Updated for 2026

Delaware PMHNP Continuing Education Requirements

Here's what a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) must complete to renew in Delaware.

These are the Delaware APRN license requirements for a board-certified PMHNP who prescribes controlled substances. Your RN license, ANCC certification and DEA registration renew separately; see every credential.

The renewal cycle is biennial and is tied to your license's renewal (expiration) date.

Where this comes from
State source
Delaware board rule
Last verified
October 2026
Ruleset version
2026.2

Every figure on this page is read from this rule, and the page refreshes when the ruleset changes. How we verify

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Requirements

Delaware PMHNP requirements

Total

Delaware sets no APRN hour total that applies to every board-certified PMHNP. Your ANCC certification renewal sets its own hours, listed with your other credentials. The renewal cycle is biennial and is tied to your license's renewal (expiration) date.

Cycle and record rules

Renewal
The renewal cycle is biennial and is tied to your license's renewal (expiration) date.
New licensees
No continuing education is due at this renewal. A Delaware RN licensed by examination during a biennium is "exempt from continuing education requirements for that biennium" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-9.2.6.1), and the Division's renewal table shows 0 hours for an RN licensed by examination on or after October 1 of an odd year and before June 1 of the next odd year. The 30 hours, with 3 in substance abuse and 1 on abuse recognition and reporting, start with the next full biennium. The hours are waived, not deferred.
Approved providers
"All contact hours must be earned through an approved method or by approved provider" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-9.2.1.1). An approved provider is "A nationally accredited provider of nursing related continuing education", an organization approved by "a nationally accredited approver of nursing related continuing education", "A Board of Nursing approved school of nursing", "A staff development department within a licensed or State health care agency; or an accredited educational institution", a Delaware Board-approved provider, or "An organization approved as a provider by a Board of Nursing of another U.S. jurisdiction or territory" (9.1). The approved methods are academic studies related to nursing, authoring (5 hours a biennium), national certification or recertification (20 hours in the biennium awarded), conferences, extension studies, independent study with "a test of knowledge and a certificate awarded upon completion", inservice education of at least 30 minutes, presentations (6 hours a biennium), research (5 hours), symposia, seminars and workshops (9.3.1 to 9.3.11); anything else needs "a written petition justifying the request" (9.3.12). Not recognized: orientation (9.1), and "Mandatory education, such as CPR, infection control, fire, safety, patient privacy and confidentiality, and facility specific policies and practices" (9.3.7). Hours count only "in the period for which the license was issued" and never carry over (9.2.3). "The Board of Nursing does not approve individual CE courses" (Board CE page). The engine cannot read provider accreditation, so the gate is left to the licensee.
Recordkeeping
Keep CE documentation for 2 years after the end of each cycle.
Board audit
The board may audit licensees to verify CE compliance.
Late renewal
A late renewal adds a late fee.

To keep your proof in order, see what to keep for a CE audit, which covers every state’s retention period and what the audit notice asks for.

Credential stack

Every credential a Delaware PMHNP renews

Each one renews on its own date, and a lapse at any of them stops prescribing. The ANCC certification and DEA registration are the same in every state.

  1. APRNAdvanced Practice Registered Nurse
    Delaware · Biennial

    No fixed CE hour total applies to a board-certified, prescribing PMHNP.

    Requirements above
  2. RNRegistered Nurse
    Delaware · Biennial

    30 CE hours every 2 years, including 3 hours of substance abuse and 1 hour of recognition of and response to abuse, exploitation, trafficking or domestic violence of vulnerable persons, or mandatory reporting obligations.

    Requirements above
  3. CSRState Controlled Substance Registration
    Delaware · Biennial

    2 hours of controlled substance prescribing practices, treatment of chronic pain, or other topics related to prescribing controlled substances every 2 years.

    Delaware board rule
  4. PMHNP-BCPsychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Board Certified
    ANCC · Every 5 years

    75 CE hours every 5 years, including 25 hours of pharmacology.

    PMHNP-BC renewal requirements
  5. DEADEA Registration
    DEA · Triennial

    No recurring CE hours, but a one-time training applies.

    DEA renewal requirements

Also hold a Delaware Psychologist or LPC license? Each board runs its own CE cycle. See the Delaware Psychologist and Delaware LPC requirements.

