application documents, the Nurse Practice Act at Title 40 Chapter 33, and Internet Archive captures. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed Aug 30, 2026. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.