What compact privilege is
A multistate license from your primary state of residence carries compact privilege — the authority to practice in other compact states without licensing separately in each. It only exists between states that are live in the Nurse Licensure Compact.
Practicing in Georgia on privilege
Because Georgia participates, an active multistate license lets you work in Georgia — common for travel nurses and telehealth. Privilege follows the patient’s location and your home-state license staying active and multistate.
The law that governs this in Georgia
Working in Georgia on another state’s license is practice in Georgia, so it is Georgia’s own nurse practice act that defines what you may do and the Georgia Board of Nursing that applies it. That act is O.C.G.A. tit. 43, ch. 26 (Nurse Practice Act).
The compact itself is separate law. Georgia adopted it at O.C.G.A. tit. 43, ch. 26, art. 4 (multistate licensure / Nurse Licensure Compact), which is what allows a multistate license issued elsewhere to reach Georgia at all — the practice act still decides what you may do once it does.
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.
Confirm before you rely on it
License status changes and the compact evolves. Confirm your own license type on Nursys and check Georgia’s current rules with the Georgia Board of Nursing. CompactStates.com is an independent guide, not a licensing authority.
Since when has a compact license worked in Georgia?
Nurses holding another state’s multistate license have been able to practice in Georgia since January 19, 2018. It has been a member long enough that most guidance you find will be accurate on this point.
Where a Georgia multistate license reaches
If your Georgia license is multistate — not every Georgia license is — it carries privilege into these 39 jurisdictions, because each one currently issues and honours multistate licenses. It reaches nowhere else, and a non-compact state needs its own license by endorsement.
Two conditions sit underneath this list and neither is visible on it. Your primary state of residence must actually be Georgia — privilege follows residence, not where the license was issued. And the license itself must be multistate rather than single-state, which is a fact about your record that only verification can settle.
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