Living in Pennsylvania, working in Georgia
Can a Pennsylvania nurse work in Georgia?
If your primary state of residence is Pennsylvania and you hold an active multistate license from Pennsylvania, you may generally practice in Georgia under compact privilege — without applying for a separate Georgia license.
Pennsylvania vs Georgia at a glance
| Pennsylvania (home) | Georgia (work) | |
|---|---|---|
| Compact status | Compact | Compact |
| Multistate license for residents | Yes | Yes |
| Compact nurses can practice here | Yes | Yes |
| Board of nursing | Pennsylvania board ↗ | Georgia 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 Pennsylvania license is multistate in Nursys, then review any Georgia-specific requirements with the Georgia 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 Georgia’s current requirements with the Georgia 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: Pennsylvania is what you will be asked to produce, Georgia is what an employer there will run.
Your home state
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Licensing System (PALS) verification ↗PALS answers the employer’s question — current status and expiry — from the public search, no account needed. The part that catches people is who has to act for the OTHER kind of verification: a Verification of License with History going to another state’s board must be requested by the licensee, logged into their own PALS dashboard. An employer or a receiving board cannot start it, and Pennsylvania asks that paper requests not be sent to the board office at all. If you are the nurse, this is on you and nobody will do it for you. Endorsement verification routed through Nursys is charged per license type and per destination board, so two licenses into two states is four charges, not one.
Where you want to work
Georgia
Georgia Secretary of State license lookup ↗Georgia licenses nurses through the Secretary of State’s Licensing Division rather than a standalone board agency.
How long each has been part of this
Georgia has recognized compact privilege since January 19, 2018; Pennsylvania since July 7, 2025 — a gap of about 7 years. 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
Pennsylvania
Act 68 of 2021 (Senate Bill 115) ↗Signed 1 July 2021 and effective immediately, but the compact did not become usable in Pennsylvania until implementation completed on 7 July 2025 — four years later.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from Professional Nursing Law, 63 P.S. § 211 et seq. ↗.
Where you want to work
Georgia
O.C.G.A. tit. 43, ch. 26, art. 4 (multistate licensure / Nurse Licensure Compact) ↗Located at ARTICLE level from Georgia’s own signed legislation: SB 168 (2019) refers throughout to nurses "holding a multistate license pursuant to Article 4 of Chapter 26 of Title 43". The section range inside that article is deliberately NOT claimed — the Secretary of State’s Nurse Practice Act PDF and its compact page both refuse automated access, and the General Assembly’s site did not resolve, so a section-level citation here would be inference rather than research. Note also that SB 168’s own caption states it repeals "a provision relating to the Nurse Licensure Compact"; which provision is not confirmed, so treat an older Georgia compact citation as suspect rather than authoritative — the same trap Arizona, Colorado and Utah set.
Scope is set separately. What you may actually do here comes from O.C.G.A. tit. 43, ch. 26 (Nurse 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 Georgia'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.