How to renew your Tennessee RN license

Zero CE hours are required of RNs. Rule 1000-01-.18 (repealed and replaced, effective October 8, 2024) requires that RNs and LPNs "maintain evidence of TWO items" from a list of fourteen. There is no mandatory hour count and no mandatory topic. Ten contact hours of CE counts as ONE item — not as compliance on its own.

This zero-CE claim is scoped to RNs. APRNs with prescriptive authority do have mandatory controlled-substance-prescribing CE (see below). "Tennessee requires no CE" is true of RNs and false of APRN prescribers.

The fourteen qualifying items:

• A satisfactory employer evaluation.
• A satisfactory peer evaluation letter.
• A contract renewal, re-appointment, or continuing contract.
• A written self-evaluation against your profession's standards.
• Evidence of current national certification.
• Documentation of two professional/nursing goals with development, implementation and evaluation.
• A letter documenting volunteer nursing service or board/commission service.
• Documentation of participation in formal nursing education from a school of nursing.
• Certificate or evidence of ten contact hours per renewal period of continuing education or in-service education applicable to nursing practice.
• A published article relevant to nursing in a professional journal.
• Completion of a two-week Board-approved refresher program.
• Completion of a two-week employer-provided approved orientation program.
• An official transcript showing three hours of nursing credit in the past five years.
• Evidence of having successfully retaken the NCLEX.

Note what is not on that list: there is no practice-hours option. Nurses arriving from states with an hours pathway look for it and it does not exist here. The nearest analogues are the employer-evaluation, contract-renewal and employer-orientation items.

Provider rules are unusually loose. The Board's guidance names no required accreditor and no approved-provider list, and expressly counts "in-service education applicable to nursing practice." Hospital in-services and unit education count toward the ten hours.

Source hygiene matters here: an older Tennessee handout is still live on tn.gov and says five contact hours, not ten. Only the Continuing Competence Requirements document (rev. 05/2025) is current. Same problem with fees — the Board's posted Fee Schedule PDFs still show $100.

Audit and retention: renewal is an attestation — nothing is uploaded. Audits run monthly. The Board's instruction is explicit: do not submit documentation unless and until requested to do so. Retain evidence four years from the end of the calendar year in which the course was completed, and produce it within 30 days of a written request.

APRNs: national certification is mandatory, not one interchangeable option — plus one additional item from the RN list. APRNs holding a Certificate of Fitness must also complete 2+ contact hours on controlled substance prescribing covering Tennessee's opioid, benzodiazepine, barbiturate and carisoprodol guidelines.

Instead of a flat CE-hour rule, Tennessee requires RNs to hold evidence of two of the fourteen competency items listed above during each two-year period. Ten contact hours of continuing or in-service education is one of the fourteen options, not a separate mandate.

Nothing is submitted at renewal. You attest that you meet the requirement and keep your own documentation for four years from the end of the calendar year the item was completed, in case of a monthly audit.

The renewal fee rose $100 → $140, effective April 8, 2026 (amendment to Rule 1000-01-.02). APRN and RNFA renewals went $110 → $150; examination ($150), re-examination ($100) and endorsement ($150) fees were reinstated or raised. The increase was originally scheduled for September 25, 2025 and postponed — which is why stale guidance quoting either date and either amount is circulating. The Board's own posted Fee Schedule PDF still shows $100; trust the fee table on the Board's main nursing page instead.

Rule 1000-01-.18 (Standards of Nursing Competence) was repealed and replaced, effective October 8, 2024. Any competency guidance saved before then is superseded. The Board's guidance document was revised 05/2025, effective 06/2025.

Rule 1000-01-.19 (Interstate Nurse Licensure) was likewise replaced effective October 8, 2024, now cross-referencing the enhanced compact rules. NLC Final Rules took effect January 2, 2024.

This is the most-missed provision in Tennessee, and it is unusually generous. Rule 1000-01-.18(1), verbatim: "For initial licensees, successfully completing the requirements for licensure, as applicable, shall be considered proof of sufficient competence to constitute compliance with this rule."

Passing the NCLEX is your competency documentation for the first renewal. No two items, no ten contact hours, nothing to buy.

The flip side, and the reason to state it clearly: the exemption covers period one only. You must accumulate two items during your second period. Nurses who read the exemption as permanent get caught then.

The fee is not prorated — a first renewal pays the full $140. And because expiration is pinned to your birth month, a new license's first period will not be a clean 24 months. Verify your assigned expiration date in LARS rather than assuming two years.