Updated for 2026

Louisiana PMHNP Continuing Education Requirements

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

These are the Louisiana 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: Louisiana 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

Louisiana PMHNP requirements

Total

Louisiana 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.
Renewal fee: The board renewal fee is $200 every 2 years.
New licensees: A nurse first licensed in Louisiana by examination or endorsement during the previous calendar year is in compliance with the continuing education requirement at that first renewal without hours (LAC 46:XLVII.3335.C.1.c). An APRN with prescriptive authority still owes the six pharmacotherapeutics hours for the year (4513.D.6), and the one-time controlled substance prescribing course is submitted with the application for controlled substance privileges (4516).
Approved providers: Hours must be "board-approved contact hours", meaning "approved by the board or through the ANCC" (LAC 46:XLVII.3335.B): offerings of an "Approved Provider" ("approved by the board, accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation (ANCC), or approved to provide nursing continuing education by an ANCC accredited approver"), programs "approved for voluntary or mandatory continuing education by other boards of nursing, the ANCC approval process, or specialty nursing organizations which have equivalent approval criteria", academic nursing courses converted at 15 contact hours per semester hour (10 per quarter hour, 12 per trimester hour), and certification review courses such as ACLS or PALS (3335.E). "There is no limit on the number of contact hours that may be earned through independent study" (3335.E.7). Acceptable content is nursing practice, the sciences nursing rests on, the "professional, social, economic, spiritual, and ethical/legal aspects of nursing", and nursing management, administration or education (3335.F). The prescriber hours need a program "provided by a board approved national certifying organization or provider approved by the board" (4513.D.6.a), and the Board may approve CME for the commensurate-requirement option (4507.E.2.c). Hours count in "the two-year licensure period" being renewed (3335.C.1.a), the two years ending on the January 31 expiration.
Recordkeeping: Keep CE documentation for 2 years after each renewal.
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 Louisiana 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.

APRNAdvanced Practice Registered Nurse
Louisiana · Biennial
No fixed CE hour total applies to a board-certified, prescribing PMHNP.
Requirements above
RNRegistered Nurse
Louisiana · Biennial
No fixed CE hour total applies to a board-certified, prescribing PMHNP.
Requirements above
CSRState Controlled Substance Registration
Louisiana · Annual
No CE hours to renew.
Louisiana board rule
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
DEADEA Registration
DEA · Triennial
No recurring CE hours, but a one-time training applies.
DEA renewal requirements

