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Transfer a Cosmetology License to North Dakota

One Real Condition $155first year 1,500hours North Dakota asks its own students

The 1,800 hour figure charts print for North Dakota is dead. The board lowered it to 1,500 by rule effective April 1, 2022. The surviving 1,500 does reach you, because the transfer statute names it, and recent work erases it at 1,000 hours worked for every 100 hours of school you are missing, capped at 500. So anyone with 1,000 school hours or more can get there on work alone.

Training hours North Dakota accepts, and when you need more

North Dakota runs both answers to the whose hours question, in adjacent subdivisions of the same section. NDCC 43-11-25(2)(a) asks only that your own state verify you met its minimum education requirements, so your transcript is never measured against 1,500 on that route. NDCC 43-11-25(2)(b) measures your completed curriculum against North Dakota's 1,500. The board does not publish which route it runs first, and its endorsement application prints "Cosmetologist = 1500 hours" as a flat requirement. One quiet break for long licensed applicants. The application asks for an official school transcript only if you have been licensed less than 5 years.

What actually governs a transfer. NDCC 43-11-25(2)(b)(3)(a), which conditions one of the two endorsement routes on "Completion of the hours required by the board"

Does experience substitute? The 500 hour cap means the cure reaches anyone at 1,000 school hours or above and stops there. Work older than 3 years does not count however much of it there is. The real risk is the signature rather than the arithmetic, because the rules provide no alternative form of proof if a former employer will not sign or the salon has closed. Separately, the board's own application still offers a second test, that you "worked in the licensed profession from at least three of the past five years," which the legislature deleted from the statute effective January 1, 2026. Document both and let the board choose.

How to transfer a cosmetology license to North Dakota

Endorsement by equivalence

NDCC 43-11-25(2)(a), rewritten by HB 1126 effective January 1, 2026

Your jurisdiction has a similar scope of work and substantially similar or equivalent examination standards, it verifies you met its own minimum education requirements, and you have been in good standing for at least one year

The verb is shall, and the license issues "Without an examination." The education test is expressly your home state's minimum, not North Dakota's, so a 1,250 hour graduate of a 1,250 hour state satisfies it by definition. The exposed condition is "substantially similar or equivalent licensure standards of examination," which NDAC 32-05-01-01.2 then resolves by how long you have held the license.

Make up the hours

NDCC 43-11-25(2)(b)

You are currently licensed, in good standing, and you show 1,500 curriculum hours or make up the gap with recent work experience

This route carries no minimum time held, so it is open to someone licensed less than a year, which the first route is not. It also does not say "without an examination," where the first route does, and nothing published explains the silence.

Universal recognition

NDCC 43-51.1-02, created by SB 2395 effective August 1, 2025

You actively used your license for two of the three years immediately preceding the application, you demonstrate competency and education by methods the board determines, and you have no discipline in ten years and no pending investigation

A shall, with no hour count anywhere in it, covering every occupational board created in Title 43 with no carve out for cosmetology. Its companion at NDCC 43-51.1-03(1) requires a board to issue within ten business days on a complete routine application. Two cautions. The opening clause switches the door off where a board is part of "an executed license transfer, existing interstate mobility, or reciprocity agreement with another state," and nothing says whether the board reads its own endorsement statute that way. And the definition of "out-of-state licensee" at 43-51.1-01(8) reaches only a license whose requirements are "comparable to the requirements imposed in this state," which is an undefined phrase that could carry the 1,500 back in.

Worth knowing: NDCC chapter 43-51.1, Universal Licensure and Board Operations, created in 2025 and named on no cosmetology page. A reader searching chapter 43-11 will never find it. The board itself reproduces NDCC 43-51.1-03 on page 3 of its own endorsement application, which is direct evidence it treats itself as bound. The older chapter 43-51 also reaches cosmetology and carries two more provisions worth knowing, being licensure without examination for a practitioner of two years standing at 43-51-06, and limited practice for up to thirty full or partial days a year with no North Dakota license at all at 43-51-05.

