Moving states? Check if your license moves with you.
License reciprocity is one state recognizing a professional license issued by another. Blanket recognition is rare: only 13.4% of the 38,250 state-to-state moves tracked here go to a state that honors any state's license or through a shared multistate-license compact.
15 professions, 51 jurisdictions, 765 verified transfer answers — compact, reciprocity, endorsement, or start over. Every answer cites the official board and shows the date it was last verified.
Does your license transfer?
Pick your profession and both states — get the pathway, requirements, fees, and official board links.
Your personalized pathway appears here. Possible verdicts:
- Compact — license or practice privilege
- Reciprocity agreement
- Endorsement (conditions)
- Full re-application
- No state license to transfer
The portability atlas
How hard it is to bring a license into each state, by profession — ranked from most to least portable. The pattern most people expect (some states are easy, some are hard) is not what the data shows: portability depends far more on your profession than on your destination.
CPA / Accounting
49 straightforward · 2 conditional
49 states recognize a license from any other state.
Nursing
40 straightforward · 11 conditional
40 states are active NLC members.
Real Estate
7 straightforward · 38 conditional · 6 start over
21 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Teaching
6 straightforward · 45 conditional
45 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Pharmacy
4 straightforward · 46 conditional · 1 start over
46 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Electrician
3 straightforward · 43 conditional · 5 start over
24 states honor a named list of partner states.
Cosmetology / Barber
2 straightforward · 48 conditional · 1 start over
35 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Engineering
51 conditional
51 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Occupational Therapy
51 conditional
51 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Physical Therapy
51 conditional
51 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Psychology
51 conditional
49 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Social Work
50 conditional · 1 start over
33 states have enacted the SW Compact but are not issuing yet.
Counseling
49 conditional · 2 start over
46 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Plumber
45 conditional · 6 start over
22 states transfer by endorsement — no automatic reciprocity.
Contractor
44 conditional · 7 start over
29 states issue no statewide license to transfer.
Each tile is one state, positioned roughly geographically. Colours describe the route in for an out-of-state licensee — a specific move can differ when a state's agreement names only some origin states. See who is in each compact on the compact membership map.
The four routes, in eight outcomes
Every transfer resolves to one of these, and the checker picks between them in this order. This is also the legend for the atlas above.
1. Active licensure compact
40 · 5%
Practice across member states on your home-state license: a multistate license (Nurse Licensure Compact) or a per-state compact privilege (e.g. PT Compact), with no full new application. Moving your residence still means licensing in the new home state.
2. Full reciprocity or streamlined recognition
71 · 9%
The destination board recognizes a license from any other state. You apply, you verify, you do not repeat the exam or the education. In teaching the equivalent is streamlined recognition: the state issues its own credential to a holder of a comparable one, usually without its tests, and it is not an automatic exchange.
3. Named reciprocity agreement
63 · 8%
The destination honors a named list of partner states. If your state is on that list you skip most requirements — if it is not, you fall back to endorsement.
4. Compact enacted — not yet issuing
44 · 6%
The state has passed compact legislation but is not issuing multistate licenses yet. Until it activates, you use the ordinary endorsement route.
5. Licensure by endorsement
467 · 61%
The most common route. No automatic recognition, but you do not start over: the board verifies your existing license and you meet the state-specific gaps.
6. No statewide license
51 · 7%
The state issues no statewide license for this credential (or only a registration), so there is nothing to transfer at state level. Any licensing is local or contractor-level.
7. Full re-application
24 · 3%
No reciprocity and no endorsement track for your credential. You apply as a new candidate and sit the state's exams.
8. No reciprocity offered
5 · 1%
The state offers no reciprocity with anyone for this credential. Expect a full application including its own exams.
Shares of 765 verified combinations —15 professions × 51 jurisdictions (50 states + DC), verified between 2026-07-21 and 2026-09-27. Each figure describes the route into a state for an out-of-state licensee; a specific move can land on a different rung when a state's agreement names only some origin states — that is what the checker resolves.
The tools
Reciprocity Checker
Any profession, any two states — your exact transfer pathway with fees, steps, and board links.
Compact Membership Map
Which states are in each licensure compact right now — member, pending, and non-member.
Endorsement Finder
One target state's full out-of-state requirements: exams, hours, fees, processing time.
Reciprocity by state, by profession
Every state's transfer pathway, fees and timelines for one profession, on one page.
- Nursing reciprocity
- Cosmetology / Barber reciprocity
- Real Estate reciprocity
- Contractor reciprocity
- Teaching reciprocity
- CPA / Accounting reciprocity
- Electrician reciprocity
- Plumber reciprocity
- Engineering reciprocity
- Pharmacy reciprocity
- Physical Therapy reciprocity
- Psychology reciprocity
- Counseling reciprocity
- Social Work reciprocity
- Occupational Therapy reciprocity
Why trust these answers?
Every fact on this site traces to an official state licensing board or interstate compact commission — never to blogs or license-prep schools, which routinely publish inflated reciprocity lists. Each page shows when its data was last verified and links the primary source so you can confirm the current rule yourself.
That same verified dataset is published in aggregate on the license reciprocity statistics page: how often a destination honors any state's license, what boards charge, which states are hardest to enter, and how far the compacts actually reach. Every figure there is recomputed from the source data and free to republish with a link.