Delaware Nurse Practitioner CE Requirements

• Licenses renew every 2 years (biennial).
• The APRN license expires with the Delaware RN license (odd-numbered years); if you hold no DE RN license, the APRN license expires Sept 30 of odd years.

• 30 contact hours per 2-year renewal — the APRN renews the underlying RN license, which requires 30 hours.
• APRN renewal also requires maintaining national certification and attesting to practice hours (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-8.12) — one of:
  • 1,500 hours in the past 5 years
  • 600 hours in the past 2 years
  • Graduation from the specialty program within 2 years

• Delaware's APRN rule does not impose a standing pharmacology CE hour count for routine prescriptive-authority renewal; prescriptive authority renews with the APRN license (24 Del. Admin. Code 1900-8.14.9). Pharmacotherapeutics CE applies in reinstatement scenarios, and certifying-body pharmacology requirements still apply.
  • Delaware APRNs automatically receive prescriptive authority for non-controlled substances with licensure; controlled-substance prescribing requires a separate Delaware CSR (and DEA registration).

• Delaware Controlled Substance Registration (CSR) renewal requires 2 hours of CE in controlled-substance prescribing practices, treatment of chronic pain, or related topics per renewal period.
• Overlap allowed: the RN renewal's mandatory 3 substance-abuse hours can also satisfy the CSR requirement.
• Initial CSR requires a 1-hour mandatory course on Delaware controlled-substance law.
• Within the 30 RN hours:
  • At least 3 hours must be in substance abuse
  • At least 1 hour on recognition of and response to abuse, exploitation, trafficking, or domestic violence of vulnerable persons
• The federal DEA MATE one-time 8-hour training also applies.

• The 10-hour pharmacology attestation for prescriptive-authority renewal is corroborated by multiple independent sources but should be confirmed with DELPROS or the Board (24 DE Admin Code 1902).
• Delaware's APRN requirements sit in Board of Nursing regulation 1900 (sections 8.0 and 9.0); the APRN Compact is authorized under Title 24, Chapter 19B.
• CE is tracked in DELPROS and audit-based.

Official sources