Living in Maine, working in Iowa
Can a Maine nurse work in Iowa?
If your primary state of residence is Maine and you hold an active multistate license from Maine, you may generally practice in Iowa under compact privilege — without applying for a separate Iowa license.
Maine vs Iowa at a glance
| Maine (home) | Iowa (work) | |
|---|---|---|
| Compact status | Compact | Compact |
| Multistate license for residents | Yes | Yes |
| Compact nurses can practice here | Yes | Yes |
| Board of nursing | Maine board ↗ | Iowa 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 Maine license is multistate in Nursys, then review any Iowa-specific requirements with the Iowa 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 Iowa’s current requirements with the Iowa 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: Maine is what you will be asked to produce, Iowa is what an employer there will run.
Your home state
Maine
Maine Board of Nursing license verification ↗Checking a Maine license is free. But Maine stopped processing verification forms to other jurisdictions in October 2002 — the board will not do it at all, and the only route is registering with Nursys and paying its fee. Any guidance telling a nurse to send a form to the Maine board is more than two decades out of date, and there is no fallback if Nursys does not cover the receiving jurisdiction.
Where you want to work
Iowa
Iowa nursing license verification ↗Iowa publishes free public rosters alongside individual lookup, and neither requires an account. If you are credentialing at volume rather than checking one nurse, that bulk route exists here where most states force you through one-at-a-time searches or ongoing Nursys e-Notify enrollment.
How long each has been part of this
Both Maine and Iowa 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
Maine
Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 32, ch. 31, subch. 2-A (Nurse Licensure Compact), §§ 2171–2181 ↗Maine inserts the compact as its own subchapter — 2-A — wedged between the board subchapter and the registered-nurse one, which is why it does not appear in a straight run of section numbers. Worth noting for anyone reading the chapter through: Maine also legislates telehealth nursing in the same chapter at subchapter 7, so the two questions a cross-border nurse usually has to ask separately are answered in one place here.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Maine nursing licensure law (Board of Nursing) ↗.
Where you want to work
Iowa
Iowa Code ch. 152E (Nurse Licensure Compacts) ↗Iowa titles the chapter in the PLURAL — "Nurse Licensure Compacts" — because it carries the APRN compact alongside the RN/LPN one in the same place. That is unusual and easy to misread: finding APRN compact language in Iowa law does not mean APRN privilege is available, only that Iowa has legislated for it. Keep the two compacts separate when reading this chapter.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Iowa Code ch. 152 (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 Iowa'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.