Every CE requirement verified against official state nursing board sources. How RenewRN verifies the data →
Every CE requirement verified against official state nursing board sources. How RenewRN verifies the data →
Field guide · Free CE
Verified, accredited and state-approved courses curated by RenewRN. No upsells. If it's in this list, it's actually free.
Using CE from somewhere else? Check the provider is accredited and will count first.
28 courses · Last reviewed June 29, 2026
Showing 28 of 28 courses
Advocate Health
Free, ANCC-accredited 1-contact-hour implicit-bias awareness training for licensed healthcare professionals. A genuinely free national option for implicit-bias or cultural-competency CE; some states require 2 hours, so confirm the total against your state's requirement.
Free account required; the course page shows Cost: $0.00.
American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN)
Rotating library of free CE on acute and critical care topics: sepsis, hemodynamics, ventilation, ECG. Hour count varies by course. ANCC-accredited.
Free AACN account required (membership not required).
American Nurses Association
ANA releases free CE courses on rotating topics each month: leadership, ethics, evidence-based practice, well-being. Hour count varies.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Nurse-specific federal training on integrated, multimodal pain management and the nurse's role in safe opioid use. Free contact hours via CDC TRAIN.
Free CDC TRAIN account required (course WB4716R).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Free federal training on screening for, diagnosing, and managing opioid use disorder, including medications for OUD. Contact hours via CDC TRAIN.
Free CDC TRAIN account required (course WB4664R).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Self-paced immunization modules (vaccine administration, storage & handling, Vaccines for Children, and more), roughly 1 to 1.25 nursing contact hours each, free via CDC TRAIN.
Free CDC TRAIN account required; CE earned per module.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Free, federally produced training on safer opioid prescribing aligned with the 2022 CDC Clinical Practice Guideline. Satisfies state opioid CE mandates in several jurisdictions.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Comprehensive multi-module infection prevention course for long-term care (the full curriculum runs ~20 hours). Free nursing contact hours per module via CDC TRAIN.
Free CDC TRAIN account required; CE earned per module.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDC's STRIVE curriculum on preventing healthcare-associated infections: foundational and HAI-specific modules. Free nursing contact hours per module via CDC TRAIN.
Free CDC TRAIN account required; CE earned per module.
Elite Learning
Over 70 free CE courses across clinical specialties: patient safety, pharmacology, infection control, ethics. ANCC-accredited and accepted nationally.
Free Elite Learning account required.
HHS Office of Minority Health (Think Cultural Health)
Free, federally funded ANCC-accredited cultural-competency CE (about 5 contact hours) for behavioral health professionals. General cultural-competency CE; confirm it meets your state's specific cultural-competency or implicit-bias requirement.
HHS Office on Trafficking in Persons
The federal government's free human-trafficking training for healthcare professionals: recognizing, responding to, and reporting trafficking. Self-paced modules with nursing contact hours.
Free account required. Confirm it satisfies your state's specific mandatory requirement before relying on it.
Iowa Health and Human Services
Iowa's official free mandatory child-abuse reporter training (course DS-169), the state-approved course that meets the Iowa Board of Nursing reporter-training requirement. A separate dependent-adult course (DS-168) is also free.
Kentucky Board of Nursing
Free 1-contact-hour Alzheimer's and dementia course offered directly by the Kentucky Board of Nursing (board-issued, so board-accepted). Helps meet Kentucky's dementia and Alzheimer's CE content.
Medscape Education
Large, rotating library of free ANCC-accredited nursing CE across clinical specialties, pharmacology, and chronic-disease management. Genuinely free with an account.
Free Medscape account required; specific activities rotate and expire.
myCME (Medical Learning Institute / ACOFP, jointly accredited)
Free, ANCC-accredited 1-contact-hour activity on diagnosing Alzheimer's disease. A national dementia/Alzheimer's option useful toward Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island dementia CE; confirm your board accepts ANCC contact hours.
Free account required; activity expires February 26, 2027.
National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center (The Fenway Institute)
Free on-demand LGBTQ health learning modules (implicit bias, affirming communication, sexual- and gender-minority health) usable for the District of Columbia's LGBTQ cultural-competency CE requirement. Nurses are eligible for credit.
Free, but the exact contact-hour award per module is shown only after creating a free account; confirm hours meet DC's 2-hour LGBTQ requirement.
Nevada State Board of Nursing
Free cultural-competency CE (about 2 hours) offered through the Nevada State Board of Nursing's continuing-education resources, on the Board's own approved list.
New York State Office of Children and Family Services
Free 2-hour state-sponsored training that satisfies New York's mandated-reporter child-abuse identification and reporting requirement for nurse licensure. Provided at no cost by NY OCFS.
Nurse.com
Rotating library of free ANCC-accredited CE designed to satisfy state contact-hour requirements. Topics include human trafficking, dementia care, pain management, mental health.
