Compact state checker
Pick your home state and where you want to work. Get a clear answer and your next step.
Your primary state of residence
Where you plan to practice
Select your home state and the state you want to work in to get a direct answer.
Why we point you to Nursys
CompactStates explains the state rules. Nursys confirms your individual license. Nursys QuickConfirm is the official, free service where nurses can look up whether their own license is single-state or multistate. We’re an independent guide; Nursys and your board are where personal license status is verified.
Open Nursys QuickConfirmWhat this checker decides — and what it cannot
Compact privilege turns on three conditions holding at the same time. The checker settles one of them outright and narrows the other two, and it is worth knowing which is which before you rely on the answer.
What the checker settles
Whether the two states are in the compact — and whether that is usable yet
This is the part people get wrong most often, because enacting the compact and implementing it are separate events that can be years apart. A state can have passed the law and still be issuing nothing. The checker uses implementation dates, not enactment dates, so a jurisdiction that has signed up but not switched on is reported as what it is: not yet usable.
What only your licence can tell you
Whether your licence is actually multistate
A licence issued by a compact state is not automatically a multistate licence. Boards issue both kinds, and plenty of nurses in compact states hold single-state licences without ever having been told. No tool can infer this from your state — it is a fact about your specific record. Check which one you hold.
What only you can tell you
Which state is your primary state of residence
Everything rests on this, and it is a legal-residence question rather than a where-you-sleep one — driving licence, tax filing, voter registration. Nurses who have recently moved, or who work in one state and live in another, are the ones most likely to answer it wrongly, and it is the answer the rest of the analysis is built on. How boards define it.
Things the result deliberately does not assume
- That you are an RN or LPN/VN. The compact has never covered advanced practice. If you are an APRN, privilege on the RN licence underneath does not carry your advanced practice authority with it — see what applies instead.
- That nothing is on your record. Board action can restrict or remove privilege, and a checker cannot see it.
- That the answer holds for telehealth. For remote care the state that matters is generally where the patient is, not where you are sitting — which can be several states at once.
- That your employer agrees. Facilities can require their own credentialing beyond what the licence permits. The compact sets the legal floor, not the hiring bar.
A “yes” here means the geography works. Confirm the licence itself on Nursys or your board before you rely on it — and note that boards do not all verify the same way, which is its own subject.
Or open a jurisdiction directly
Every state and territory, with its compact status, board, and what a licence from there reaches.