Registered Nurse (RN) License Renewal in Washington

Washington renews RNs every year, not every two, and it’s one of the few states that measures both what you learned and whether you worked. Eight hours of continuing education and ninety-six hours of nursing practice, every single year. The numbers are small on their own. What trips nurses up is that Washington recently overhauled this rule, and a lot of guidance online still quotes the old one.

The rule changed: ignore the old “531 and 45 over three years”

For years Washington’s standard was 531 practice hours plus 45 continuing-education hours measured over a three-year period. That standard no longer applies. If you find it quoted on a CE-seller’s page, it’s out of date. The current rule is annual:

• 8 hours of continuing education, each year. Any CE related to nursing practice counts. It does not need to carry formal CEU units.
• 96 hours of nursing practice, each year. Paid, unpaid, or volunteer, as long as it’s nursing work. Washington defines a practice “day” as 8 hours, so 96 hours is twelve days of nursing across the year.

Both clocks run on your birthday, because Washington renews annually on the licensee’s birthday. That’s the other big difference from most states in this reference: there’s no two-year cycle to spread the work across, you meet 8-and-96 every year.

Two trainings that count toward the eight

Washington layers two specific requirements on top, and the helpful part is that they count toward your 8 CE hours rather than adding to them:

• Health equity. You complete an initial 2 hours of health-equity CE by your 2026 renewal, then additional health-equity training annually after that. It has to come from the Department of Health’s approved course list.
• Suicide prevention. A one-time training in assessing and managing suicide risk, drawn from the WA Department of Health model list, completed early in your licensure.

Because these count toward the annual 8, a nurse who plans even slightly can satisfy the mandatory topics and most of the CE requirement with the same courses. Keep the documentation, Washington audits continued competency and expects you to produce proof.

The fee and the annual deadline

Renewal is $138 for an active RN, and you pay it every year because the cycle is annual, so budget for it as a yearly cost rather than a biennial one. That reframes the sticker price: $138 a year is more than a two-year state like Texas at $68 per cycle, and the yearly cadence is the thing to plan around. Miss the date and a $50 late fee attaches; let it lapse more than a year and you’re into reactivation at a higher fee.

Washington is a compact state

Washington implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact on January 31, 2024, one of the newest members. If Washington 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. Note that the multistate version of the license carries a slightly higher fee than the single-state one. The privilege follows your legal residence, so it holds as long as Washington stays home. Use the compact checker below to see exactly which states a Washington license reaches.