How to Get Your Tennessee Nursing License

How Tennessee Issues Nursing Licenses

The Tennessee Board of Nursing operates under the Tennessee Department of Health Bureau of Health Licensure and Regulation and licenses both RNs and LPNs through a single board headquartered in Nashville. Applications are submitted through the LARS online portal at lars.tn.gov. The Board application fee is $150 for licensure by examination and $150 for licensure by endorsement, both effective April 8, 2026. NCLEX itself costs an additional $200 paid directly to Pearson VUE. Every initial applicant must complete a TBI/FBI fingerprint-based background check through IdentoGO before licensure.

Tennessee and the NLC

Tennessee is an original Nurse Licensure Compact state. The NLC took effect for Tennessee on July 1, 2003, and Tennessee transitioned to the enhanced NLC (eNLC) on January 19, 2018. RNs and LPNs whose Primary State of Residence (PSOR) is Tennessee are eligible for a multistate license that authorizes practice in every other NLC state at no extra fee. PSOR is established by Tennessee driver's license, voter registration, federal tax return, or military Form 2058. If you move to Tennessee from another compact state, you must apply for a Tennessee multistate license and the prior state's multistate license is deactivated — you cannot hold two compact licenses simultaneously.

Where Most Tennessee Applications Get Stuck

Four Tennessee-specific issues drive most delays:

• The April 2026 fee schedule change. Applicants and employers working from older instructions still quote $0 examination and $100 renewal numbers. The current schedule is $150 examination, $150 endorsement, and $140 biennial renewal. Underpaying leaves the application stuck until the difference is collected.
• IdentoGO OCA codes. Tennessee uses different OCA codes by license type — 1703 for RN and 1704 for LPN. Registering at IdentoGO with the wrong code routes the background check to the wrong board and forces a re-scan and re-pay. The two-week IdentoGO registration window is also short — out-of-state applicants who don't book a Tennessee-area appointment promptly often have to re-register and pay again.
• Transcript routing. Tennessee requires the school to send the official transcript directly to the Board in PDF format. Applicants who download and forward their own transcripts are routinely delayed because the file is not treated as primary-source.
• Nursys verification routing. Endorsement applicants must route license verification from the originating state through Nursys (or paper from non-Nursys boards). A copy uploaded by the applicant doesn't count.

What You'll Pay

Tennessee nursing fees increased meaningfully on April 8, 2026. Examination applicants now pay $150 to the Board plus $200 to Pearson VUE for NCLEX, for a $350 application-side total. Endorsement applicants pay $150 to the Board (up from $115). Add roughly $50 for IdentoGO fingerprinting. Biennial renewal is $140 for both RNs and LPNs (up from $100), paid online through LARS. Late renewal fees apply for filings past the expiration date, and extended lapses may require reactivation steps in addition to higher fees.

Realistic Timeline

Tennessee does not publish a fixed processing-time target. In practice, end-to-end timing for endorsement applicants runs 4-8 weeks: TBI/FBI fingerprint clearance is normally received by the Board in 8-10 business days for electronic prints (longer for cards), and Nursys verification from the originating state typically arrives within a similar window once requested. Examination applicants are eligible to schedule the NCLEX only after Board eligibility is confirmed. Plan to submit at least 8-10 weeks before you need to practice; longer if you have any criminal history disclosure, prior board action, or out-of-country training, since those files are routed to a Board review track that routinely adds 60-120 days.

Renewal and Continuing Competence

Tennessee runs on a biennial renewal cycle. Unusually for a US state, Tennessee does not mandate a fixed number of CE contact hours. Instead, the Board uses a continuing competence "two-of-fifteen" model: every two-year renewal cycle, RNs and LPNs must complete two of fifteen Board-approved professional development activities. The most common option is 5 contact hours of continuing education (10 contact hours if not currently practicing). Other approved activities include:

• Current Board-recognized national nursing certification.
• Satisfactory employer evaluation, written self-evaluation, or letter from a peer, patient, or family member.
• Contract of renewal or reappointment to a nursing position.
• Documentation of teaching nursing education or publishing a nursing-related article.
• Completion of a nursing refresher course or comprehensive orientation program.
• Official transcript demonstrating two hours of nursing credit, or proof of retaking and passing NCLEX.

Records must be kept for four years after the renewal period in case of audit.

Single State Versus NLC

If Tennessee is your Primary State of Residence, your Tennessee RN or LPN license can be issued as a multistate license at no extra fee, authorizing practice in every other NLC state. If your PSOR is a non-compact state (California, New York, Oregon, etc.), the Tennessee license must be issued as a single-state license — same fee, same fingerprint and transcript requirements, but it only authorizes practice in Tennessee. PSOR rules are strict: you cannot hold two multistate licenses simultaneously, and a move from one compact state to another deactivates the prior state's multistate privilege.

How White Glove Helps

We manage Tennessee RN and LPN applications end-to-end with particular attention to the post-April-2026 fee schedule, the correct IdentoGO OCA code (1703 RN / 1704 LPN), and the transcript-and-Nursys routing that catches most self-filers. We schedule fingerprinting against the two-week IdentoGO window, push transcripts and Nursys verifications in parallel rather than in series, and prep the continuing-competence two-of-fifteen documentation against the renewal cycle so audits are clean. For nurses establishing Tennessee as their Primary State of Residence, we coordinate the PSOR documentation and the deactivation of any prior compact-state multistate license so the Tennessee multistate is clean from issuance.