Washington nursing CE requirements
For registered nurse license renewal, read off WA Nursing Commission Continuing Competency FAQs (10/2024) rather than an aggregator. Checked 2026-10-15.
8 hours
per renewal, every 1 years
Required, with no hour figure set
Suicide Prevention
no hour figure set · one-time
Course must come from the WADOH Model List.
Required, and the board does not say whether it counts
Health Equity
2 hours · at least once every 4 years
First 2 hours due by the 2026 renewal date for existing licensees, or the second renewal for new ones, then additional training yearly. WAC 246-12-820 sets the 2 hour floor.
Do BLS and ACLS cards count?
The board does not say
Telemedicine training may count toward continuing education hours.
One contact hour is
50 minutes
Hours you can carry forward
0
- Health Equity runs on its own 4 year clock while the licence renews every 1 years, so the two drift apart. Track it separately rather than assuming it lines up with your renewal.
- The board requires 2 hours of Health Equity but does not say whether it counts inside the total above. Assume it does not until you have confirmed it, so you are not short.
ANNUAL renewal on the nurse birthday, which makes Washington the only annual-plus-practice-hours state here. Also requires 96 active practice hours per year. No carryover between years. Paid, unpaid and volunteer nursing work all count toward practice hours.
Read from that page on 2026-10-15. Boards change their rules and their websites without announcing either, so treat this as a convenience and the board as the authority.
Get warned before your Washington licence renews
Tell us the date on your licence and we will email you 60 days before it lapses. Once, per cycle. No account, no password, nothing else sent to you.
Hold a licence in more than one state?
The compliance map takes the CE you have already done and shows you where it would hold up across all 51 jurisdictions at once, including the ones that do not work the way anybody assumes. Three questions, no account. Both tools are available in English, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.