Is U.S. Virgin Islands a nursing compact state?

What U.S. Virgin Islands’s compact status means

U.S. Virgin Islands has passed the law to join the compact, but the machinery to issue multistate licenses and recognize privilege is not yet running.

Until U.S. Virgin Islands announces an implementation date and starts issuing multistate licenses, plan as if it were a non-compact state.

What U.S. Virgin Islands residents should know

If U.S. Virgin Islands is your home, you hold a single-state U.S. Virgin Islands license for now. U.S. Virgin Islands has passed the compact but isn’t issuing multistate licenses until it’s switched on.

What nurses coming to U.S. Virgin Islands should know

Treat U.S. Virgin Islands as non-compact for now. Until the compact is active here, you’ll need a U.S. Virgin Islands license — usually by endorsement — even if you hold a compact license elsewhere.

When U.S. Virgin Islands joined the Nurse Licensure Compact

U.S. Virgin Islands signed the Nurse Licensure Compact into law on December 6, 2021 — signed by Gov. Albert Bryan Jr., making the U.S. Virgin Islands the second U.S. territory to enact the NLC.

U.S. Virgin Islands has enacted the compact but has not finished implementing it. Until implementation completes, U.S. Virgin Islands residents cannot obtain a U.S. Virgin Islands multistate license, and a multistate license issued elsewhere does not authorise practice in U.S. Virgin Islands. Treat U.S. Virgin Islands as non-compact for day-to-day practice until the board announces a date.

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.

Sourced from ncsbn.org. See the full NLC adoption timeline for every jurisdiction’s dates and methodology, or the Nursing Compact States Report 2026 for how far the compact reaches overall.

The law behind U.S. Virgin Islands’s status

Compact status is not an opinion or a listing — it is a statute. These are the primary sources that actually govern licensure in U.S. Virgin Islands, so you can check our answer against the law rather than taking our word for it.

Compact statute

In force — citation not yet confirmed.

U.S. Virgin Islands has adopted the compact, but neither its board nor its code publishes a clean compact-specific citation we have been able to confirm. We would rather say so than print a section number that looks authoritative and is wrong. The Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure is the authority in the meantime, and if you have the citation we will add it.

Nurse practice act

Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure — licensing authority and requirements ↗

U.S. Virgin Islands’s own license lookup

VIBNL License Verification Portal (and Nursys Quick Confirm) ↗

The most useful board page in this entire survey, for a reason that has nothing to do with the Virgin Islands. VIBNL is the only board we found that publishes what to do when a lookup returns NOTHING: it names the escalation path — email the board at vinurseinfo@bnl.vi.gov, or file a missing-record request with the Nursys helpdesk. Everywhere else the empty result is a dead end you are left to interpret, which is exactly how it gets misread as “no licence”. Treat this as the template for what to ask any board for. Practically: RN and LPN verify on both the VIBNL portal and Nursys; APRN and CNA verify on the VIBNL portal, so an empty Nursys result for those two is the wrong system, not a missing credential.

Board of nursing

Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure ↗

Statutory citations reviewed 2026-07-31. Citations change far more slowly than fees or processing times — which is why we publish these and not those. Enactment is not the same as implementation: check the dates above before relying on the compact here.

RN, LPN/LVN, and APRN coverage in U.S. Virgin Islands

The Nurse Licensure Compact covers RN and LPN/LVN licenses. It does not, on its own, cover APRN roles — nurse practitioners, CRNAs, CNSs, and CNMs generally need separate APRN authorization in each state, including U.S. Virgin Islands. See the APRN and the compact guide, and confirm specifics with the Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure.

Coverage is the same for both credentials, so the state lists are the same: every RN compact state and every LPN/LVN compact state both exclude U.S. Virgin Islands, which is why neither credential carries privilege here.

By credential: U.S. Virgin Islands RN & the compact, U.S. Virgin Islands LPN, and U.S. Virgin Islands APRN.

Primary state of residence, moving, and endorsement

Your primary state of residence (PSOR) drives multistate eligibility — you can hold it in only one state at a time. Because U.S. Virgin Islands is not a compact state, making it your PSOR means holding a single-state U.S. Virgin Islands license; a compact license from your former state does not transfer to U.S. Virgin Islands. Coming from another state, you generally apply to the Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure by endorsement. If you are relocating, the 60-day rule governs the timing.

Verifying a U.S. Virgin Islands nursing license

Look any U.S. Virgin Islands license up on Nursys QuickConfirm — it shows whether the license is single-state or multistate, its status, and its expiration. For anything Nursys does not show, use the Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure. See the full U.S. Virgin Islands verification guide. CompactStates is an independent reference, not a verification service, and holds no license records.

Travel assignments and telehealth in U.S. Virgin Islands

Because U.S. Virgin Islands does not currently grant compact privilege, a U.S. Virgin Islands travel assignment — or telehealth to patients located in U.S. Virgin Islands — generally needs a U.S. Virgin Islands license by endorsement. Telehealth licensure generally follows the patient’s location. See the U.S. Virgin Islands travel and telehealth guides.

Renewal and continuing education

Renewal cycles, fees, and continuing-education requirements are set by the Virgin Islands Board of Nurse Licensure and change over time, so we link you to the official source rather than list figures that could go stale. Nursys shows your expiration date and license type. See the U.S. Virgin Islands renewal guide.