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 Washington on privilege
Because Washington participates, an active multistate license lets you work in Washington — 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 Washington
Working in Washington on another state’s license is practice in Washington, so it is Washington’s own nurse practice act that defines what you may do and the Washington State Board of Nursing (WABON) that applies it. That act is RCW ch. 18.79 (Nursing Care).
The compact itself is separate law. Washington adopted it at Substitute Senate Bill 5499 (2023), which is what allows a multistate license issued elsewhere to reach Washington at all — the practice act still decides what you may do once it does.
Signed 21 April 2023, making Washington the 40th jurisdiction to enact. The same legislation renamed the regulator from the Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission to the Washington State Board of Nursing.
Confirm before you rely on it
License status changes and the compact evolves. Confirm your own license type on Nursys and check Washington’s current rules with the Washington State Board of Nursing (WABON). CompactStates.com is an independent guide, not a licensing authority.
Since when has a compact license worked in Washington?
Nurses holding another state’s multistate license have been able to practice in Washington since July 24, 2023. That is recent enough that employer handbooks, agency briefings, and articles written before then still describe Washington as non-compact — so if you are told you need a Washington license, check the date on the guidance.
Note the asymmetry: Washington opened to visiting nurses on that date but did not begin issuing multistate licenses to its own residents until January 31, 2024. If you are working in Washington on a license from another state while living elsewhere, the earlier date is the one that applies to you. If you move to Washington, the later one does.
Where a Washington multistate license reaches
If your Washington license is multistate — not every Washington 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 Washington — 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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