What Is the Nursys License Verification System?

Nursys license verification is the national system for checking whether a nurse holds a valid license and whether any discipline is on record. It’s run by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) and pulls data directly from all 58 U.S. licensing jurisdictions.¹ Anyone can run a free lookup at nursys.com. Nurses moving their license to another state use a separate paid service to send authenticated records to the receiving board.²

How to Look Up a Nurse’s License for Free

The free tool is called QuickConfirm, and you reach it directly at nursys.com. No account, no fee.³

You can search by name or by license number. The license number is faster and avoids ambiguity when more than one nurse shares a name.⁴ Before searching, you agree to terms of use that prohibit downloading, reselling, or data-mining the results.⁵ The report that comes back can be printed or saved.

Employers using the lookup for hiring or retention decisions also certify compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act when they accept the terms.⁶ If the result will drive an adverse employment decision, FCRA notice and consent rules apply.

What a Nursys Record Shows

Each record is built from whatever the state boards have submitted, so the detail you see reflects their reporting.¹ A typical record includes:

License number and license type
Expiration date
Current status: unencumbered, expired, probation, suspension, revocation, or voluntary surrender⁷
Compact status (single state or multistate)
Publicly available disciplinary actions and practice restrictions

The compact status field matters if the nurse practices across state lines. A single-state license works only in the issuing state. A multistate license, issued under the Nurse Licensure Compact, carries practice privileges into every other compact member state unless those privileges have been restricted.⁷

Records cover Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical and Vocational Nurses, and the four advanced practice categories: Nurse Practitioner, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Nurse Midwife, and Nurse Anesthetist.⁷

Verifying a License for Endorsement to Another State

When a nurse applies to be licensed in a new state, the receiving board needs authenticated proof of the existing license. Nursys handles this electronically. The nurse requests a verification through the site, and the data is transmitted directly to the destination board.²

The fee is $30 per license type for each jurisdiction. A nurse endorsing both an RN and an LPN/VN license to the same state pays $60. Payment is by credit card during the online request.⁸

Once payment goes through, the verification is available to the receiving board immediately. The board retains access until it deletes the record; no fixed expiration window is published.⁸

Two limits on this service are important before you pay. First, the endorsement service handles only RN and LPN/VN licenses; for any other license type, contact the issuing board and ask them to send the verification.⁹ Second, Nursys transmits only to U.S. boards of nursing. For a Canadian province or any other country, your state board sends the verification on your behalf.¹⁰

Getting Alerts When Something Changes

Nursys e-Notify emails you automatically when a license status changes or an expiration date is approaching. It’s free for both individual nurses and institutions.¹¹

If you’re a nurse, register through the “As a Nurse” option on the e-Notify page using a personal email address rather than a work one, since employers change but your license history follows you. You confirm the email, locate your license record, and complete a short survey. From then on, any status change your board reports triggers an alert.¹¹

Healthcare facilities use the institutional path to monitor their nursing staff from a single account. Enrolling a nurse requires the license number, license type, and issuing state.¹² Updates arrive as events, so there’s no need to re-check each file on a schedule.

Fixing Wrong Information in a Record

Nursys does not edit the data it displays. Everything shown is what the state boards have submitted. If a name is misspelled, a status is wrong, or a license is missing, contact the board that issued the license and ask them to correct it. The board then forwards the updated information in its next scheduled submission.¹³ NCSBN cannot make changes directly.

This is worth checking before you pay for an endorsement verification. Stale data at your current board is exactly what the receiving state will see.

What Nursys Doesn’t Cover

A few gaps are worth knowing about before you rely on the result:

Licenses that expired before 1985 may not appear, and occasionally a current license will not have been submitted by its board.⁹
Nursys does not independently verify a nurse’s primary state of residence for Nurse Licensure Compact purposes; the displayed information is only what the boards report.⁴
Prescriptive authority and specialty certifications are not tracked as separate fields. For those details, contact the issuing board.

If a license doesn’t appear or a board doesn’t participate for a given license type, NCSBN will not process the verification through an alternative route. The only option is to go directly to the issuing board of nursing.⁸

1
Nursys. About Nursys
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National Council of State Boards of Nursing. License Verification
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Nursys. Nursys Homepage
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Nursys. QuickConfirm License Verification FAQs
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Nursys. Nurse License Verification Terms for Endorsement and Conditions
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Nursys. Nursys e-Notify Terms and Conditions
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Nursys. QuickConfirm License Verification Report
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Nursys. Nurse License Verification for Endorsement FAQs
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Nursys. Nurse License Verification for Endorsement
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NCSBN Help Center. How Do I Verify My License for Endorsement to Another Country
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Nursys. Nursys Frequently Asked Questions
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Nursys. Nursys e-Notify Features
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NCSBN Help Center. My Information in Nursys Is Wrong – How Do I Correct It