Kentucky RN License Renewal: Steps, CE Requirements & Fees

Everyone renews at once, every year. Unlike birth-month states, there is no personal cycle to look up. If you hold an active Kentucky RN license on September 15, you renew by October 31 — unless the May 1 rule applies. The window is six and a half weeks: the portal link appears at midnight EDT on September 15 and disappears at midnight EDT on October 31. KBN advises that payment processing takes 3–5 business days, and that anyone answering "yes" to a disciplinary or conviction question should submit documentation by close of business October 29 to avoid a lapse while staff review it.

Eight ways to meet the competency requirement (201 KAR 20:215, Section 3). Choose one per earning period, keep the documentation five years, and attest at renewal:

1. 14 contact hours from an approved provider — KBN-approved under 201 KAR 20:220, another state board of nursing, or a national nursing organization. A contact hour is 50 minutes. You cannot repeat the same offering within one licensure period, and partial attendance earns nothing.
2. 7 contact hours plus a satisfactory employment evaluation covering at least six months, on the KBN form. This is the route most working nurses should know about and most do not.
3. Current national certification in your practice role, obtained, renewed or in effect during the earning period. ACLS, PALS and NRP are not national certifications for this purpose — they are courses, and their hours count toward option 1 instead.
4. A post-licensure college nursing course passed with a C or better: one semester credit counts as 15 contact hours, one quarter credit as 12.
5. A preceptorship of at least 120 hours in a one-to-one relationship with a student or new employee. Hours may be combined across more than one preceptee.
6. Publication of a nursing-related article in a peer-reviewed health journal.
7. Presenting an approved CE offering — the presenter earns twice the hours an attendee receives.
8. A nursing research project as principal or co-investigator, with an abstract.

Whichever route you choose, the one-time mandatory content below still applies if you have not already completed it.

The mandatory one-time content (Section 5(5)) — four topics, once in a career:

• Pediatric abusive head trauma — 1.5 hours. All RNs; within three years of licensure if licensed after July 15, 2024.
• Domestic violence and elder abuse, neglect and exploitation — 3 hours. All RNs; within three years of licensure if licensed after July 15, 2024.
• Suicide prevention — 2 hours. All RNs; within three years of licensure if licensed after July 15, 2024.
• Alzheimer's disease and other dementias — 1 hour. Due October 31, 2027 if you held an active license on July 15, 2024; within three years of licensure otherwise.

Nurses who completed any of these before July 15, 2024 do not repeat them (Section 5(6)). The hours count toward your 14 in the year you take them. The Alzheimer's hour is the one to watch: it arrived in the November 2024 amendment, applies to every nurse already licensed, and comes due at the 2027 renewal. Take it this year and forget about it.

Pediatric controlled-substance ingestion / inhalation (HB 778, 2026). Under amendments summarized in KBN Connection Summer 2026 (Acts Ch. 68; KRS 218A.205 and 314.073), nurses licensed under KRS Chapter 314 must complete 1 contact hour every three years on recognition and prevention of pediatric ingestion or inhalation of controlled substances. The hour counts toward your existing annual competency hours — it is not an extra hour on top of the 14. Complete it this cycle so you are covered; KBN's implementing amendment to 201 KAR 20:215 may still be pending. Confirm provider acceptance under 201 KAR 20:220. A first-cycle hard date beyond every three years was not posted on KBN's content-specific CE page as of September 23, 2026.

APRNs renew the RN license and each APRN designation ($55 per designation) in the same window and owe 5 pharmacology hours; DEA registrants owe 3 of those 5 on pain management or addiction, plus 8 hours on substance use disorder treatment before the next DEA registration. APRN licensure lapses automatically if national certification lapses.

Additionally for APRNs / CAPA-CS holders: the same pediatric-ingestion hour may nest inside the controlled-substance / pharmacology CE the board already requires of prescribers (KRS 218A.205 as amended). It is not an additional hour beyond those existing pharmacology and controlled-substance hours. See KBN Connection Summer 2026 and board materials.

Audit and records. Audits are random after the window closes. If selected, you have 20 days to produce documentation. Keep every certificate — name, course title, completion date, contact hours, provider and approving entity — for five years after the licensure period. KBN accepts uploads through the Nurse Portal; uploading is optional unless you are audited, and a CE Broker account is no longer required. Certificates must be in your possession by October 31: you can pay the fee before you finish the hours, but you are attesting under Kentucky Nursing Law that they will be done by the deadline.

Compact. Kentucky has been in the Nurse Licensure Compact since 2007 and moved to the enhanced compact in 2018. There is no separate compact fee or renewal. Multistate status requires that Kentucky is your primary state of residence — driver's license, voter registration, tax return. If you move to another compact state you have 60 days to obtain a license there, after which your Kentucky license converts to single-state. Converting a single-state Kentucky license to multistate requires state and FBI fingerprint background checks through IdentoGO.

For the 2026 cycle, the audit process changed, and HB 778 added a recurring pediatric topic for every nurse. First, the audit and CE-record process moved from CE Broker to the KBN Nurse Portal, via the 2025 amendment to 201 KAR 20:215 (Section 6). If you created a CE Broker account for a past audit, you do not need it. Upload certificates to the portal if you are audited.

Pediatric controlled-substance ingestion / inhalation (HB 778, 2026). Under amendments summarized in KBN Connection Summer 2026 (Acts Ch. 68; KRS 218A.205 and 314.073), nurses licensed under KRS Chapter 314 must complete 1 contact hour every three years on recognition and prevention of pediatric ingestion or inhalation of controlled substances. The hour counts toward your existing annual competency hours — it is not an extra hour on top of the 14. Complete it this cycle so you are covered; KBN's implementing amendment to 201 KAR 20:215 may still be pending. Confirm provider acceptance under 201 KAR 20:220.

Additionally for APRNs / CAPA-CS holders: the same hour may nest inside the controlled-substance / pharmacology CE the board already requires of prescribers (KRS 218A.205 as amended). It is not an additional hour beyond those existing pharmacology and controlled-substance hours.

The renewal window (201 KAR 20:085), the $65 fee (201 KAR 20:240, last amended September 27, 2023), and the 14-hour default are unchanged. The four one-time mandatory topics — Alzheimer's, suicide prevention, domestic violence, and pediatric abusive head trauma — and the October 31, 2027 Alzheimer's deadline still apply. KBN has not posted a separate HB 778 first-cycle hard date beyond the every-three-years rule.

Licensed on or after May 1, 2026? You do not renew this fall. Kentucky pins first expiration to the half of the license year you were licensed in (201 KAR 20:085). Licensed November 1, 2025 – April 30, 2026: your license expires October 31, 2026 and you renew this fall. Licensed May 1 – October 31, 2026: your license expires October 31, 2027 and the renewal link will not appear in your portal — that is correct, not a bug.

Is the CE prorated or waived? Neither. 201 KAR 20:215 contains no first-renewal exemption. A nurse licensed in March 2026 who renews in October 2026 must attest to a full competency method for the November 2025 – October 2026 earning period. For a new graduate with seven months of licensure, the realistic routes are 14 hours, or 7 hours plus a six-month employment evaluation if you started work by April.

Is the fee prorated? No. $65. And the bump rule is the May 1 rule above: a license issued May 1 runs 18 months, one issued April 30 runs six. There is nothing to apply for — it is on the license.

The one-time mandatory topics run on their own clock: three years from licensure if you were licensed after July 15, 2024. If your Kentucky program included the pediatric abusive head trauma and domestic violence content in its curriculum (201 KAR 20:320, Section 6), those two are already satisfied — check with your program.