Living in Louisiana, working in Texas
Can a Louisiana nurse work in Texas?
If your primary state of residence is Louisiana and you hold an active multistate license from Louisiana, you may generally practice in Texas under compact privilege — without applying for a separate Texas license.
Louisiana vs Texas at a glance
| Louisiana (home) | Texas (work) | |
|---|---|---|
| Compact status | Compact | Compact |
| Multistate license for residents | Yes | Yes |
| Compact nurses can practice here | Yes | Yes |
| Board of nursing | Louisiana board ↗ | Texas 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 Louisiana license is multistate in Nursys, then review any Texas-specific requirements with the Texas Board of Nursing.
Going the other way?
Louisiana and Texas hold the same compact status, so the answer runs the same way in reverse — but the boards, the statutes and the license lookups are still each state’s own. See Texas to Louisiana for that side of it.
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 Texas’s current requirements with the Texas Board of Nursing.
Louisiana and Texas share a border
Both are on the same side of the compact, so crossing this particular border does not change your licensure position the way it would at a compact seam. The usual cross-border questions still apply — where you actually reside, and which state each employer sits in.
Where each license is actually checked
These two states do not verify the same way, and the difference matters at different moments: Louisiana is what you will be asked to produce, Texas is what an employer there will run.
Your home state
Louisiana
Louisiana State Board of Nursing licensure verification ↗Louisiana states outright that some licenses are NOT available for public verification and must be requested by email. So a blank result here does not mean the nurse is unlicensed — the same trap as Washington’s temporary permits, arriving by a different route. Outbound verification to a non-Nursys state is a mailed form with a $25 money order specifically, which is worth knowing before someone tries to pay by card.
Where you want to work
Texas
Texas BON license verification ↗Texas runs two different things under the word “verification”, and confusing them costs weeks. The online lookup answers “is this license real and current” for an employer, immediately. But board-to-board verification for ENDORSEMENT into another state is a separate paper process — a Verification of Registered/Professional Nurse Licensure form, returned to the board by email — not something the public lookup produces. If another state has asked you for verification of your Texas license, a printout of the online result is unlikely to be what they meant.
How long each has been part of this
Texas has recognized compact privilege since January 19, 2018; Louisiana 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
Louisiana
La. R.S. 37:1018 to 37:1020 (Title 37, ch. 11, pt. V) — Nurse Licensure Compact ↗Cited to the Louisiana State Board of Nursing, which names its own governing statute as "Part V, Chapter 11 of Title 37, section 1018 through 1020". The legislature’s text is not directly addressable — legis.la.gov serves statutes by document ID issued from its own search rather than by section number — so this is the regulator’s statement of the citation rather than a reading of the enacted text. That is a weaker source than the Arizona or Wyoming records here and is marked as such deliberately.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Louisiana nursing licensure law (LSBN) ↗.
Where you want to work
Texas
Tex. Occ. Code ch. 304 (§§ 304.001–304.010) ↗Chapter 304 is the compact itself; the Board’s implementing rules sit in the Texas Administrative Code.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Tex. Occ. Code ch. 301 (Nursing Practice Act) ↗.
Things to keep in mind
- Compact privilege only applies if your license is multistate, not single-state. Check this in Nursys.
- You must meet Texas'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.