North Dakota Professional Engineer Renewal
North Dakota professional engineers complete 30 professional development hours during each biennial renewal period, including at least 20 technical hours and 1 ethics-oriented hour.
Authority: North Dakota State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors | Reviewed: August 3, 2026
Complete 30 PDH every two years. At least 20 hours must be technical subjects directly safeguarding public health, safety, and welfare; no more than 10 may be nontechnical professional subjects; and at least 1 nontechnical hour must be ethics-oriented. Up to 15 qualifying hours may carry forward. The Board does not preapprove courses or providers.
Core Requirement
| Requirement | North Dakota PE rule |
|---|---|
| Total education | Complete 30 professional development hours during every two-year renewal period. |
| Technical subjects | At least 20 PDH must be technical subjects that directly safeguard public health, safety, and welfare and relate to the licensee’s field of practice. |
| Nontechnical subjects | No more than 10 PDH may be in nontechnical professional-related subjects. |
| Ethics | At least 1 of the nontechnical professional-development hours must be an ethics-oriented class. The Board’s guidance recognizes courses with ethics in the title and courses dealing with laws and rules. |
| Carryover | Up to 15 qualifying PDH may be forwarded into the immediately subsequent biennial renewal period. |
| Provider approval | The Board does not preapprove courses, providers, or activities. The registrant selects qualifying learning, and the Board makes the final credit determination during an audit. |
| Dual registrants | A person registered in both engineering and land surveying completes 30 total PDH, with at least 10 hours in each profession. |
Acceptable Activities
Qualifying activities should have a purpose and objective that maintains, improves, or expands the engineer’s skills and knowledge. Technical activities must relate to the field of practice and directly support public health, safety, and welfare.
These subjects are more appropriately treated as nontechnical—or may be denied entirely—unless the licensee can document a direct technical and public-protection connection.
Online and Recorded Education
North Dakota accepts correspondence courses, recorded programs, and online courses when the participant demonstrates achievement through a final graded test or receives a certificate of completion. The rules do not establish a separate numerical cap on qualifying online education.
A structured online course may therefore provide all required hours when it contains relevant technical and ethics content in the required proportions, uses an appropriate completion assessment, assigns supportable hours, and issues verifiable documentation.
Provider approval is not required. The engineer remains responsible for selecting courses that meet North Dakota’s technical, nontechnical, ethics, and public-protection standards.
Exemptions and Special Situations
A registrant licensed before the fourth quarter of an odd-numbered year reports the full 30 hours at the next renewal. A registrant licensed before the fourth quarter of an even-numbered year reports 15 hours. Confirm individual timing with the Board when licensed during the fourth quarter.
A registrant on temporary active duty, or regular active duty with deployment exceeding 120 consecutive days in a year, is exempt from the hours required during that year.
The Board may approve an exemption for physical disability, illness, temporary leave from professional activity, or another extenuating circumstance when supporting documentation is provided.
Approved retired registrants are exempt. A narrowly defined exemption may also apply to certain professional engineers who are legally exempt from registration but maintain a voluntary registration based on their primary employment.
Documentation and Audit
Registrants must keep a specific activity log and attendance verification for at least four years from the date of the last biennial renewal. Records may be stored on an electronic platform if they can be exported to a commonly used, readable file type.
The Board randomly selects 5% of engineers and 5% of land surveyors for audit every two years. An audited registrant generally has 30 days to provide detailed records. If the audit identifies a deficiency, the registrant has 60 days after written notice to reinforce the claim or obtain sufficient additional credit.
Official Sources