Living in Arkansas, working in Kansas
Can an Arkansas nurse work in Kansas?
If your primary state of residence is Arkansas and you hold an active multistate license from Arkansas, you may generally practice in Kansas under compact privilege — without applying for a separate Kansas license.
Arkansas vs Kansas at a glance
| Arkansas (home) | Kansas (work) | |
|---|---|---|
| Compact status | Compact | Compact |
| Multistate license for residents | Yes | Yes |
| Compact nurses can practice here | Yes | Yes |
| Board of nursing | Arkansas board ↗ | Kansas board ↗ |
Status shown as of 2026-06-17. Compact law changes — confirm anything that affects your license with the state board.
Recommended next step
Verify that your Arkansas license is multistate in Nursys, then review any Kansas-specific requirements with the Kansas State Board of Nursing.
Verify before you rely on this
Whether you can practice comes down to your actual license type, not just the two states’ status. Look your license up on Nursys to confirm it is single-state or multistate, then check Kansas’s current requirements with the Kansas State Board of Nursing.
Where each license is actually checked
These two states do not verify the same way, and the difference matters at different moments: Arkansas is what you will be asked to produce, Kansas is what an employer there will run.
Your home state
Arkansas
Arkansas State Board of Nursing license lookup ↗Both routes are primary source here — the board’s own 24-hour lookup, and Nursys, which holds data supplied directly by the board. Same dual-authority arrangement as Missouri. Arkansas also licenses a credential most states do not have: the psychiatric technician nurse, alongside RN, APRN, registered nurse practitioner and LPN. As with New Hampshire’s medication nursing assistants, that means Arkansas holds records for titles that simply do not exist elsewhere, so an unfamiliar title on a CV is not automatically a red flag.
Where you want to work
Kansas
Kansas State Board of Nursing license status verification ↗Kansas runs KANN — Kansas Automated Nurse Notification — which tells enrolled employers and schools when a license status changes, including at renewal. That is the first state-operated continuous-monitoring service in this cohort; everywhere else, ongoing monitoring means a Nursys e-Notify subscription. It directly automates the "re-verify at renewal" step that otherwise depends on somebody remembering, which is the step most likely to be skipped once a nurse is hired.
How long each has been part of this
Arkansas has recognized compact privilege since January 19, 2018; Kansas since July 1, 2019 — a gap of about 1 year. That is worth knowing because the newer member is where employers, staffing agencies and HR systems are most likely to still be working from an out-of-date understanding of what a multistate license covers.
The law behind each side
Compact privilege is not a courtesy between states — it is each legislature having enacted the compact into its own code. These are the provisions that do it.
Your home state
Arkansas
Ark. Code Ann. §§ 17-87-601 to 17-87-604 (Nurse Practice Act, subch. 6 — Nurse Licensure Compact) ↗Read from the Arkansas Department of Health’s own compiled Nurse Practice Act, which is published split by subchapter — subchapter 6 IS the compact, and contains exactly these four sections. The board’s compact page is not the source: it describes the 1999 original and the 2017 replacement in prose and cites no code section at all. Arkansas ran the original compact from 2000 and adopted the enhanced one in 2017, so an Arkansas citation predating that changeover is describing superseded law.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Arkansas nursing licensure law (Arkansas State Board of Nursing) ↗.
Where you want to work
Kansas
K.S.A. 65-1166 (Nurse Licensure Compact); enacted by HB 2496 (2018) ↗Kansas puts the whole compact in one numbered section inside the public health chapter rather than the professions chapter, so it sits alongside 65-1115 onward — the nurse practice act sections — rather than in a code title about licensing. The enacting vehicle was HB 2496 in 2018, which amended the Nurse Practice Act at the same time.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Kansas nursing licensure law (Kansas State Board of Nursing) ↗.
Things to keep in mind
- Compact privilege only applies if your license is multistate, not single-state. Check this in Nursys.
- You must meet Kansas's practice requirements (for example, scope of practice and any continuing-education rules).
- APRN roles are generally not covered by the standard compact — APRNs usually need separate authorization in each state.
Frequently asked questions
Related pages
Sources & last reviewed
- NLC frequently asked questions— NCSBN / NurseCompact (nursecompact.com)
Covers multistate licenses, primary state of residence, the 60-day rule, telehealth, and license type coverage.
- NLC member states map & status— NCSBN / NurseCompact (nursecompact.com)
Identifies full members, partial implementation (Guam), and enacted/awaiting implementation (Massachusetts, U.S. Virgin Islands).
- Nursys QuickConfirm license verification— NCSBN / Nursys (nursys.com)
Recommended destination to verify whether a license is single-state or multistate.
Facts on this page were last reviewed against official sources on 2026-06-17. Compact law changes — always verify with your state board of nursing.