About CompactStates.com

Why this site exists

The Nurse Licensure Compact is simple in theory and confusing in practice. Most coverage answers one question — which states are in the compact — and stops there. But that is rarely the question a nurse actually has. The real questions are: does my license work in that state, what changes when I move, does any of this apply to my advanced-practice role, and who decides?

Those questions have precise answers, and getting them wrong has consequences for someone’s license. So we built a reference that treats the details as the point rather than the footnote — including the two distinctions the shorter lists tend to flatten:

• A compact state is not a multistate license. Compact states issue both single-state and multistate licenses. Only one of them travels.
• Compact status is not binary. A jurisdiction can recognise visiting compact nurses while not yet issuing multistate licenses to its own residents. Rounding that to “yes” or “no” is how people end up misinformed.

How we source and review the data

We track all 56 U.S. jurisdictions — 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories. As of our last review, 43 have adopted the compact and 40 have fully implemented it.

• Source hierarchy. Compact status comes from the NLC’s published member-state status and each jurisdiction’s own board of nursing. Where those two ever disagree, the board controls.
• Provenance on every record. Each jurisdiction stores its source URLs, a last-reviewed date, and a confidence level. Where we are less certain — some territories — the page says so instead of presenting a guess as fact.
• One data set, no drift. The state list, the map, the checker, the downloadable CSV, and every state page are generated from the same source-backed model. They cannot quietly contradict each other.
• Changes are logged. Status changes go in data updates with a date and a source.

What we deliberately do not publish

Restraint is part of the method. We do not publish state fees, continuing-education hours, renewal cycles, processing times, or form requirements. Those are board-set and change without notice, and a stale figure is worse than no figure — a nurse could rely on it and be wrong. We link you to the official page instead.

We also publish no “best states for nurses” ranking and no proprietary score. An opaque score is opinion wearing the costume of data. And we make no personal licensure determinations: our tools explain how the rules apply and what to verify — they never tell you that you are authorised to practise.

How the tools work

The compact state checker, the mobility planner, and the comparison workspace are deterministic: every answer is derived from the tracked data using fixed rules. There is no runtime AI model deciding what your license does, because an answer about someone’s license needs to be reproducible and auditable. The tools require no account, and we do not ask for your name or license number.

Independence and how we make money

We currently run no advertising and have no active affiliate relationships. If that changes, any monetized link will be clearly disclosed, marked sponsored, and kept separate from official board and Nursys links — which we will never monetize. See our affiliate disclosure and advertising disclosure. Our data comes from official sources regardless of any commercial relationship, and no commercial arrangement will ever change a licensure fact on this site.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, we want to know — moved board links especially. Email hello@compactstates.com or use the correction link on any state page. We verify against the official source before changing anything.