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Why All States Should Join the Nursing Compact
For travel nurses, flexibility isn’t just a perk, it’s the foundation of your career. Every new assignment, every hospital system, and every city brings new opportunities to grow professionally and personally. But one of the biggest hurdles travel nurses face has nothing to do with patient care: it’s licensing.
Currently, 40+ states and territories participate in the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC), allowing registered nurses and LPN/LVNs to practice across member states with a single multistate license. If you’re licensed in an NLC state, you can seamlessly take assignments in other compact states without the delays, paperwork, and fees of additional single-state licenses.
That’s a huge win for travel nurses, but there’s still a problem. Not all states are compact members yet.
Why the Compact Matters for Travel Nurses
- Faster Starts: Assignments often come up with just weeks’ notice. Waiting for license approval in a non-compact state can delay your start or prevent you from accepting the job altogether.
- Lower Costs: Each state license comes with application fees, renewal costs, background checks, and verifications. Those expenses add up quickly.
- More Opportunities: With a compact license, you can expand your job options instantly across dozens of states.
- Improved Patient Care: Hospitals benefit from being able to onboard qualified nurses faster during staffing shortages. That means patients receive timely care when they need it most.
The Nursing Shortage and the Need for Mobility
The U.S. continues to face a critical nursing shortage, with demand for nurses projected to grow significantly in the next decade. Staffing gaps are especially severe in rural areas and during times of crisis, such as public health emergencies or natural disasters.
Compact states are already leaning into the future by recognizing that healthcare doesn’t stop at state borders. By adopting the NLC, these states give nurses the ability to move quickly where they’re needed most, supporting hospitals, clinics, and patients without unnecessary red tape. For travel nurses, this mobility isn’t just convenient, it’s essential to meeting nationwide demand.
Telehealth and the Expanding Role of Nursing
The rise of virtual healthcare and telehealth has changed the way patients receive care and where nurses can provide it. But the current patchwork of state licensing creates unnecessary complications for nurses who provide care across state lines in a virtual setting.
A nationwide compact system would streamline telehealth nursing by removing artificial state barriers. Nurses could support patients anywhere in the country, giving healthcare systems more flexibility and ensuring patients in underserved regions get the care they need.
The Holdout States
Despite the clear advantages of the NLC, several large and influential states remain outside the compact including California, New York, Oregon, and Washington. For travel nurses, this means:
- Longer delays when applying for licenses in these states.
- Higher upfront costs for paperwork and renewals.
- Missed opportunities to fill urgent staffing needs in some of the country’s busiest healthcare markets.
These holdouts create unnecessary friction in a healthcare system that already struggles with staffing shortages. Expanding the compact to include all 50 states would not only benefit nurses, but also patients and hospitals nationwide.
Advocating for Change
The value of a nationwide compact is clear. One of Vivian’s employees, a travel nurse on our team, co-authored a white paper for the National Association of Travel Healthcare Organizations (NATHO) advocating for universal compact participation. You can read that white paper here for a deeper dive into why this change is so urgently needed. Click here to access the NATHO white paper.
What You Can Do
While legislative change takes time, there are steps you can take as a travel nurse:
- Know your compact status: Check if your home state and target assignment states are part of the NLC.
- Share your voice: Support nursing associations and organizations advocating for nationwide compact adoption. If you live in a non-compact state, you can take action and contact your legislators via this link on the NLC website!
- Stay informed: Follow updates from NCSBN and NATHO to know when new states join the compact.
Bottom line: A nationwide compact is the future of nursing. It removes red tape, empowers the nursing industry, strengthens telehealth, and helps hospitals meet patient needs faster during an unprecedented nursing shortage. Until then, make sure you’re maximizing the freedom your compact license provides and keep advocating for the day when all states are finally part of the NLC.
Want more information on compact states? Check out our breakdown here to learn more.
