Identify every license
Check the rules for each jurisdiction where you hold an active PE license—not only your home state.
Professional Engineer Continuing Education
States With Special Requirements
Most engineering boards require relevant continuing professional competency, but the details are not uniform. Use this guide to spot jurisdiction-specific subjects, provider rules, online-course limits, and reporting requirements before selecting a course.
Jurisdictions reviewed: all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories | Review date: July 20, 2026
Check before you purchase or report credit
This is an informational screening guide—not legal advice, board approval, or a guarantee that a particular course will be accepted. Rules, interpretations, exemptions, and renewal dates change. The licensee is responsible for confirming current requirements with each board and selecting courses relevant to the licensee’s practice.
Subject mandatesEthics, laws and rules, harassment prevention, HSW, or building codes
Delivery limitsSome boards restrict self-study, online, or noninteractive credit
Sponsor rulesSome jurisdictions require an approved provider, sponsor, or course
Start Here
A course can be educational and still miss a board rule
Check the cycle
Confirm the renewal period, hours due, exemptions, carryover, and whether hours must be earned inside that cycle.
Match the category
Look for ethics, jurisdiction law, HSW, technical-area, accessibility, or other required subjects.
Verify the format
Confirm provider status, online eligibility, assessment method, certificate details, and reporting duties.
Important Differences
Jurisdictions that deserve an extra check
The entries below emphasize rules that can affect course selection. They do not reproduce every renewal, carryover, exemption, or audit provision.
| Jurisdiction | Requirement to watch | What it means for an Online-PDH customer |
|---|---|---|
| California | No general PE PDH mandate; a board laws-and-rules renewal assessment applies to renewals submitted on or after July 1, 2026. | The assessment is a board renewal requirement, not a substitute course to purchase from a provider. |
| Delaware | 24 PDH per biennium, including 2–6 ethics hours, 9–22 technical hours, and no more than 9 business-practice hours. | Plan the category mix; a certificate alone does not show that the full portfolio satisfies the limits. |
| District of Columbia | 20 hours per two-year cycle, including a professional-ethics course. | Make sure at least one selected course clearly meets the ethics component. |
| Florida | 18 hours per biennium: 1 ethics, 1 Florida laws and rules, 4 area-of-practice, and 12 additional relevant hours. Certain building-design practice also triggers a Florida Building Code hour. | The Florida laws-and-rules course must come from an appropriately approved provider. Florida now uses NCEES CPC Tracking for PE reporting. |
| Georgia | 15 PDH each year rather than one larger biennial total. | Complete and document the annual amount; do not assume hours can all be earned at the end of a two-year period. |
| Idaho | 24 hours per biennium using at least two qualifying activity types. | Online courses may form part of the record, but one activity type alone may not complete the requirement. |
| Illinois | PE renewal includes professional ethics, Illinois statutes/rules, and sexual-harassment-prevention education within the 30-hour cycle. | General technical courses cannot replace the specifically required subjects. Illinois structural-engineer rules are separate. |
| Indiana | 30 hours per biennium, including ethics and Indiana statutes-and-rules content. | Select a course expressly suited to the Indiana law component when claiming that category. |
| Iowa | 30 hours per biennium, with limits that may apply to independent study or online delivery. | Confirm the current delivery-category cap before relying primarily on asynchronous courses. |
| Kansas | 30 hours per biennium, with at least 24 addressing health, safety, property, or welfare; no more than 10 PDH may be earned in a 24-hour period. | Choose predominantly HSW-relevant content and spread completions over compliant dates. |
| Louisiana | 15 PDH annually, including ethics; engineers designing buildings or building systems have an additional life-safety, building-code, or accessibility subject requirement under board rules. | Confirm that the course subject and certificate support the category claimed. |
| Maryland | 16 PDH per biennium, including the board’s ethics or laws-and-regulations component. | Verify the current category wording before choosing the course used for that component. |
| Michigan | 30 hours per biennium, including 2 hours of professional ethics. | Reserve two hours for clearly identified ethics content. |
| Minnesota | 24 PDH per biennium, including 2 ethics hours. | Use appropriately categorized ethics courses and retain completion evidence. |
| Nebraska | 30 hours per biennium, including ethics, with a daily earning limit. | A large batch of same-day course completions may exceed the amount the board permits for that day. |