Free Nurse.com account required.
Pri-Med Institute
Free library of New Jersey-specific end-of-life and palliative-care CME activities for nurse practitioners. Stack activities to reach New Jersey's 2-hour end-of-life requirement (N.J.A.C. 13:37).
Free account required; activities run about 0.75 hour each, so combine a few to reach 2 hours.
Simmons University (MA DPH-approved)
Free online training that satisfies the Massachusetts Chapter 260 domestic- and sexual-violence training requirement for nurse licensure. The training and certificate are free; a graded CEU-credit version is an optional paid add-on.
Free training and certificate satisfy the MA Chapter 260 requirement; the only paid option is optional graded CEU credit.
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
State-approved free human trafficking training that satisfies the Texas mandatory CE requirement for healthcare practitioners. Created and hosted by the Texas HHSC.
University at Buffalo / New York State Department of Health
New York's own free prescriber-education program (4 hours) covering pain management, palliative and hospice care, and addiction. Satisfies New York's mandatory prescriber education (PHL 3309-a) for DEA-registered prescribers including nurse practitioners.
Free (no fee). For DEA-registered prescribers (NPs); credit type is AMA PRA Category 1.
University of Pittsburgh / PA Child Welfare Resource Center
Free 3-hour child-abuse recognition and reporting course on the Pennsylvania Department of State's Act 31 approved-provider list, satisfying the Act 31 mandated-reporter training for nurse licensure.
University of Washington IDEA Program (HRSA-funded)
Free, comprehensive self-paced HIV curriculum with nursing CE across many lessons. Useful toward the District of Columbia's public-health (sexual health) CE priority; accumulate hours across lessons. Note: this does NOT satisfy Florida's or Nevada's HIV/AIDS mandates, which require state-specific content.
Free of charge; free account required. CE is earned per lesson, accumulate to the hours you need.
Wild Iris Medical Education
Free ANCC-accredited implicit bias training that satisfies the recurring implicit-bias CE requirement in Illinois and Michigan, plus California's and Maryland's one-time implicit-bias requirements, and counts as general CE elsewhere.
Wild Iris Medical Education
One free contact hour covering coronavirus pathophysiology, transmission, and clinical presentation. ANCC-accredited and accepted by all U.S. state nursing boards.
A free RenewRN account logs your CE against your state's requirement and tells you exactly how many hours are left before renewal. No payment, and you keep every entry.
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Ranked by how many state boards mandate each topic. The ones at the top satisfy a required CE category in the most states. A smart place to start before browsing the rest.
Opioid Prescribing & Pain Management
Required in 9 states5 free courses
Suicide Prevention & Mental Health
Required in 5 states3 free courses
Implicit Bias
Required in 4 states5 free courses
Dementia & Alzheimer's Care
Required in 4 states3 free courses
Human Trafficking
Required in 4 states3 free courses
Infection Control
Required in 1 state6 free courses
Patient Safety
Accepted broadly2 free courses
Some mandatory topics (Texas human trafficking, Florida domestic violence, California implicit bias) are state-specific. Jump to your state for the courses that satisfy its requirements. Every jurisdiction below.
Free CE keeps your license current. When you are ready to go further:
Yes. Every course in this catalog is verified free: no trial periods, no certificate paywalls, no "free with $X membership" gotchas. If a free account is required to access (AACN, Nurse.com, Elite Learning), that's noted directly on the entry.
Most are. Each entry lists its accreditor, typically ANCC (American Nurses Credentialing Center), and in some cases a state board of nursing for state-mandatory topics. ANCC-accredited CE is accepted by every U.S. state nursing board that recognizes ANCC.
Yes, in the states marked on each course. National (ANCC-accredited) courses count toward general contact-hour requirements in every U.S. state. State-specific courses (like the Texas HHSC HEART human-trafficking training) satisfy that state's mandatory CE category. Always confirm with your state board of nursing before relying on a single course for a mandated topic.
No. RenewRN earns nothing on the courses in this free catalog, and there are no upsells. The catalog exists because charging nurses for information they can get for free elsewhere is the thing we're trying to fix.
We verify every course URL weekly via an automated link checker, and re-check the catalog's free status and accreditation periodically. Providers sometimes move a course behind a paywall or trial without notice, so if you hit a catch we missed, tell us at /free-ce/submit and we'll pull it.
RenewRN earns nothing if you take any of these courses. We curate this list because charging nurses for information they can get for free is the thing we're trying to fix. If you find a free CE source we missed, email support@renewrn.net.
This catalog is free to cite or link to. No signup, no paywalls. Educators and writers are welcome to point students here. Suggested citation:
RenewRN Free CE Catalog (2026). 28 verified free nursing CE courses. https://www.renewrn.net/free-ce