Compact State Nursing Licenses (RN)

00:01 Now that we've established the basics of your nursing license, let's dive into a more complicated form of nursing license.

00:07 Because why not? A compact state nursing license.

00:11 When you have your traditional nursing license, you can only work within that state that you are licensed in.

00:18 With a traditional license, if you want to practice in more than one state, you need to have a nursing license in more than one state.

00:27 And that is how it was for quite a while.

00:29 And then compact state nursing licenses were born.

00:32 And it was great. Originally titled Nursing Licensure Compact State or NLC, the Compact State Nursing License allows registered nurses to work across state lines that are also part of the compact licensure structure.

00:48 In other words, nurses can practice in any NLC state without having to obtain an additional nursing license specific to that state.

00:58 The number of states in the Compact Licensure Program slowly expanded to its current 34, and it switched the name to the Enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact or eNLC in July of 2018.

01:12 Just to make things more complicated.

01:14 Here's a map of the current states that are part of the eNLC as of 2022. And again, this is likely going to change as soon as we publish this video. So if you live in a state that is in a compact, do you automatically have a compact license? No, friend.

01:31 That would make way too much sense.

01:33 And that would be far too simple.

01:35 To upgrade from a state nursing license to a multistate nursing license, you must apply for it. And once you do that, if you are licensed in a state that is part of the eNLC, then you can send them money, and then you will check the status of your whole license and process in the Nursys system.

01:52 This is a great way to keep track of what states you are currently allowed to work in inside the Compact State program and know where you can go to.

02:01 So who is this ideal for? People who live near, like, state lines that may want to work in a neighboring state that is also part of the compact, or a huge market for this is travel nurses . Eliminating the hassle of trying to get a license for every single state you want to be a travel nurse in is a huge benefit to being part of a compact licensure program.

02:22 So what happens if you don't have a compact license or don't work in a state that does this and now you need to get another nursing license or transfer yours to a new state? That is up next.