Licensed Outside the Compact: The Ten Jurisdictions and Your Real Options

The compact gets most of the attention, which makes it easy to forget that some of the largest physical therapy markets in the country are not part of it. On the commission's list verified in September 2026, ten jurisdictions sit fully outside: California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Wyoming.

They are not enacted-but-waiting states and they have no bill listed as introduced. For a therapist licensed in one of them, the compact is simply not a tool that exists today.

Two directions of no

Being outside the compact closes two doors. Nobody can buy a privilege to practice in these jurisdictions; working in Florida means a Florida license, whatever you hold elsewhere. And a license issued by one of them cannot serve as a compact home-state license, so a California PT cannot buy a privilege in Arizona or Oregon even though both issue them.

The second door surprises people more. Therapists often assume a clean, long-held license is the qualifying credential. It is not. The home state has to be a member, and the home state is where you live.

Option one: endorsement, state by state

Every state offers a way to license an applicant who already holds a license elsewhere, usually called licensure by endorsement. It is a full application to the new board: education verification, NPTE score transfer, a background check, verification of every license you hold or have held, and often a jurisprudence exam on that state's practice act.

It is slower than a privilege and it is more paperwork, but the result is durable. A license is yours, renews on its own cycle, and does not vanish if your original license changes. For a therapist who plans to work in one or two additional states for years, endorsement is often the better fit anyway.

Start early. Board processing is the part of the timeline you cannot speed up, so file before an offer depends on it.

Option two: change where home is

If you are moving for other reasons, and the destination is an issuing member state, the compact opens up once you license there and it becomes your home state. From then on privileges in the other issuing states are available to you. Relocating purely to gain compact access is rarely worth it, but when a move is already planned, it is a real benefit to factor in.

Planning if you stay put

Most therapists in these jurisdictions will keep their primary license where it is. For them the practical habit is simple: when a cross-state opportunity appears, check the destination board's endorsement requirements that week, gather license verifications and transcripts before they are requested, and keep a record of every state you have ever held a credential in, because every board will ask.