Utah Nurse Practitioner CE Requirements

Renewal cycle

2 years (biennial); APRN licenses expire January 31 of even-numbered years

Total CE hours

None beyond national certification for most APRNs: R156-31b-303(3)(b) requires the APRN to be currently certified or recertified in the specialty area. Only APRNs licensed before July 1, 1992 may instead show 30 hours of approved CE plus 400 practice hours in the 2-year period.

Pharmacology CE

No general pharmacology-specific CE requirement; deferred to national certification maintenance. The pharm-adjacent state mandate is the controlled-substance prescribing CE (see next field).

Controlled-substance CE

4 hours per 2-year renewal for APRNs authorized to prescribe controlled substances: 3.5 hours of approved controlled-substance prescribing CE plus 0.5 hours from DOPL's online controlled-substance database tutorial (Utah Code 58-37-6.5; R156-37-402; R156-31b-303(3)(b)(ii)). Also required: at least one approved online suicide prevention training course per renewal (counts for 0.5 CE).

Good to know

Verified from the official DOPL renewal page and the R156-31b rule text (renewal section R156-31b-303). The 0.5-hour tutorial portion can be waived in some cases if the prescriber attests to controlled-substance database use (R156-37-402). PMHNP-specific supervised-hours rules in Utah (4,000 hours of psych-mental-health practice) apply to INITIAL licensure, not renewal. RN-level renewal (400 practice hours or 200 hours + 15 CE hours or 30 CE hours) is subsumed for APRNs by the certification requirement.

Official sources