Florida Nurse Practitioner CE Requirements

• Licenses renew every 2 years (biennial), with staggered expiration groups.

• 24 hours of CE per biennial renewal, broken down as:
  • 16 general hours
  • Mandatory courses counted within the total: medical errors (2), Florida laws and rules (2), human trafficking (2), controlled-substance prescribing (3)
• Domestic violence (2 hours, every third biennium) is in addition to the 24.
• All CE is reported via CE Broker.

• No separate general pharmacology-hour requirement in Florida statute or rule beyond the mandatory 3-hour controlled-substance prescribing course (see Controlled-substance CE).
• Florida APRNs must maintain national certification, so certifying-body pharmacology requirements apply in practice (e.g., ANCC: 25 pharmacology hours per 5-year cycle).

• required every biennial renewal for all APRNs, regardless of DEA status (F.S. 464.013(3)(b)).
  • The 3-hour course may be offered by a statewide professional association of physicians in Florida accredited for AMA PRA Category 1 credit, the ANCC, the AANA, or the AANP, and may be taken by distance learning (F.S. 464.013(3)(b)).
• Per 2026 legislation, as of July 1, 2026 the course must include treatment of pain for patients with sickle cell disease.
• Also required:
  • One-time 1-hour HIV/AIDS course before first renewal
  • 2-hour Recognizing Impairment in the Workplace course every other biennium
• The federal DEA MATE one-time 8-hour training applies to DEA registrants.

• The course must be the specific 'Safe and Effective Prescription of Controlled Substances' offering — generic pharmacology CE does not count — but it can come from a statewide physician association (e.g., FMA), the ANCC, the AANA, or the AANP.
• PMHNPs practicing autonomously under F.S. 464.0123 (autonomous APRN registration) have additional requirements:
  • 3,000 practice hours
  • Registration requires 3,000 clinical practice hours in the past 5 years plus 3 graduate-level semester hours each in differential diagnosis and pharmacology (within the past 5 years); autonomous APRNs then complete 10 additional board-approved CE hours each biennium (F.S. 464.0123).
• The sickle-cell content addition effective July 1, 2026 is a recent change worth flagging.

Official sources