Full board policy details
  • The APRN license owes no contact hours. "To maintain licensure, the Advanced Practice Registered Nurse must meet the requirements for recertification as established by the certifying agency" and "must have practiced a minimum of 1500 hours in the past 5 years or no less than 600 hours in the past 2 years in the role and population focus in which licensure has been granted" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-8.12.1 and 8.12.2); faculty may count "a maximum of 500 didactic course contact hours in the past 5 years or 200 in the past 2 years and all hours of direct on-site clinical supervision of students" (8.12.2.1). The renewal asks about "current certification/recertification by a national professional certification organization" (8.12.3.1) and the practice hours, the Division's renewal page listing "graduation from the specialty program within the past two years" as the third way to meet the practice requirement. For a PMHNP the certification is the ANCC PMHNP-BC (its 75 hours are us-pmhnp bc.yaml); the Board's recognized certifiers include ANCC, AANPCB, AACN, AMCB, NBCRNA, NCC and PNCB (8.4). National certification is not a substitute for the RN's 30 hours, but it counts as 20 of them in the biennium it is awarded (9.3.3), so nothing here is gated on `pmhnp bc`.
  • Practice hours for the RN: renewal requires that the nurse "Have practiced a minimum of 1,000 hours of nursing practice within the previous 5 years or a minimum of 400 hours of nursing practice within the past 2 years", otherwise "satisfactory completion of a board-approved professional or practical nursing refresher program within a 2-year period prior to the application for renewal" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-6.6.1.1.4). "Verification of completion of the practice hours will occur for a minimum of 3% of the total number of licensees with notice of the audit within 6 months following the renewal of licensure", on an employer-completed form sent directly to the Board (6.6.1.2). An attestation, not CE; not modeled.
  • Prescribers owe no hours on the nursing rows. "The Board of Nursing grants APRNs prescriptive authority when granting an initial license" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-8.14.1; 24 Del. C. § 1935(a)(1)), "APRNs must register with the Drug Enforcement Agency" and "must register biennially with the Office of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in accordance with 16 Del.C. §4732(a)" (8.14.4.2 and 8.14.4.3), and "Prescriptive authority will renew with APRN licensure renewal" (8.14.9.2). There is no APRN pharmacology or prescribing-hours requirement at renewal; the two biennial hours in "controlled substance prescribing practices, treatment of chronic pain, or other topics related to the prescribing of controlled substances" belong to the Delaware controlled substance registration (Uniform Controlled Substances Act Regulation 3.1.3) and are modeled on de-csr.yaml so a prescriber sees them once. Nothing here is gated on `prescribing`, `prescribes opioids` or a `dea` row.
  • Returning APRNs: "APRNs who have been out of practice more than 2 years but less than 5 must submit 24 hours of CE with 12 hours in pharmacotherapeutics and 12 hours in the clinical management of patients taken within 1 year prior to application", and those out "more than 5 years must submit 45 hours of pharmacotherapeutics CE taken within 1 year prior to application in addition to the advanced practice refresher program", or 600 supervised hours if no refresher exists (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-8.12.7; 24 Del. C. § 1918(a)). The same 24 and 45 hours apply to endorsement applicants who never practiced or have been out of practice (8.11.3 and 8.11.4). These are reinstatement and endorsement conditions, not renewal CE, and are left in prose.
  • Reinstatement and endorsement for the RN. A lapsed RN reinstates with "a completed report listing and attesting to the completion of all continuing education requirements for the 2 years immediately preceding application" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-9.2.2.2). An RN who endorsed in or was reinstated or reactivated during a biennium owes 15 hours "if more than a full calendar year remains in the biennium" (9.2.2.3); the engine applies the 15 and the 0 bands only to a license marked licensed by endorsement, since reinstatement and reactivation are not captured as a licensure method. A reinstated or reactivated RN should apply the same bands by hand: 15 hours if reinstated in the first twelve months of the biennium, none after.
  • Waivers: "A licensee who has had a physical or mental illness during the license period can apply to the Board of Nursing for a waiver. A waiver would provide for an extension of time or exemption from some or all of the continuing education requirements for 1 renewal period" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-9.2.6.2), acted on within 90 days (9.2.6.3). Individual and discretionary; not modeled. Military licensees serving in a theater of hostilities are deemed current until 60 days after leaving active duty (24 Del. C. § 1918(a)).
  • Statewide topics. Delaware requires 3 hours of substance abuse and, from renewals on or after October 1, 2025, one hour on abuse, exploitation, trafficking, domestic violence or mandatory reporting (both above). The one hour of "diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with Alzheimer's disease or other dementias" that Rule 9.2.1.1 asked of "Nurses who work in adult gerontology" was struck by 28 DE Reg. 607 effective February 11, 2025, so it is not modeled. There is no implicit bias, suicide prevention, ethics, infection control or jurisprudence hour for Delaware nurses; Delaware's opioid-prescribing standards (Uniform Controlled Substances Act Regulation 9.0: seven-day first prescriptions, PMP queries, treatment agreements) are practice duties, not CE.
  • Compacts. Delaware is a Nurse Licensure Compact state (24 Del. C. ch. 19A; the Board "incorporates by reference the enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact rules and regulations as adopted on January 1, 2019", Rule 1900-14.0). A Delaware multistate RN license renews on this same cycle and CE. An APRN may hold the RN credential as another compact state's multistate license: "If you do not hold a Delaware RN license, your compact RN license must have a future expiration date" and the APRN license then expires September 30 of odd years (Division renewal page); that RN's CE belongs to the home state, so a Delaware APRN with no Delaware RN row owes no Delaware contact hours here. Whether the abuse and reporting hour of 24 Del. C. § 1906(a)(18), which speaks of "all nursing professionals", reaches such an APRN license is not settled by the rule text and is not modeled. "Currently, Delaware does not have multistate Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) licenses" (Division compact page): the APRN Compact, enacted as 24 Del. C. ch. 19B by 83 Del. Laws, c. 110, takes effect only on the contingency of its § 2 and has not.
  • Inactive status: "Inactive status shall be renewed biennially at the time of regular license renewals. While inactive the licensee may not practice nursing in Delaware" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-6.8.1); "there is no continuing education or practice requirement to keep your license in inactive status" (Division renewal page). Returning to active status meets "all requirements for reinstatement" (6.8.5), including the CE for the preceding two years (9.2.2.2). An RN who goes inactive must place the APRN license on inactive status too.

