Skip to content
CompactStates

NLC adoption timeline: when every state joined the nursing compact

Original research dating the Nurse Licensure Compact in every jurisdiction that has adopted it — when the law was signed, when visiting nurses could first practise there, and when residents could first hold a multistate license. Those are three different dates, and most published lists only give one.

When did each state join the nursing compact?

The original Nurse Licensure Compact was implemented in 2000. The current enhanced NLC reached its 26-state threshold on July 20, 2017 and went live on January 19, 2018 across 29 jurisdictions simultaneously. Since then 11 more have come online one at a time, bringing the total in force to 40. A further 3 have signed the compact into law but have not finished implementing it, which is why 43 jurisdictions have adopted the compact but only 40 can actually be used today.

Last reviewed 2026-07-31

What this research found

We could not find a public dataset that dates NLC adoption per jurisdiction. The official NLC map publishes current status but no per-state dates, so we assembled these dates from primary and quasi-primary sources — NCSBN enactment and implementation announcements, state board of nursing notices, state administrative code, and legislature records. Every record below carries the URLs it came from.

Three things stand out, and all three are missing from the usual compact-states list:

  • Signing the law does not open the door. Pennsylvania waited 4 years between the governor’s signature and the day the compact became usable — the longest verified gap on record.
  • Implementation is often two dates, not one. 2 jurisdictions opened to visiting compact nurses before they began issuing multistate licenses to their own residents. New Jersey left 1 year, 8 months between the two. During that window, a nurse living there could not get a compact license while a nurse visiting from elsewhere could work there freely.
  • Growth is slow and lumpy. Outside the 2018 launch, the compact has never added more than three jurisdictions in a year, and in 2021 it added none.

How fast the compact is actually spreading

The compact has grown every year since the enhanced NLC launched — but never by more than three jurisdictions in a year, and in 2021 it did not grow at all. The large single-year jump is the launch itself, not organic growth.

01020304020182019202020212022202320242025
Jurisdictions where the compact is in force, by year. Counted from the date compact privilege began — the date a visiting nurse could first practise there. A year with no dot added no jurisdictions.

Implementation is not one date — it is two

This is the finding most published compact lists miss. A jurisdiction usually opens to visiting nurses before it starts issuing multistate licenses to its own residents. In between, a nurse living there still cannot get a compact license — even though their state is on every “compact states” list.

Jurisdictions where compact privilege began before resident multistate licenses
JurisdictionVisiting nurses could practiseResidents could applyGap
New JerseyMar 1, 2020Nov 15, 20211 year, 8 months
WashingtonJul 24, 2023Jan 31, 20246 months

Signed into law, not yet in force

These 3 jurisdictions have enacted the compact. None of them is usable yet. A nurse who reads only an adoption count will get this wrong.

  • GuamEnacted Mar 5, 2021

    Signed by Gov. Lourdes “Lou” Leon Guerrero, making Guam the first U.S. territory to enact the NLC.

    Guam is listed as partially implemented: nurses holding another state’s multistate license may practice in Guam, but Guam residents cannot obtain a Guam-issued multistate license until full implementation. NCSBN has not published a start date for the privilege phase or a target for full implementation, so both date fields stay null rather than guessing.

  • U.S. Virgin IslandsEnacted Dec 6, 2021

    Signed by Gov. Albert Bryan Jr., making the U.S. Virgin Islands the second U.S. territory to enact the NLC.

    At enactment NCSBN said full implementation could take six months to a year and that the date would be posted by the Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure. No implementation date has been published, and the compact is not yet in effect here.

  • MassachusettsEnacted Nov 20, 2024

    Signed by Gov. Maura Healey.

    The Board of Registration in Nursing has said implementation is expected to take roughly twelve months, not counting the time required for FBI approval of federal background checks. Until it completes, Massachusetts residents cannot obtain a multistate license AND nurses holding another state’s multistate license are not authorised to practise in Massachusetts. Treat Massachusetts as non-compact for day-to-day practice until the board announces a date.

The full timeline

Every jurisdiction where the compact is in force, newest first, dated from the day compact privilege began there.

20252 jurisdictions

  • PennsylvaniaJul 7, 202537th to enact

    Signed by Gov. Tom Wolf as Act 68 of 2021 (Senate Bill 115); sponsored by Sen. Lisa Boscola. Pennsylvania was the 37th jurisdiction to enact the NLC.

  • ConnecticutOct 1, 202542nd to enact

    Signed by Gov. Ned Lamont as Public Act 24-83 (House Bill 5058). Connecticut was the 42nd jurisdiction to enact the NLC.

20241 jurisdiction

  • Rhode IslandJan 1, 202441st to enact

    Signed by Gov. Daniel J. McKee; sponsored by Sen. Joshua Miller. Rhode Island was the 41st jurisdiction to enact the NLC.

20232 jurisdictions

  • OhioJan 1, 2023

    Signed by Gov. Mike DeWine; sponsored by Sen. Kristina Roegner.

  • WashingtonJul 24, 202340th to enact

    Residents could not apply for a Washington multistate license until Jan 31, 2024.

