Nursing CE by state · Illinois
Illinois nursing CE: what the board asks for
Illinois nurses complete 20 hours every two-year cycle, and Illinois lists providers approved by another state's board of nursing among its approved sponsors.
Who may approve your CE
What Illinois’s rule says
“L) Providers approved by another state's board of nursing.”
68 Ill. Adm. Code 1300.130(a)(1)(A), (a)(4), (a)(6), (c)(1)(L) (amended 45 Ill. Reg. 228, eff. 1-4-2021); IDFPR 'Illinois RN Continuing Education FAQs' (2025-10-17) · Read the rule at the source
The requirement
RNs: 20 hours
LPNs: 20 hours
Cycle: Every 2 years
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) – Board of Nursing
Read this before you count our hours
What to know in Illinois
- Illinois counts a contact hour as 60 minutes, so a 50-minute hour counts for less.
- Inside the 20 hours Illinois requires 1 hour of sexual harassment prevention, 1 hour of implicit bias awareness and, for most nurses, 1 hour on Alzheimer's disease and dementia. We do not offer courses written for those topics.
- Your first Illinois renewal is exempt.
A topic Illinois names
Sexual harassment prevention — 1 hour every renewal
Illinois requires this hour at every renewal, with content set by Illinois law. We do not offer a course written to the Illinois requirement.
Before you buy anything
What we will not tell you
We will not tell you that a course satisfies your Illinois requirement. Your board decides that, and an audit lands on your license, not on us.
What we can do is show you the rule, quoted or cited, and linked, and tell you plainly where our courses stand. Each of our RN & LPN course pages states the continuing-education approval that course carries, and that statement applies only to the course it appears on.
If anything here is unclear for your situation, ask your board before you enroll. Keep every certificate and the course description; the description is what shows an auditor what the course covered.
Read the rule yourself
68 Ill. Adm. Code 1300.130(a)(1)(A), (a)(4), (a)(6), (c)(1)(L) (amended 45 Ill. Reg. 228, eff. 1-4-2021)
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) – Board of Nursing
When we read it
We read the rule on 29 September 2026. Rules change; the board’s current text governs.
Ready to look at courses?
Read each course page against what your board asks for, then choose.