Exams North Dakota requires, and exams it waives

None for most arrivals. NDAC 32-05-01-01.2 is the only rule imposing examinations on an endorsement applicant, and it imposes them only if you have held your license less than one year, or your original jurisdiction did not require the NIC practical and theory examinations and you have held that license less than three years. The North Dakota law exam that the previous statute required of every transfer was deleted effective January 1, 2026 and no rule restored it.

NDAC 32-05-01-01.2(2) requires examinations where "An individual's original licensing jurisdiction did not require the NIC practical and NIC theory examination or equivalent examination for licensure, and the applicant has held that license for a period of less than three years." Two things make it sharper than it reads. It looks at your original licensing jurisdiction rather than your current one, so a license obtained by reciprocity does not reset the question. And "or equivalent examination" is undefined, so a state that converted its practical into a written test is unresolved. Separately, the board's endorsement application says at item 3 that you "Must have taken and passed a practical test," with no three year cure and no exception. That is harsher than the rule and it is the first document an applicant reads.

The way through: Time. Hold your license three years and the condition cannot be satisfied, so no examination may be required on that ground. If you are inside three years, the examinations exist and are bookable, being the NIC practical at the board office in Bismarck on two or three dates every month, the NIC theory, and the North Dakota Laws, Rules and Regulations test through Prov.

Working in North Dakota while your application is pending

The board's endorsement application ends in capital letters with "YOU MAY NOT WORK IN THE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA UNTIL YOU GET A NORTH DAKOTA LICENSE." There is no civilian temporary permit. NDCC 43-51.1-03(2) lets the board delegate authority to issue a provisional license between meetings, and no rule in NDAC Title 32 implements it. The one lawful alternative sits outside the cosmetology chapter. NDCC 43-51-05 lets a licensee of another state work in North Dakota for no more than thirty full or partial days a year, on prior written application and a fee of up to $25. That is a bridge for a few bookings, not for a job. Military spouses are the exception and get the best terms in North Dakota law.

What a North Dakota cosmetology license costs

$155 in your first year.

The $155 is the $105 endorsement fee plus the $50 cosmetology license fee, and it is payable only after the board approves you rather than with the application. Fees are not refundable and, under NDCC 43-11-28(4), not prorated, so a license issued in November costs $50 and expires seven weeks later. Applying in January rather than November buys eleven more months for the same money. Add $150 plus $100 a year for an independent licensee license if you rent a booth rather than taking employment, which is a third license most states do not have. Your old state charges its own certification fee, which North Dakota does not set. There is no application fee, no background check fee, no fingerprint fee and no required course.

Military spouses moving to North Dakota

Two lanes in two chapters. NDCC 43-11-25.2 exempts active duty members and their spouses from any examination while on active duty status, and veterans and their spouses for six months after honorable discharge, on proof of an active license held for the two years immediately preceding the application plus orders and a marriage certificate. It produces a provisional license valid three years, renewable for active duty and nonrenewable for veterans, and the board must prioritize and expedite it. The general lane at NDCC 43-51-11.1 is stronger. It requires a board to issue a provisional license or temporary permit where the requirements have been "substantially met," which is a lower bar than the hours test, and if the board neither grants, denies nor issues within thirty days of a completed application, it "automatically shall issue" one. No civilian applicant has anything comparable.

Watch out in North Dakota

The 1,800 hours you have read about is four years out of date

North Dakota required 1,800 by administrative rule until NDAC 32-04-01-18 was amended effective April 1, 2022 to read 1,500. The adopted text in the state's own April 2022 administrative code supplement shows the word eight struck and five inserted. The figure today is 1,500 in the rule at NDAC 32-04-01-26.1, in the statute at NDCC 43-11-16, and on the board's own requirements page. Anyone doing shortfall arithmetic against 1,800 is off by 300 hours before they start.