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

Full board policy details

Alternatives to the 30 hours (LAC 46:XLVII.3335.C.1): "a minimum of 900 practice hours during the two-year licensure period as verified by the employer on a form provided by the board", or "current certification in a specialty area of nursing by a certifying body whose requirements have been approved by the board". The practice-hour option is not a credit and is not modeled; a nurse using it logs no hours here and keeps the employer verification for audit ("Licensees who use the nursing practice option as partial evidence of continued competence shall document nursing practice on the audit form provided by the board. Said documentation shall be signed by an individual who has practiced in a supervisory, collaborative or peer relationship", 3335.I.2.b). The certification option is modeled as the `pmhnp bc` gate on the total. Neither alternative touches the prescriber hours of 4513.D.6 or the 4516 course.
APRN continued competence is national certification, not state hours: "APRNs maintain advanced practice recertification in accordance with the nationally recognized certifying body's criteria as approved by the board" (LAC 46:XLVII.4515.A.1); renewal requires "evidence of current certification/recertification in each APRN role and population focus being renewed by a national certifying body approved by the board" (4507.E.1.b), and "Failure of any APRN to submit evidence of and maintain current active certification or recertification shall result in the APRN license becoming inactive and invalid" (4507.E.3). Only grandfathered APRNs and roles with no certification available renew on "commensurate requirements": "a minimum of 300 hours of practice annually in advanced practice registered nursing" plus either "a minimum of 2 college credit hours per year" or "a minimum of 30 continuing education (C.E.) contact hours approved by the board each year" (4507.E.2.a-c). A PMHNP-BC never uses that path, so it is prose only; the certification's own 75 hours are us-pmhnp bc.yaml.
Prescriptive authority and controlled substances: prescriptive authority is granted on application with a collaborative practice agreement and "a minimum of 45 contact hours of education (3 credit hour academic course) in advanced pharmacotherapeutics" in the graduate program (LAC 46:XLVII.4513.D.1), "may be renewed after review and approval by the board" (4513.D.7) on the same renewal, and carries its own $100 application fee (3341.A.1.n). Controlled substances are a separate privilege granted "on an individual practice basis": "Upon initial application with the board and request for approval to prescribe controlled substances, the APRN must provide evidence of successful completion of three hours of continuing education approved by the board on controlled substance prescribing practices as delineated in LAC 46:XLVII.4516", and the APRN must comply with 21 U.S.C. 821-831 "including, but not limited to, obtaining and possessing an active Louisiana controlled dangerous substance license and Drug Enforcement Administration registration number prior to prescribing or distributing controlled substances" (4513.D.2.b, D.2.b.ii). Schedules II through V may be prescribed "within the parameters of the practice specialty of the collaborating physicians" but not for "chronic or intractable pain", obesity, or oneself or family (4513.D.2.b.i, iii). The CDS license is the `csr` row (la-csr.yaml); the DEA registration is us-dea.yaml.
Exemption from the controlled substance course: "An APRN renewing his/her license may be exempt from the continuing education requirement upon the submission of certification, in a form and manner specified by the board, attesting that he/she has not prescribed, administered or dispensed any controlled substance during the entire period covered by the APRNs expiring APRN license. The certification shall be verified by the board through the Louisiana Prescription Monitoring Program Act, R.S. 40:1001 et seq. An exempted individual who subsequently prescribes, administered or dispenses any controlled substance shall satisfy the continuing education requirement as a condition to license renewal for the renewal period immediately following" (LAC 46:XLVII.4516.E; R.S. 40:978.3.B). The engine reaches the same place by gating the course on a `csr` or `dea` row: an APRN with neither sees nothing. Noncompliance: an APRN "Who fails to comply with the continuing education requirement of this part shall not be renewed by the board, and the RN and APRN licenses and prescriptive authority credential shall become inactive" (4516.D.1).
Nutrition and metabolic health (R.S. 37:920(G), added by Acts 2025, No. 463, effective January 1, 2026): "The board shall require advanced practice registered nurses practicing family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, or gynecology to complete a minimum of one hour of continuing education on nutrition and metabolic health every four years. The board shall adopt rules to determine the content of the continuing education." A psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner practices none of the five listed specialties, and the Board had adopted no implementing rule in Part XLVII as of October 2026, so it is not modeled. Revisit when the rule is promulgated or when another NP population is added.
Exceptions and extensions (LAC 46:XLVII.3335.C.2): a licensee may ask on the renewal application for an exemption or an extension for inactive status, "active duty in the armed forces for a minimum of six months during the licensure period", disability "for 2/3 of the most recent audit period", enrollment in a Board-approved refresher course, or "an emergency or extenuating circumstances", with documentation attached. Requested case by case, not modeled.
Reinstatement (LAC 46:XLVII.3335.D; 4507.F): an RN license lapsed, inactive or retired "for less than four years" is reinstated on "a minimum of 15 board-approved contact hours of continuing education for each year of inactive licensure status, or current licensure in another state and compliance with 3335.C"; four years or more requires a 160-hour refresher course, an equivalent nursing course, individualized remediation or the NCLEX-RN. An APRN reinstates on current RN licensure and "evidence of current certification/recertification by a national certifying body accepted by the board", with a preceptored temporary permit when certification has lapsed (4507.F.2); reinstatement of prescriptive authority is a separate $100 application (3341.A.1.p). The RN catch-up is pro rata to the standard 15 hours a year, so no conditional block is needed.
No other mandated topics. Part XLVII sets no human trafficking, implicit bias, suicide prevention or infection control hours for RNs or APRNs; the 2014 suicide-training bill (SB 539) was enacted as voluntary training offered by the Department of Health. The only subject-specific hours are the prescriber ones modeled above.
Compacts: Louisiana joined the enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact under Act 577 of 2018 with an implementation date of July 1, 2019, so a Louisiana-resident RN holds a multistate license renewed on this cycle, and section 3333.A exempts "licensees who hold an active RN multistate license in a compact state other than Louisiana exercising their privilege to practice". The Board's September 2021 column: an APRN "must either have a current Louisiana RN license or have an RN MSL issued by another compact state", and one whose primary state of residence is another compact state "must not renew the Louisiana RN license"; such an APRN holds the APRN row here without an RN row. The "LARN Compact Conversion application" is $50 (3341.A.1.r). Louisiana has not enacted the APRN Compact, which is in effect nowhere, so the APRN license is single-state.

Louisiana PMHNP CE: frequently asked questions

Which credentials does a Louisiana PMHNP renew?

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

How often do Louisiana PMHNP licensees renew?

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

How much does Louisiana PMHNP license renewal cost?

The board's renewal fee is $200 every 2 years, per the Louisiana board fee schedule. CE course costs are separate and set by course providers.

Is the first renewal different for new Louisiana PMHNP licensees?

A nurse first licensed in Louisiana by examination or endorsement during the previous calendar year is in compliance with the continuing education requirement at that first renewal without hours (LAC 46:XLVII.3335.C.1.c). An APRN with prescriptive authority still owes the six pharmacotherapeutics hours for the year (4513.D.6), and the one-time controlled substance prescribing course is submitted with the application for controlled substance privileges (4516).

Sources and verification

State source: Louisiana board rule
Fee schedule: Louisiana board fee schedule
Last verified: October 2026
Ruleset version: 2026.2

We reviewed this page against the Louisiana 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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Louisiana 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.Louisiana mental health workforce data →21,407 active providers, or 463.5 per 100,000 residents, ranked 22 of 51. The page includes a county density map and free CSV downloads.

Other Louisiana CE requirement pages

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