| Nevada | 30 hours per biennium, including 2 ethics hours and a Nevada statutes-and-regulations component. | Home-state compliance may help with general CPC, but does not eliminate Nevada-specific law education. |
| New Jersey | 24 hours per biennium, including 2 ethics hours; provider-approval rules apply. | Confirm Online-PDH’s current New Jersey provider status and that the chosen course fits the claimed category. |
| New York | 36 hours per triennial registration period, including ethics, with approved-sponsor and course-delivery requirements. | Use a New York-approved sponsor/course where required and follow the state’s documentation and completion rules. |
| North Carolina | 15 PDH annually; board treatment of sponsor recognition and home-jurisdiction compliance differs from many states. | Confirm eligibility under the current individual-licensee rules; a provider listing is not itself a guarantee of acceptance. |
| North Dakota | 30 hours per biennium, including technical and ethics allocations. | Track the category mix rather than relying only on the total number of hours. |
| Ohio | 30 hours per biennium, including professional ethics or laws-and-rules education. | Confirm the current qualifying-activity and delivery rules before using a course for the required category. |
| Pennsylvania | 24 PDH per biennium; practice-building and office-management content is excluded. | Select engineering-relevant education rather than general business-development material. |
| South Dakota | 30 hours per biennium, with a minimum technical allocation and a cap on business/practice-management credit. | Do not build the renewal entirely from management-oriented courses. |
| Tennessee | 24 hours per biennium with a health, safety, and welfare allocation; first-renewal requirements differ and carryover is not allowed. | Match the amount to your renewal status and earn the required HSW content inside the applicable cycle. |
| Texas | 15 hours per renewal cycle, including 1 ethics hour; self-study is capped and the ethics hour cannot be carried over. | Provider-documented online courses are treated differently from unsupported self-study. Retain the certificate and course details. |
| Virginia | 16 hours per biennium; credit is valid for only one renewal cycle and carryover is not allowed. | Do not reuse or carry the same completion into a later Virginia renewal. |
| Wisconsin | 30 hours per biennium, including 2 ethics hours, with limits on credit earned through online delivery. | Confirm the current live/interactive balance before relying on self-paced online courses for the full renewal. |
| Wyoming | Nonresident compliance may be based on the mandatory CPC rules of the licensee’s resident jurisdiction. | Keep evidence of both the completed education and the home-jurisdiction requirement relied upon. |
Different Does Not Mean Exempt Everywhere
States without a general PE PDH mandate
At the time of this review, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington did not impose a general periodic PDH requirement on all active professional engineers. California’s separate renewal assessment is noted above.
A licensee may still need education because of another state license, a specialized credential, employer or contract requirements, disciplinary terms, reactivation, or a future rule change.
Territories
Verify territorial rules directly
Puerto Rico
The current regulation reviewed establishes a 75-contact-hour continuing-education requirement beginning February 27, 2023 and includes course/provider accreditation and documentation provisions. Confirm current CIAPR and examining-board procedures before enrollment.
Northern Mariana Islands
NCEES board settings list 28 hours per biennium with no carryover. Confirm acceptable subjects, delivery methods, and proof directly with the board.
Guam
NCEES board settings list no general PE CPC requirement. Other obligations or later rule changes may still apply.
American Samoa and U.S. Virgin Islands
This review did not locate sufficiently clear, current public PE continuing-education instructions to support a definitive summary. Contact the applicable licensing authority before relying on a course or assuming no requirement.
Coverage Check
All 50 states were reviewed
“Standard review” means no additional Online-PDH-specific warning was highlighted here; it does not mean the state has no rules.
Special details above
CA, DE, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, MD, MI, MN, NE, NV, NJ, NY, NC, ND, OH, PA, SD, TN, TX, VA, WI, WY
No general PE PDH mandate
AZ, CA, CO, CT, HI, MA, RI, WA
Standard board review
AL, AK, AR, KY, ME, MS, MO, MT, NH, NM, OK, OR, SC, UT, VT, WV
Also reviewed: District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and U.S. Virgin Islands. Requirements for land surveyors, structural engineers, architects, geologists, and other professions may differ and are outside this PE-focused summary.
Authoritative Starting Points
Confirm the current rule
Please verify acceptance. Contact your board if a rule is unclear, if you hold licenses in multiple jurisdictions, or if a course will be used for a mandated category. Online-PDH can explain its course format and documentation, but only the licensing board makes the final credit determination.