Three years of licensure is the line that decides your exam burden

If your original state did not require the NIC practical and theory examinations, NDAC 32-05-01-01.2 requires you to sit North Dakota examinations only while you have held that license less than three years. Past three years the condition cannot be met. Two people with identical Pennsylvania licenses get opposite answers depending on a date. If you are close to the line, count the months before you file.

North Dakota looks back to where you first qualified

NDAC 32-05-01-01.2(2) turns on your "original licensing jurisdiction," and the endorsement application asks you to list every state you have or had a license in and requires certified proof from each. A license picked up in an easier state does not reset the examination question. Do not plan on getting licensed somewhere convenient first and moving on.

You cannot work while it processes, so time the move

The board's application says so in capital letters and there is no civilian temporary permit. Order your old state's certification first, because the board will not decide anything until every document arrives, and everything moves by post until the portal opens on September 14, 2026. If you only need a handful of days, NDCC 43-51-05 allows up to thirty full or partial days a year on prior written application and a fee of up to $25.

The interstate compact

No multistate license is being issued anywhere today, in any state. The Compact Commission's own page says the compact "is not yet active" and that it "hopes to activate the compact for licensees in early 2026," which is a target that has now passed on the Commission's own authoritative page. North Dakota is not a member. The word compact returns zero matches in NDCC chapter 43-11 and zero across all eight chapters of NDAC Title 32. One thing to watch, and it cuts against arrivals. NDCC 43-51.1-02(1) opens "Unless the board is part of an effective interstate compact," and NDCC 43-51.1-03(1) exempts compact applications from the ten business day duty. So if North Dakota ever joins, the universal licensure door switches off for cosmetology and the ten day guarantee becomes "in a timely manner," automatically and with no further legislation. Both clauses were written in 2025, before North Dakota joined anything. Separately, NDCC 43-51.1-03(6) now requires the board to review available compacts annually on the record and file written reasons with the labor commissioner for declining, so its minutes will say more than any announcement.

What you actually do

  1. Add your school hours from your transcript and subtract them from 1,500. If you are short, work out whether you have the recent hours to cover it, at 1,000 hours worked for every 100 you are missing, all of it inside the last three years.
  2. Contact every state board where you hold or held a license and ask each to send a letter of certification, plus a copy of that state's licensing requirements, directly to bocinfo@nd.gov. Start this first, because nothing gets decided until it lands, and a copy of your license does not count.
  3. If you need the work experience credit, get the affidavit on page 2 of form SFN 11800 completed by your salon owner or manager and signed in front of a notary. Line up the signature before you leave your current job.
  4. Check the three year date on your license. If your original state did not require the NIC practical and theory examinations and you are inside three years, plan on sitting the NIC practical at the board office in Bismarck, the NIC theory, and the North Dakota law test through Prov.
  5. Download form SFN 11800 from the Forms tab and mail it to the board at 4719 Shelburne St, Suite 1, Bismarck ND 58503, with two forms of identification and proof of training. Do not use the licensing portal, which is offline until September 14, 2026.
  6. Wait for the approval email before paying anything. The board then sends the payment form, and you pay $105 plus $50. Do not work in North Dakota until the license is in hand.
  7. Once licensed, work in a licensed establishment, and get an independent licensee license as well if you rent your chair. Note that your license expires December 31 whatever month it issued, that fees are not prorated, and that four hours of continuing education a year start with the 2028 renewal cycle.

What we have not verified

We would rather name a gap than fill it with a guess. For North Dakota we have not established:

  • whether North Dakota runs the federal military spouse lane that lets a spouse practice with no state license

Everything else on this page is sourced below. If you need one of these answered before you move, the board is the fastest route, and we are working through them.

Official links for North Dakota

Verified August 2026. 12 questions about North Dakota remain open and are named in our research rather than guessed at.

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