Nursing Compact States Report 2026
How far does the nursing compact reach in 2026?
As of 2026-06-17, 43 of 56 U.S. jurisdictions (77%) have adopted the Nurse Licensure Compact, but only 40 (71%) have fully implemented it — the number that actually matters, because implementation is what lets residents hold a multistate license and lets visiting compact nurses practise. 3 jurisdictions sit in between: adopted, not yet fully live. And 24 land borders separate a fully implemented compact state from a jurisdiction that has not adopted the compact at all — the points where a multistate license stops working, sometimes mid-metro.
The headline numbers
43
jurisdictions have adopted the NLC
40
have fully implemented it
3
adopted but not yet fully live
24
compact / non-compact land borders
Every figure on this page is derived from our published jurisdiction dataset — no estimates, no modelling, no composite scores. You can recompute all of it from the CSV.
Finding 1: “adopted” and “working” are different numbers
The figure usually quoted is 43 — jurisdictions that have adopted the compact. But 3 of those are not fully operational, so the number a nurse can actually rely on today is 40. The gap is not pedantry: in a jurisdiction that has enacted the compact without implementing it, a multistate license from elsewhere does not authorise practice, and residents cannot obtain one.
This is the single most common error in compact coverage elsewhere — presenting adoption as a binary and rounding the in-between cases to “yes.”
| Jurisdiction | Status | What it means today |
|---|---|---|
| Guam | Partial implementation | Visiting compact nurses may practise; residents cannot yet obtain a multistate license. |
| Massachusetts | Enacted — awaiting implementation | Law passed, not yet live: no multistate licenses issued, privilege does not apply. |
| U.S. Virgin Islands | Enacted — awaiting implementation | Law passed, not yet live: no multistate licenses issued, privilege does not apply. |
Finding 2: the compact ends at 24 state lines
Headline counts describe the map. Borders describe the commute. We compared every land-adjacent jurisdiction pair and found 24 borders where a fully implemented compact state meets a jurisdiction that has not adopted the compact. Cross one of those lines — physically, or via telehealth to a patient on the other side — and a multistate license stops authorising you.
Non-compact jurisdictions by number of compact neighbours
The more compact states a non-compact jurisdiction borders, the more nurses hit the wall. These are the friction points:
Compact neighbours per non-compact jurisdiction. Land borders only; Alaska and Hawaii have none.
The islands: non-compact states ringed entirely by the compact
4 non-compact jurisdictions sit surrounded on every land border by fully implemented compact states. On a map they look absorbed into the compact — but a multistate license does not reach them, and their own residents cannot obtain one. It is the sharpest version of the border problem: for a nurse living here, every direction crosses a seam.
Every compact / non-compact border
Finding 3: implementation is still moving
The compact is not a finished map. These are the jurisdictions with a verified implementation date on record — a reminder that any list without a review date is a liability:
Connecticut — implemented 2025-10-01
Pennsylvania — implemented 2025-07-07
Recent implementations matter for a practical reason: nurses in those states often still hold an older single-state license and assume it converted automatically. It does not. See how to check your license type.
Finding 4: the compact is a regional story
Adoption is not evenly spread. Grouped by U.S. Census region, the South is the most saturated — 16 of 17 jurisdictions (94%) fully implemented — while the West is the most fragmented, at 8 of 13 (62%). A nurse’s practical mobility depends as much on where they are as on the national count.
Share of each region’s jurisdictions that have fully implemented the compact. Browse the underlying states by region.
Methodology
Source. Compact status for all 56 jurisdictions comes from the NLC’s published member-state status and each jurisdiction’s own board of nursing, which controls where the two disagree. Last reviewed 2026-06-17.
How each figure is derived. “Adopted” counts jurisdictions with any NLC status (implemented, partial, or enacted-awaiting). “Fully implemented” counts those issuing multistate licenses to residents and recognising privilege. “Border mismatches” compares every land-adjacent pair and counts each unordered pair once where one side is fully implemented and the other has not adopted the compact at all; pending neighbours are excluded and reported separately as transitional. Land borders only.
Limitations. This is a licensure-status analysis, not a workforce study — it does not weight by population or nurse employment, because we do not hold an official dataset for that. Territory records carry lower source confidence and say so on their pages. Status changes as states implement, so cite the review date.
What we deliberately do not publish. No composite “best state” score, no ranking, no estimated wages, and no fees, CE hours, or processing times. Those are either board-set and volatile, or would present opinion as data.
Reuse and citation. The dataset is free to use with attribution. Suggested citation: “CompactStates.com, Nursing Compact States Report 2026, reviewed 2026-06-17, https://www.compactstates.com/reports/nursing-compact-states-2026”. Download the underlying data as CSV or JSON (both carry provenance headers and the derived border analysis). We are an independent reference operated by an Illinois limited liability company — not the NCSBN, not the NLC, and not a board of nursing.