State Licensing Rules for Professional Degrees Earned Abroad

Why State Licensing Boards Control the Outcome

The United States has no national license for law, nursing, engineering, or teaching. Each state runs its own licensing board, and that board decides whether your foreign degree meets its education requirement. A degree that qualifies you to practice in another country does not transfer automatically to a US license, even when the profession shares the same name.

Most boards handle this gap with a credential evaluation: a third party or the board itself compares your foreign coursework and training hours to the US standard for that state. Where your education falls short, the board typically lets you close the gap with extra courses, supervised practice, or exams, instead of demanding a full new US degree.

Engineering: NCEES Credentials Evaluation

State engineering boards use the NCEES Credentials Evaluations service to review foreign degrees against the NCEES Engineering Education Standard. You do not need this evaluation if your program held ABET accreditation at the time you graduated, which is uncommon for programs outside the US.

To apply, create a MyNCEES account, then have each university you attended send official transcripts, your diploma, and course descriptions directly to NCEES. Non-English documents need certified translations. The evaluation costs $400 and typically finishes within 15 business days once your documents are verified. The report tells you whether your education meets the standard for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam and, later, the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam most states require for a license.

Nursing: CGFNS Certification Before the NCLEX-RN

State boards of nursing generally route internationally educated nurses through the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) before they allow the NCLEX-RN exam. CGFNS verifies your nursing education, license, and often your English proficiency, then issues a certificate that most state boards accept as proof your foreign education compares to a US nursing program.

Requirements differ by state. Some boards accept CGFNS certification alone, others also require specific US nursing coursework if your program did not cover it. Confirm the requirement with your target state's board of nursing directly, since a program that satisfies one state does not automatically satisfy another.

Law: State Bar Admission Rules

Law is the strictest of the four fields. Most state bars require a Juris Doctor (JD) from a law school approved by the American Bar Association, and a foreign law degree does not meet that requirement on its own. A small number of states, including New York and California, allow lawyers trained in certain foreign legal systems to sit for the bar exam, usually after completing an LLM (Master of Laws) at a US law school or after practicing law abroad for a set number of years.

Rules vary sharply by state and by the legal system you trained in, since boards often distinguish between common law and civil law backgrounds. Contact the bar admission office in the state where you want to practice before you commit to an LLM program, since some states do not accept foreign-trained applicants at all.

Teaching: State Department of Education Credential Review

Teacher licensing runs through each state's department of education rather than a national board. Most states review your foreign teaching degree and transcripts for content equivalent to their approved teacher preparation programs, then tell you which gaps to fill: additional coursework, a supervised student-teaching placement, or a licensing exam such as Praxis.

Some states offer alternative certification routes for career changers and foreign-trained teachers, often faster than earning a full new degree. Subject-area teachers in high-need fields like math, science, and special education tend to find more flexibility in these alternative pathways.

Engineering Accords That Simplify Recognition

Engineering degrees from institutions in Washington Accord member countries, a group that includes the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and several others, sometimes move through NCEES review faster, since the accord recognizes those countries' accreditation systems as broadly equivalent to ABET. This does not skip the credentials evaluation step itself, but it often means NCEES already has established criteria on file for that country's accrediting body, which often shortens the back-and-forth over documentation.

General Credential Evaluation Services

For professions without a dedicated national reviewer like NCEES or CGFNS, state boards often accept an evaluation from a NACES member agency, such as World Education Services (WES) or Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE), in place of an in-house review. Check with your specific licensing board first, since some boards accept evaluations from only one designated agency.

How to Start the Process

• Identify the exact state where you plan to work, since requirements do not transfer between states.

• Contact that state's licensing board directly, whether the engineering board, board of nursing, bar admission office, or department of education, to confirm your specific requirements.

• Start any required credential evaluation a year or more before you need to work, since document verification and extra coursework take time.

• Budget for evaluation fees, exam fees, and any additional coursework separately from your original degree costs.

• Ask about reciprocity or endorsement between states once you hold one state license, since many boards license you faster on a second state application than they did on your first.