How to verify a nursing license, including live during a virtual care interview

To verify a nursing license, look it up yourself on Nursys QuickConfirm, the free search run by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), or on the issuing board's own site if that board does not take part, and read the license type, status, expiration date, discipline and multistate status. You can run it live during a virtual care interview, as long as the candidate has already signed an authorization (Nursys's employer terms require you to certify that you follow the Fair Credit Reporting Act's authorization rules before you obtain any record) and you know every state where the nurse's patients will be, because a telehealth nurse must be licensed where the patient is located. A clean result confirms the license, not the identity of the person on your screen. Tools and rules below are as of November 2026.

This page is the live, virtual care version of the check. For which official tool verifies which profession, the OIG exclusion list and what to do when a check shows a problem, see professional license verification for recruiters; for alerts after hire, see how to track nurse and pharmacist license expirations; for pharmacists, see pharmacist license verification for employers.

Can you verify a nursing license instantly during a virtual interview?

For most RN and LPN/VN licenses, yes. QuickConfirm is an online search you run while the candidate is still on the call, and Nursys says it lets you "look up a nurse's license and discipline status for free" and "download a report with the licensure and discipline status information." Three limits decide whether "instant" is also complete:

• Coverage. The QuickConfirm participation list shows 58 boards of nursing in 55 jurisdictions (California, Louisiana and West Virginia have separate RN and PN boards). Puerto Rico is not on it. For any board that is not, Nursys says: "Contact all non-participating boards of nursing directly for licensure information."
• Freshness. Nursys calls itself "live and dynamic," but its terms say NCSBN posts board data "when, and as, submitted" and "displays the dates on which a board of nursing updated its information." Read that date on the result. A newly issued license can take a few days to appear.
• Board notices. On November 9, 2026 Nursys carried a notice that the Alabama Board of Nursing's licensure data "is not current due to technical difficulties." While a notice like that is up, check the board's own lookup instead.

What has to be in place before the call?

Most of the work happens before the interview, so the live check is a confirmation rather than a scramble.

1. The candidate's authorization. To use QuickConfirm, an employer must click "I agree" to an employer certification on the QuickConfirm terms page. It limits searches to nurses "employed by you, assigned to you as temporary staff from a third-party staffing vendor and/or applying for employment with you or the third-party staffing vendor," and requires you to "comply with all FCRA notification and authorization requirements, including authorization to obtain periodically updated records, prior to obtaining any information from Nursys." Whether the FCRA itself would reach a lookup you run yourself is a separate question; the terms make it a condition of using the service. Have the candidate sign your standalone disclosure and authorization with the application or the interview invitation. The FCRA background check process covers the forms.
2. The license details. Name exactly as it appears on each license, license type, issuing state, license number, primary state of residence, and the NCSBN ID if the nurse knows it; Nursys calls it "the public, globally unique identifier for all nurses from participating boards of nursing."
3. The patient states. From the hiring manager: every state where patients served by this role can be located. A regional telehealth clinic may serve three states; a national triage line may serve all of them.
4. Who runs the search. You, in your own browser. A screen share or a screenshot of the candidate's own lookup is not a verification.

How do you run the check live, step by step?

1. Open QuickConfirm before the call and accept the employer terms, so the search is ready.
2. Confirm the details aloud at the start: license type, issuing state, number and whether the nurse believes the license is multistate. Asking first gives the candidate a chance to correct a typo, and you a chance to hear an inconsistency.
3. Search and open the report. Read the license type, status, expiration date, any discipline and the multistate status, plus the board's last update date.
4. Map the license to the patient states. For each state on your list, decide whether the nurse has authority to practice there on a multistate privilege or needs that state's own license (the table below).
5. Search every additional license the nurse holds for the states not covered, on QuickConfirm or on the board's own site.
6. Ask about anything that does not match before the call ends: a different name, an expiration date that has passed, a renewal in progress, a board action.
7. Save the result with the date, the source and who ran it. Do not forward the report itself: Nursys's terms prohibit "any downloading or copying of any data for any third party's use." The same terms let a client search nurses assigned to it as temporary staff, so a client can run its own check.

Which licenses does a virtual care nurse need?

The rule that drives every row: "A nurse must be licensed in the state where the patient/consumer is located at the time nursing service is provided," per the Nurse Licensure Compact's page for nurses, and that applies to telehealth as well as in-person care. The compact counts 43 member jurisdictions as of November 2026; its map notes that some members are still completing implementation.

The last row matters for staffing agencies: the VA rule defines a covered professional as one who "is not a VA-contracted health care professional," so an agency nurse placed on a VA telehealth contract should be checked against the ordinary patient-state rule unless the contract says otherwise.

What if the nurse is a nurse practitioner or other APRN?

Expect more searches and more gaps. The compact "pertains to RN and LPN/VN licenses only," so advanced practice licenses are state by state. The APRN Compact's own site does not say it is issuing multistate licenses as of November 2026, so plan on one APRN license per patient state. Nursys warns that "some, but not all, participating boards provide advanced practice license information," and its participation list shows 15 boards that license APRNs but send only RN and practical nurse data: American Samoa, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin. For APRNs from those states, verify the advanced practice license on the board's site, and the national certification the state requires on the certifying body's site; see how to verify candidate certifications. Screening questions that collect every state and license type are in the nurse practitioner screening questions.

Does a clean result on a video call prove who you are talking to?

No. A license lookup works from a name and a license number that are public or easy to obtain, so someone presenting another nurse's license will pass it. The Alabama Board of Nursing tells employers QuickConfirm is not meant for validating identity (quoted in the license verification guide). On a virtual call:

• Compare the name on the report with the name the candidate gives, and ask about any difference, such as a name change after marriage.
• Never ask for a Social Security number, date of birth or ID number on the call; collect identity data only through your onboarding or verification system.
• Run a formal identity check before the offer or at onboarding, matched to the license name; the identity checks for phone and video screens page and the candidate identity fraud guide cover the options.
• After hire, enroll the license in Nursys e-Notify, whose enrollment matches identifying data against the board's record; the tracking guide walks through the setup.

What should make you pause the process?

• No record in the state the candidate named, after you have checked the spelling and the license number format.
• The candidate says the license is multistate, but the result shows a single-state license.
• A status other than active, an expiration date that has passed, or a board action the candidate did not mention.
• Patient states on your list that no license covers.
• The candidate offers to share their own screen or send a screenshot instead of letting you search.

None of these is automatically disqualifying; renewals in progress and name changes are common. Ask, record the answer, re-check on the board's site and treat the same finding the same way for every candidate. If you decide not to proceed based on a Nursys record, the Nursys terms require you to give the nurse a copy of the record and a summary of their FCRA rights before that adverse action.

What should you write down after the call?

One line per license, for example (an invented example): "RN, multistate, issued by Texas, active through 2027-05-31, no discipline shown, board update date 2026-11-02; covers patient states AZ, CO and TX; CA patients need a California license, which the candidate holds, active, checked on the board's site; QuickConfirm run 2026-11-09 by J. Lee." That line goes in the candidate record and, for agencies, in the client submittal in place of the report itself. Re-run the check whenever the role adds a patient state, and before each new assignment for travel and per diem nurses; the registered nurse screening questions and nurse phone screen questions show how to collect every license on the first call.