Living in Idaho, working in South Carolina
Can an Idaho nurse work in South Carolina?
If your primary state of residence is Idaho and you hold an active multistate license from Idaho, you may generally practice in South Carolina under compact privilege — without applying for a separate South Carolina license.
Idaho vs South Carolina at a glance
| Idaho (home) | South Carolina (work) | |
|---|---|---|
| Compact status | Compact | Compact |
| Multistate license for residents | Yes | Yes |
| Compact nurses can practice here | Yes | Yes |
| Board of nursing | Idaho board ↗ | South Carolina 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 Idaho license is multistate in Nursys, then review any South Carolina-specific requirements with the South Carolina 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 South Carolina’s current requirements with the South Carolina 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: Idaho is what you will be asked to produce, South Carolina is what an employer there will run.
Your home state
Idaho
Idaho DOPL board of nursing license search ↗Public search for LPN, RN and APRN records. Idaho’s outbound route is self-service in a way most states are not: a nurse pulls their own certification from their DOPL Online Services account rather than asking the board to produce one. That removes the board’s queue from the timeline entirely — but it also means the nurse has to have account access, which is worth checking before they need it rather than during a move.
Where you want to work
South Carolina
South Carolina LLR Board of Nursing ↗For a single nurse, Nursys QuickConfirm covers South Carolina. For volume, LLR sells a Bulk License Verification service that takes a list of license numbers and returns status and expiry for each. That is the paid mirror of Iowa, which publishes the equivalent as free public rosters — so an employer credentialing across both states pays for one and not the other, for the same task.
How long each has been part of this
Both Idaho and South Carolina began recognizing compact privilege in 2018. A pairing of two states that arrived together is the simplest case there is: neither has a transitional quirk the other lacks.
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
Idaho
Idaho Code § 54-1418 (Nurse Licensure Compact) ↗Idaho keeps the compact in its own section near the end of the nursing chapter, and the section immediately after it — § 54-1419 — is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Compact. Idaho is the second jurisdiction in this survey, after Iowa, to have legislated for both. As with Iowa, that means Idaho has passed APRN compact law, not that APRN privilege is available; the two compacts are separate instruments with separate activation.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Idaho nursing licensure law (Board of Nursing, DOPL) ↗.
Where you want to work
South Carolina
S.C. Code Ann. §§ 40-33-1300 to 40-33-1365 (tit. 40, ch. 33, art. 15 — Nurse Licensure Compact) ↗Article 15 of the Nurse Practice Act chapter, opening "The Nurse Licensure Compact is hereby enacted into law and entered into by this State". Fourteen sections, 40-33-1300 through 40-33-1365. The article carries a codifier’s note throughout that 2017 Act No. 41 rewrote these sections "to reflect changes mandated for membership in the Nurse Licensure Compact" — that is the original-to-enhanced changeover, recorded in the code itself rather than inferred. Note for anyone re-checking this: the chapter page is ~199KB and truncates when read through a summarizing fetch, which reports the compact as absent. It is not absent; it is past the cut.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from S.C. Code tit. 40, ch. 33 (Nurses); discipline at § 40-33-110 ↗.
Things to keep in mind
- Compact privilege only applies if your license is multistate, not single-state. Check this in Nursys.
- You must meet South Carolina'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.