Approval in Texas

complete 20 contact hours of continuing nursing education (CNE) in the nurse’s area of practice within the licensing period OR demonstrate the achievement, maintenance, or renewal of a Board-approved national nursing certification in the nurse’s area of practice within the licensing period.

complete 20 contact hours of continuing nursing education (CNE) in the nurse’s area of practice within the licensing period OR demonstrate the achievement, maintenance, or renewal of a Board-approved national nursing certification in the nurse’s area of practice within the licensing period.

ike all nurses in Texas, APRNs are required to complete 20 contact hours of continuing education appropriate to the advanced practice role and population focus area recognized by the Board OR achieve, maintain, or renew the national nursing certification recognized by the Board as meeting the certification requirement for the APRN's role and population focus area of licensure within the licensing period and meet the applicable targeted continuing education requirements. This will satisfy the requirements to renew both the RN license and APRN license. In other words, the required 20 contact hours for APRNs are not in addition to the required 20 contact hours for RN license renewal.

Any APRN who holds prescriptive authority must complete, in addition to the aforementioned 20 contact hours required for all APRNs, at least 5 additional contact hours of continuing education in pharmacotherapeutics. These hours are above and beyond the 20 hours required for all nurses. Also, some APRNs may have additional requirements related to prescribing (e.g., prescription of opioids, Texas Prescription Monitoring Program) which do count towards completion of the 20 hours required for all nurses. Please review the targeted continuing education requirements to determine what additional CE hours you may need.

APRNs can use Category I Continuing Medical Education (CME) contact hours to meet their BON continuing competency requirements for all requirements except the Nursing Jurisprudence and Nursing Ethics CNE requirement.