Delaware PMHNP CE: frequently asked questions

Which credentials does a Delaware PMHNP renew?

5 separate credentials, each on its own renewal date: the APRN (Delaware, biennial), the RN (Delaware, biennial), the CSR (Delaware, biennial), the PMHNP-BC (ANCC, every 5 years), and the DEA (DEA, triennial). A lapse at any one of them stops prescribing.

How often do Delaware PMHNP licensees renew?

The renewal cycle is biennial and is tied to your license's renewal (expiration) date.

Is the first renewal different for new Delaware PMHNP licensees?

No continuing education is due at this renewal. A Delaware RN licensed by examination during a biennium is "exempt from continuing education requirements for that biennium" (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-9.2.6.1), and the Division's renewal table shows 0 hours for an RN licensed by examination on or after October 1 of an odd year and before June 1 of the next odd year. The 30 hours, with 3 in substance abuse and 1 on abuse recognition and reporting, start with the next full biennium. The hours are waived, not deferred.

Sources and verification

State source
Delaware board rule
Last verified
October 2026
Ruleset version
2026.2

We reviewed this page against the Delaware board source, and we refresh it from the compiled ruleset above. Methodology and disclaimer. Compliance data is for guidance only, not legal or board advice. Always confirm requirements with your licensing board before renewing. See something wrong? Report it

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Delaware guides & data

What to keep for a CE audit →Learn what boards ask for in a CE audit, how long each state says to keep certificates, and what the notice looks like, then use the printable checklist.Delaware mental health workforce data →4,511 active providers, or 425.6 per 100,000 residents, ranked 27 of 51. The page includes a county density map and free CSV downloads.

Other Delaware CE requirement pages

Delaware LPCDelaware LMFTDelaware LCSWDelaware PsychologistDelaware Addiction Counselor

PMHNP CE requirements in other states