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Nursing CE Requirements by State

Nursing boards set their own continuing education rules, and the differences between states are wide enough that a nurse with two licenses can face two very different renewals.

Last reviewed November 3, 2026. General information, not legal or compliance advice.

Contact hours, not CME credits

Nursing boards usually count continuing education in contact hours. Each board defines a contact hour for itself, often as 50 or 60 minutes of approved instruction, and many accept courses from providers accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Center or approved by a state board. Check the definition and the approved providers your board names before you count a course.

What varies between states

• Whether the board requires CE at all, because a few boards require none for RN or LPN/LVN renewal.
• The number of contact hours and the length of the cycle, which may not match the license renewal interval.
• Mandated topics, such as jurisprudence and ethics, human trafficking, implicit bias, pain management or infection control.
• Alternatives to hours, such as a current national certification, a refresher course or a minimum amount of nursing practice, which some boards accept in place of CE.
• Whether a topic must come from a course the board has approved.

What our data records

Our data records an RN rule for 51 jurisdictions and an LPN/LVN rule for 51 jurisdictions of the 51. For 18 of them, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, the recorded RN entry says the board requires no continuing education hours, although the notes for Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming describe another continuing competency requirement. Where hours are recorded, the RN figure ranges from 2 to 36 contact hours per cycle, and cycles run from 1 to 6 years.

Every state

Each state name opens the Nurses section of that state’s page, which lists the mandated topics, the nursing license renewal cycle, the board link and the source the entry was checked against. The compact column was last reviewed on November 3, 2026 against the NCSBN compact map.

How ClinLicense records contact hours

• Each course is logged once, with its contact hours, its topic and the certificate, and ClinLicense counts it toward every nursing license where it applies.
• A multistate compact license follows the CE rules of its home state, so the app counts hours against that state’s cycle.
• A single-state license in another state keeps its own cycle and topics.
• Advanced practice licenses for nurse practitioners, nurse-midwives and clinical nurse specialists keep their own hours, such as pharmacology, separate from the RN rule.

Limits of this guide

Rules and fees change, and this guide is general information, so confirm the details with the relevant board or agency before you act.