Registered Nurse (RN) License Renewal in Louisiana
Louisiana RNs renew every 2 years for $100 and meet the requirement with 30 CE hours or 900 practice hours. Louisiana is a Nurse Licensure Compact state.
| Renewal cycle | Every 2 years |
|---|---|
| CE hours required | 30 hours One of two options over the 2-year licensure period: 30 board-approved CE contact hours, or 900 hours of nursing practice verified by your employer. Practice hours from another state count. Renewal itself happens every 2 years, October 1 to December 31. |
| Renewal fee | $100.00 |
| Mandatory CE topics | None prescribed |
| Licensing board | Louisiana State Board of Nursing (LSBN) |
Sourced from Louisiana State Board of Nursing (LSBN), verified July 25, 2026. Requirements change. Confirm with your board before relying on this.
Louisiana gives working nurses a way out of continuing education entirely: work enough hours and you don’t owe any CE. The rule is one-of-two, thirty contact hours or nine hundred hours on the job, measured over your two-year licensure period. For a full-time RN, the practice path is usually already met before the cycle ends.
Thirty CE hours, or nine hundred hours of work
For each two-year licensure period, an active Louisiana RN completes at least one of these:
- 30 board-approved CE contact hours during the two years. The classic route, and the one to plan if you’re not working full-time.
- 900 practice hours during the two years, verified by your employer on a board form. For a nurse working even three-quarters time, 900 hours over two years is usually cleared without thinking about it, and then no CE is owed at all.
A detail that helps travel and border-state nurses: practice hours from another state count toward Louisiana’s requirement. The hours don’t have to be worked in Louisiana. And if you take the CE route, qualifying post-secondary academic coursework can apply. Whichever path you use, keep your documentation for five years, Louisiana audits a sample and the burden of proof is yours.
Renewal is biennial, in a fixed fall season
Louisiana renews RN licenses every two years, and the renewal season is specific: October 1 through December 31. Renew after midnight on December 31 and it’s late. Note this is a change worth flagging, because a lot of older guidance still describes Louisiana renewal as annual; the Board’s current materials describe a biennial cycle. Renew online during that fall window, and don’t rely on a reminder notice arriving, the season and deadline are fixed.
The fee
Louisiana’s renewal fee is fixed in rule, not adjusted quietly year to year: the RN renewal application is $100 under LAC 46:XLVII.3341. Renew after December 31 and a $50 late fee is added automatically, because the new year has started. If you’ve seen $200 quoted, note that the same rule sets the APRN renewal at a separate $100, so a nurse renewing both credentials pays twice. A staff RN pays $100.
Louisiana is a compact state
Louisiana implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact on July 1, 2019. If Louisiana is your primary state of residence, your RN license can be a multistate license, letting you practice in the other compact states without applying separately in each. One thing the Board flags: your license does not automatically convert to multistate at renewal, you hold whatever status (single-state or multistate) you had going in, so if you want the compact privilege you request it. The privilege follows your legal residence. Use the compact checker below to see exactly which states a Louisiana license reaches.
Add your renewal deadline to your calendar
Enter your expiration date and download a calendar file. Your own calendar will remind you at 90, 60, 30, and 7 days out. We don't ask for your email, we store nothing, and the date never leaves your device.
Works with Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, and Outlook. This is a convenience, not a compliance service. Confirm your exact deadline with the Louisiana State Board of Nursing (LSBN).
How many CE hours do you have left?
Louisiana requires 30 CE hours this cycle. Enter what you've completed and see what's left. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.
A convenience, not a compliance service. Confirm your exact requirement with the Louisiana State Board of Nursing (LSBN). This is not legal advice.
Continuing education hours per renewal cycle
Louisiana asks for 30 hours. That is exactly the median of 30 across the 37 states that set a flat hour count, which run from 8 to 40. Ranked lowest to highest, Louisiana is 25 of 37.
Renewal fee
Louisiana charges $100. The median across the 49 states that publish a figure is $100, running from $50 to $245. Ranked cheapest to dearest, Louisiana is 22 of 49.
Each mark is one state. The taller line is the median, the filled dot is Louisiana. States that set no flat hour count, or publish no fee, are left out of that comparison rather than counted as zero.
Where can you practice with your license?
The Nurse Licensure Compact lets a nurse who lives in a compact state hold one multistate license and practice in every other compact state. Pick where you live to see whether that's you, and where it reaches.
Member data from the NCSBN Nurse Licensure Compact map, verified July 2026. A multistate license requires the compact state to be your primary residence. This is a convenience, not legal advice. Confirm your status with your board or at nursecompact.com.
What will this renewal cost?
Louisiana's renewal fee is filled in from the board below. Add what you expect to spend on CE courses, plus a late fee if you're past due, for a running total. Nothing you type is stored.
The renewal fee is from the Louisiana State Board of Nursing (LSBN) and dated on this page; the CE and late-fee figures are your own estimates. A convenience, not a compliance service, and not legal advice. Confirm fees with your board.