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 Virginia on privilege
Because Virginia participates, an active multistate license lets you work in Virginia — 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 Virginia
Working in Virginia on another state’s license is practice in Virginia, so it is Virginia’s own nurse practice act that defines what you may do and the Virginia Board of Nursing that applies it. That act is Va. Code tit. 54.1, ch. 30 (Nursing).
The compact itself is separate law. Virginia adopted it at Va. Code tit. 54.1, ch. 30, art. 6.1 (§ 54.1-3040.2 et seq.), which is what allows a multistate license issued elsewhere to reach Virginia at all — the practice act still decides what you may do once it does.
Virginia codifies the compact as its own article within the nursing chapter, so the compact text sits alongside the nurse practice act rather than in a separate title.
Confirm before you rely on it
License status changes and the compact evolves. Confirm your own license type on Nursys and check Virginia’s current rules with the Virginia Board of Nursing. CompactStates.com is an independent guide, not a licensing authority.
Since when has a compact license worked in Virginia?
Nurses holding another state’s multistate license have been able to practice in Virginia since January 19, 2018. It has been a member long enough that most guidance you find will be accurate on this point.
Where a Virginia multistate license reaches
If your Virginia license is multistate — not every Virginia 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 Virginia — 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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