Living in Guam, working in California
Can a Guam nurse work in California?
California would honour a multistate license, but Guam cannot issue you one: Guam has adopted the compact and not finished implementing it. Until it goes live, plan on a California license by endorsement rather than compact privilege.
Guam vs California at a glance
| Guam (home) | California (work) | |
|---|---|---|
| Compact status | Partial | Non-compact |
| Multistate license for residents | No | No |
| Compact nurses can practice here | Yes | No |
| Board of nursing | Guam board ↗ | California board ↗ |
Status shown as of 2026-06-17. Compact law changes — confirm anything that affects your license with the state board.
Recommended next step
Contact the California Board of Registered Nursing and the Guam Board of Nurse Examiners to confirm current implementation before practicing.
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 California’s current requirements with the California Board of Registered Nursing.
Where each license is actually checked
These two states do not verify the same way, and the difference matters at different moments: Guam is what you will be asked to produce, California is what an employer there will run.
Your home state
Guam
Guam Board of Nurse Examiners (via Nursys) ↗Two things to know. Guam’s material spreads across three domains: the board sits at guamhplo.org, its primary-source search at guamnursing.org, and Nursys carries the free public lookup — one more hop than New Mexico’s two-domain split. And an OFFICIAL verification requires a signed authorization to release information from the licensee, plus a $25 fee. That consent requirement is unique in this cohort: an employer cannot obtain an official Guam verification independently, the nurse has to sign first, so it belongs in the hiring timeline rather than being discovered at the end of it. The board licenses RNs, LPNs, APRNs and CNAs.
Where you want to work
California
California BRN license verification ↗California is not a compact state, so its own lookup — not a multistate designation — is what matters here.
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
Guam
10 GCA ch. 12, art. 3A (Nurse Licensure Compact); added by P.L. 36-006:1 (5 March 2021) ↗Read off the compiled article published by Guam’s own Health Professional Licensing Office, headed “10 GCA Health and Safety, Ch. 12 Medical Practices” and sourced to P.L. 36-006:1. Guam did something almost no other jurisdiction did: it legislated ONGOING MEASUREMENT of the compact alongside joining it. P.L. 36-006 requires the Board of Nurse Examiners to report quarterly to the licensing office how many nurses hold a multistate license issued by Guam and how many licensed by other compact jurisdictions are working here, and to file an annual fiscal impact report on licensure fee revenue and operating costs with the Speaker. Most compact statutes are silent on what joining costs or achieves.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Guam nursing licensure law (Guam Board of Nurse Examiners, HPLO) ↗.
Where you want to work
California
California has no compact statute, because it has not enacted the compact. Practicing here means holding a California license.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 2700 et seq. (Nursing Practice Act) ↗.
Things to keep in mind
- Guam cannot yet issue multistate licenses to its residents, so you may need a single-state or endorsement license for California.
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.