If you are a mainland RN or LPN looking to work in Hawaii in 2026, the first thing to know is what has not changed: Hawaii is still not a member of the Nurse Licensure Compact. There is no multistate privilege to practice in the islands. Every nurse working in Hawaii — travel, permanent, telehealth into Hawaii — needs a Hawaii-issued single-state license from the Hawaii Board of Nursing, full stop. The 2024 and 2025 legislative sessions both ended without a compact bill reaching the governor, so the single-state endorsement file remains the only path. Here is what that file actually looks like, and where most mainland applicants lose weeks they did not need to.
Why Hawaii Has Not Joined the NLC
Hawaii has been studying the compact for years, not ignoring it. SCR 112 in the 2023 session formally directed the Hawaii State Center for Nursing to convene a working group and produce a feasibility report — that report was delivered to the 2024 Legislature and ran through nine impact areas including workforce migration, fiscal cost to the Board of Nursing, disciplinary jurisdiction, and the practical question of how a compact license would interact with Hawaii's unique geographic and cultural context. HB 667 and SB 670 were carried over into the 2024 session. HB 2415 made it further than its predecessors but was marked "Engrossed - Dead" by April 23, 2024. The 2025 session saw similar legislation introduced and held in the House Health Committee. As of this writing in 2026, no bill has cleared both chambers, and the Board of Nursing continues to issue single-state licenses to every applicant.
The recurring concerns in committee testimony are not surprising — fiscal impact on the Board, loss of disciplinary control over out-of-state nurses practicing in Hawaii, and questions about whether compact-state continuing education and background-check standards align with Hawaii's. Whatever you think of those arguments, the practical effect is the same: plan for a single-state file and do not assume a 2026 compact bill will rescue your timeline.
The Single-State Endorsement File
If you already hold an active RN or LPN license in another U.S. state, the path into Hawaii is licensure by endorsement through the Hawaii Board of Nursing, processed through the DCCA's Professional and Vocational Licensing Division (PVL). The application is filed through the MyPVL online portal at the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. You will provide an out-of-state license verification (Nursys handles most states electronically), your education transcript, the criminal-history record check, and the application fee. There is no NCLEX retake — your existing passing score transfers if you graduated from an approved program.
Fee Proration: The June 30 Odd-Year Cycle
Hawaii's nursing license biennium runs from July 1 of an odd-numbered year through June 30 of the next odd-numbered year — so the current cycle ends June 30, 2027. Application fees are prorated based on when in the cycle you apply, which is unusual and easy to miss if you are coming from a state that charges a flat initial fee. Apply at the start of a biennium and you pay the full two-year cost; apply with months left and you pay a smaller share, but you renew sooner. The active RN and LPN renewal fee for the 2025-2027 cycle was $196 each, with restoration at $226 if you let it lapse. Always pull the current fee schedule from the PVL forms before you cut the check — Hawaii adjusts these between cycles, and the proration table is what determines what you actually owe today.
The practical consequence: if you are applying in early 2027 you are paying for a sliver of the current biennium and staring down a renewal a few months later. Build that second fee into your budget so the renewal does not surprise you.
Fieldprint Fingerprinting — Use the Right Code
Hawaii requires an electronic fingerprint-based criminal-history record check for every endorsement, restoration, and reactivation applicant. The vendor is Fieldprint, and the code you must use is FPHIBrdNursing (not case-sensitive). The fingerprinting fee is around $52 paid directly to Fieldprint at scheduling. Two rules trip people up:
- If you do not use the FPHIBrdNursing code, the Board cannot retrieve your report. You will be asked to redo the prints — and pay the fee — a second time.
- You must file your Hawaii license application within 30 days of being fingerprinted. Print too early and the results expire before the Board pulls them.
Fieldprint has print sites across the continental U.S. and at locations on Oahu and the neighbor islands, so mainland applicants do not need to fly out to Hawaii for prints. Schedule at fieldprinthawaii.com or by calling Fieldprint directly. Get the prints done in the same week you submit MyPVL — that keeps the 30-day window comfortable.
Mainland Transcripts: The Slowest Part of the File
Here is the variable nobody warns mainland applicants about: paper transcripts to Honolulu. The Hawaii Board of Nursing requires an official transcript sent directly from the school to the Board. Many mainland nursing programs still produce paper transcripts, especially for older graduates whose records pre-date electronic transcript systems. USPS first-class mail to Honolulu averages 5-8 business days from the U.S. mainland and routinely runs longer; if your school uses standard mail rather than priority, two weeks is normal. We have seen transcripts disappear into the mail entirely and require a second order.
Three things you can do to compress this:
- Ask your school whether they participate in National Student Clearinghouse or Parchment for electronic transcript delivery to the Hawaii Board. Many do, and the Board accepts electronic delivery from those clearinghouses.
- If your school will only mail paper, pay for USPS Priority Mail or a tracked courier — the upgrade is worth it on a file that has otherwise been moving fast.
- Order the transcript the same day you start your MyPVL application, not the day you finish it. The transcript is almost always the last document the Board is waiting on.
Our Hawaii state guide walks through the document checklist and the current fee schedule in more detail.
What This Costs in Total
The Hawaii out-of-pocket budget in 2026 looks roughly like this — verify current numbers with the Board before submitting:
- Application fee — prorated by cycle position; full biennium runs in the low-to-mid hundreds, partial cycle is less
- $52 — Fieldprint fingerprinting (paid to the vendor)
- Transcript fee — varies by school, typically $10-$25 plus expedited mailing if you choose it
- Nursys verification — usually $30-$45 paid to Nursys for the out-of-state license verification
- Renewal fee at next June 30 odd-year cycle — $196 RN/LPN active in the most recent cycle
When the Compact Conversation Will Matter
If a Hawaii NLC bill passes in a future session, two things change: nurses with a multistate compact license can practice in Hawaii without the single-state endorsement, and Hawaii nurses can claim multistate privileges to practice on the mainland. Until that happens, plan for the single-state file, file early in the biennium if you want a longer runway before your first renewal, and treat the transcript and Fieldprint pieces as the two timeline risks. We track the Hawaii compact legislation every session and will update our guidance the day a bill clears.
Sources: Hawaii Board of Nursing — DCCA Professional and Vocational Licensing; Hawaii Board of Nursing — Criminal History Record Check Requirement; Hawaii State Center for Nursing — NLC Policy and Legislation; Fieldprint Hawaii; SCR 112 (2023) — Feasibility and Impact of Hawaii Adopting the NLC, Report to the 2024 Legislature.
Hawaii rewards patience and rewards getting the small details right — the Fieldprint code, the cycle-position fee, the transcript order placed on day one. Treat the file as a 6-8 week project, not a two-week sprint, and the islands are very reachable.
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