State of the Nurse Licensure Compact 2026
How many nursing compact states are there in 2026?
As of 2026-06-17, 43 U.S. jurisdictions have enacted the Nurse Licensure Compact — of which 40 are fully operational and issuing multistate licenses. 13 jurisdictions remain non-compact. These counts are tallied live from our per-jurisdiction data set of 56 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.
Fully operational compact states
These jurisdictions have enacted and implemented the NLC — residents can hold a multistate license, and nurses can practice there on compact privilege.
Enacted but not yet implemented
Legislation has passed but multistate licenses aren’t being issued yet — plan around these as non-compact until an implementation date is announced.
- Massachusetts — Massachusetts has enacted Nurse Licensure Compact legislation but has not yet implemented it. Multistate licenses are not available to Massachusetts residents, and compact privilege does not apply in Massachusetts, until implementation is complete. Treat Massachusetts as non-compact for day-to-day practice until the board announces a start date.
- U.S. Virgin Islands — The U.S. Virgin Islands has enacted Nurse Licensure Compact legislation but is awaiting implementation. Multistate licenses are not yet issued and compact privilege does not yet apply. Verify current status before relying on the compact here.
Partial implementation
- Guam — Guam has partial implementation of the Nurse Licensure Compact. Nurses who hold an active multistate license from another compact state may practice in Guam under privilege, but nurses whose primary state of residence is Guam generally cannot obtain a Guam-issued multistate license until full implementation is complete.
Non-compact holdouts
These states and the District of Columbia have not enacted the compact. See non-compact nursing states for what that means in practice.
How we compile this
Every jurisdiction in our data set stores source URLs, a last-reviewed date, and a confidence level; the counts above are computed from those records rather than typed by hand, so this report and the rest of the site never disagree. We review status against official and public sources and log changes in the data updates log. This is an independent reference, not legal advice — always confirm an individual jurisdiction with its board of nursing.
Cite or reuse this data
This data set is published under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Journalists, nursing schools, and other sites are welcome to cite these figures with a link back to this report. Explore the underlying data on the compact states map and the all-states directory, or check a specific move with the compact state checker.