How to renew your Connecticut RN license

A structural note worth making up front: Connecticut licenses RNs through the Department of Public Health, not a board of nursing. The Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing exists, but it approves nursing education programs and refresher courses and hears disciplinary matters — it does not issue or renew licenses. Nurses searching "Connecticut board of nursing renewal" land in the wrong place constantly.

Total general CE hours: zero. Connecticut has no across-the-board annual CE hour requirement for RNs, unlike APRNs. The single nurse CE mandate is topic-specific and on a six-year rotation:

• 2 contact hours (1 contact hour = minimum 50 minutes), covering both screening for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, risk of suicide, depression and grief, and suicide prevention training.
• Due in the first renewal period on or after January 1, 2022, and not less than once every six years thereafter.
• Applies to RNs and LPNs "actively practicing in this state."
• Authority: C.G.S. § 20-94e.

Practical timing: the large cohort who satisfied this at their 2022 renewal next owes it in the 2028 period. A nurse who completed it in 2022 does not owe it again in 2026.

Topics that are NOT required for Connecticut RNs — worth stating explicitly, because nurses are sold all of these: mental health first aid (not required — the 2-hour PTSD/suicide item is not MHFA certification), sepsis (that's New York), cultural competency, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, infection control, and opioid/pain management (the CT opioid CE mandate applies to prescribers, not RNs).

Accepted providers: American Nurses Association · Connecticut Hospital Association · Connecticut Nurses Association · the Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce · a specialty nursing society or equivalent organization in another jurisdiction · a hospital or other health care institution · a regionally accredited academic institution · a state or local health department. Connecticut does not run its own CE provider-approval program.

Audit and retention: you attest in eLicense; nothing is uploaded. Retain attendance records or completion certificates at least 3 years following the year completed, and produce them within 45 days of a DPH request.

Connecticut requires no general CE-hour count for RN renewal. The only mandate is the topic-specific 2-hour PTSD/suicide-screening and suicide-prevention item described above, due once every six years — not every renewal. Employers, specialty certifications, and BLS/ACLS cards are separate obligations that CE sellers often conflate with state law.

• Connecticut fully implemented the Nurse Licensure Compact on October 1, 2025 — the biggest change to Connecticut nurse licensure in decades. Enabling legislation: Public Act 24-83 (HB 5058, 2024). Connecticut became the 43rd jurisdiction. Conversion is free, and can be done any time — you don't wait for a renewal period. New wrinkle: multistate applicants must submit fingerprints for a state and federal criminal background check, a step that was never part of ordinary Connecticut RN licensure.
• No CE changes in 2025–2026. The § 20-94e 2-hour requirement is unchanged since its 2022 start.
• No fee changes. A 2024 budget proposal would have eliminated the $180 initial application fee; DPH still lists $180, so it does not appear to have taken effect.
• No change to the annual birth-month cycle, the 90-day grace period, or the void/reinstatement structure.

Your first renewal is not one year after licensure. It falls in the first birth month that immediately follows issuance — which can be a few weeks away. A nurse licensed October 5 with a November birthday renews November 30 of the same year.

There is no proration. DPH's general licensure policies state the full fee is required regardless of when the license was initially issued. So that October licensee pays $180 initial, then $110 again roughly seven weeks later.

No deferral rule. Many states push a first renewal out a year when the license is issued close to the renewal date. Connecticut publishes no such provision, and the "full fee regardless of when issued" language cuts the other way.

Note the contrast with APRNs: § 20-94d(d) expressly exempts a first-time APRN renewal from continuing education. RNs get no equivalent exemption in statute. Since the 2-hour requirement is written as a six-year obligation for those "actively practicing in this state," a newly licensed RN who is practicing should complete the 2 hours.