    Signed by Gov. Jay Inslee (Substitute Senate Bill 5499); sponsored by Sen. Mark Mullet. Washington was the 40th jurisdiction to enact the NLC.

20221 jurisdiction

  • VermontFeb 1, 2022

    Signed by Gov. Phil Scott (2021 Act 64).

20203 jurisdictions

  • AlabamaJan 1, 2020

    Alabama Board of Nursing rule 610-X-1-.13 was adopted August 30, 2019 and set a January 1, 2020 effective date for the compact (authority: Code of Ala. 1975, § 34-21-2(e)).

  • New JerseyMar 1, 2020

    Residents could not apply for a New Jersey multistate license until Nov 15, 2021.

  • IndianaJul 1, 2020

20192 jurisdictions

  • KansasJul 1, 2019

    NLC legislation passed in 2018, with implementation set for 2019.

  • LouisianaJul 1, 2019

    NLC legislation passed in 2018, with implementation set for 2019.

201829 jurisdictions

The enhanced NLC went live on Jan 19, 2018 across all 29 of its member jurisdictions at once. Many had participated in the original compact since 2000; this is the date the current compact took effect, not necessarily the first date each ever issued a multistate license.

Full dataset

All 43 jurisdictions that have adopted the compact. A dash means we have not verified that date against a source we are willing to publish — not that the event did not happen.

NLC enactment and implementation dates by jurisdiction, with sources
JurisdictionEnactedPrivilege beganResident licensesConfidenceSources
Alabama—Jan 1, 2020Jan 1, 2020high[1]
Arizona—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Arkansas—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Colorado—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
ConnecticutMay 30, 2024Oct 1, 2025Oct 1, 2025high[1][2][3]
Delaware—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Florida—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Georgia—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
GuamMar 5, 2021——medium[1]
Idaho—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Indiana—Jul 1, 2020Jul 1, 2020high[1][2]
Iowa—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Kansas—Jul 1, 2019Jul 1, 2019high[1][2]
Kentucky—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Louisiana—Jul 1, 2019Jul 1, 2019high[1][2]
Maine—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Maryland—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
MassachusettsNov 20, 2024——high[1]
Mississippi—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Missouri—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Montana—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Nebraska—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
New Hampshire—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
New Jersey—Mar 1, 2020Nov 15, 2021medium[1]
New Mexico—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
North Carolina—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
North Dakota—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
OhioJul 1, 2021Jan 1, 2023Jan 1, 2023high[1][2]
Oklahoma—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
PennsylvaniaJul 1, 2021Jul 7, 2025Jul 7, 2025high[1][2][3]
Rhode IslandJun 24, 2023Jan 1, 2024Jan 1, 2024high[1][2]
South Carolina—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
South Dakota—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Tennessee—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Texas—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
U.S. Virgin IslandsDec 6, 2021——medium[1]
Utah—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
VermontJun 7, 2021Feb 1, 2022Feb 1, 2022high[1][2][3]
Virginia—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
WashingtonApr 21, 2023Jul 24, 2023Jan 31, 2024high[1][2][3]
West Virginia—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Wisconsin—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Wyoming—Jan 19, 2018Jan 19, 2018high[1][2]
Download CSVDownload JSONAll datasets

Methodology

What each date means. Enacted is the day the compact was signed into law. Privilege began is the day a nurse holding another state’s multistate license could first practise in that jurisdiction. Resident licenses is the day the board began issuing multistate licenses to its own residents. Where a jurisdiction went live in a single step, the last two dates are identical.

The 2018 cohort. NCSBN confirms the enhanced NLC went live on 2018-01-19 with 29 jurisdictions but does not publish the roster. We derive it two independent ways and require them to agree: the roster reported in contemporaneous legal trade coverage, and today’s 40 fully implemented jurisdictions minus the 11 whose post-2018 dates we source individually. Both produce the identical 29 names, and a test in the codebase fails the build if they ever stop reconciling.

What we do not claim. Many 2018-cohort jurisdictions participated in the original compact from 2000 onward. We do not yet publish per-state original-NLC join dates, so the 2018 date is when the current compact took effect there — not necessarily the first time that state ever issued a multistate license. We have also not verified enactment dates for most of the 2018 cohort, and those cells are left blank rather than estimated.

Confidence. High means an official board, state code, or NCSBN announcement states the date directly. Medium means the date comes from a single source, or the source gives a month without a day (New Jersey’s partial implementation is reported as “March 2020”; we record the 1st and flag it). We publish 43 of 43 records with at least one verified date.

Corrections. If you have a primary source for a date we have left blank or recorded wrongly, send it to us — a link to a board announcement or state code is enough, and we will credit the correction in the change log.

Citation

CompactStates.com, NLC Adoption Timeline, reviewed 2026-07-31, https://www.compactstates.com/nlc-adoption-timeline

Common questions about NLC adoption dates

The original Nurse Licensure Compact was implemented in 2000. It was replaced by the enhanced NLC (eNLC), which reached its 26-state enactment threshold on July 20, 2017 and went live on January 19, 2018 across 29 jurisdictions. Every jurisdiction that has joined since has its own implementation date, listed on this page.

Related pages