Use the Division of Professional Regulation’s individual or entity lookup from IDFPR’s License Lookup page. This guide covers the Department’s nurse-license verification route; choose the matching license type in the official service. Newly issued licenses can take up to 24 hours to appear.
Illinois nurse licenses are verified through the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation's License Lookup tools, which the Department publishes for each of its divisions and designates as the primary-source route. Choose the individual or entity lookup for the Division of Professional Regulation; bulk lookups follow separate instructions. No account is needed. A newly issued license can take up to 24 hours to appear in the lookup system, so a search run on the day of issue may return nothing.
An Illinois lookup result carries the licensee's license status and the license expiration date. The Department directs registered nurses and licensed practical nurses who do not know when their license expired to its license lookup tool to find that date, because the expiration date determines which reinstatement or restoration application and fee apply. A newly issued license can take up to 24 hours to appear.
The Department's License Lookup is approved as a primary source for verification by The Joint Commission, the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the American Osteopathic Association's Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program, and all of its data is maintained and regularly updated by the State of Illinois. Where an organization needs a certified copy of an individual's or entity's license rather than a lookup result, the Department takes that request through a separate certified-copy link on the same page.
If a nurse who has just renewed still shows the old status, the Department asks for two to four business days for the renewal to post and the license status to update in its systems before treating the record as wrong. Renewal is available only to licenses that are still active; an expired or inactive license goes through restoration instead, which also takes time to show.
Illinois does not accept another state's nursing license as authority to practice. A nurse who is already actively licensed in another state applies to the Department for Illinois licensure by endorsement, which is the application type the Department reserves for that situation. Renewal, restoration and endorsement are separate application paths, and an out-of-state license that has lapsed cannot be endorsed until it is active again in the issuing state.
The license was not renewed by its expiration date and no longer authorizes practice. Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses restore or reinstate it with an application and a fee set by how long ago the license expired and whether payment arrives before or after the next renewal period begins. A license shown as inactive follows the separate reactivation route instead.
A registered professional nurse may elect inactive status by notifying the Department in writing on its form, and is then excused from paying renewal fees until they give written notice that they intend to restore the license. A nurse whose license is on inactive status may not practise professional nursing in Illinois. Restoration from inactive status requires paying the current renewal fee and following the Department's restoration rule.
The license was not renewed by its expiration and has lapsed. The renewal application is closed to it; the licensee restores it, with the long-lapse application once it has been lapsed more than five years.
A license that had expired or sat on inactive status has been brought back to active status. Restoration means applying to the Department, filing proof of fitness to practise acceptable to it, and paying the restoration fee; proof of fitness can include evidence of active lawful practice in another jurisdiction. A license expired or inactive for more than five years follows the same route with the longer-lapse application. Practising on a lapsed or inactive license counts as practising without a license and is itself grounds for discipline.
The Department has taken disciplinary action on the license. Under the Nurse Practice Act it may refuse to issue or renew a license, or revoke, suspend, place on probation, reprimand, or take other disciplinary or non-disciplinary action it considers appropriate, including fines of up to $10,000 per violation, for the causes the Act lists. A suspended or revoked license does not authorize practice.