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 →
Reviewed by Keegan, RN · ER & NICU travel nurse
Updated June 18, 2026
Before you spend money or hours on a course, you want to know it will actually count. The short answer: check the course for an ANCC accreditation statement and provider number, then confirm it against your own state board's rules, because what counts varies by state. Here is how to verify any provider, the red flags of a CE scam, and whether the big-name providers are genuinely accredited.
Look for the accreditation statement and provider number
A legitimate course carries a line like "accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation," plus a provider number. ANCC accreditation is the gold standard for nursing CE. No statement and no number is the first warning sign.
Check your own state board's rules (this is the decisive step)
There is no single national rule for what counts. Some states accept any nationally-accredited provider; some require their own board-issued provider number (California requires a BRN-approved CEP number, even for out-of-state providers); some run everything through a tracking system. Your board's CE page is the final word.
Know what CE Broker does, and does not, mean
CE Broker is the official CE tracking and reporting system for many boards (Florida, Mississippi, and others). A board-approved provider reports your hours into it. But CE Broker is a tracking system, not an accreditor: "it shows up in CE Broker" is reassuring, but it is not the same as "my board approved it."
Do not use Nursys to verify CE
Nursys verifies license status, discipline, and practice privileges, not continuing education. If a provider points you to Nursys as proof their CE is accepted, that is a misunderstanding. Verify CE through the accreditation statement and your board.
Want to check one specific course against your state and credentials? Use the course checker.
Most legitimate nursing CE traces back to the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), which accredits organizations to offer nursing continuing professional development. An accredited provider is an organization that passed a peer review against ANCC criteria and is authorized to award contact hours. Keep three things separate, because providers and scammers both blur them:
Accredited provider
An organization authorized to offer CE. This is what you are checking when you ask if a provider is legit.
Approved course
A single activity that carries contact hours because an accredited organization built or approved it.
Nurse certification
A nurse's own exam-based credential (the -BC suffix). Earned by an exam, not by taking CE.
ANCC states the line directly: accreditation applies to organizations, certification applies to individuals. You may also see CE accredited through joint accreditation (the shared system for physician, pharmacy, and nursing CE) or an ANCC-accredited approver such as AACN. All are legitimate. The catch is that acceptance still depends on your state.
What counts varies by state, in three patterns:
Outright nursing CE fraud is uncommon, and it usually surfaces at the state-board level as discipline for submitting CE that was falsified or not accepted, not as a federal case. (The widely-reported Operation Nightingale action was about fake nursing diplomas used to get licensed, not fake CE.) Still, worthless or bogus CE exists. Watch for these:
Accreditation from an official-sounding agency you have never heard of
The classic mill move, per the FTC, is to invent a bogus accrediting body with an impressive name and accredit itself. Cross-check any accreditor against the US Department of Education or CHEA recognized lists.
No provider number or accreditation statement on the certificate
A real accredited provider prints its accreditation language and number. A certificate with neither may not be accepted in a board audit.
Unlimited CE with no verifiable accreditation
Cheap or unlimited is fine on its own (plenty of legitimate providers are cheap). The problem is cheap or unlimited plus no provable accreditation.
It will not appear in CE Broker for a state that uses it
If your board tracks through CE Broker and a provider's hours never post there, that is a sign the provider is not board-recognized for your state.
Pressure, payment to verify accreditation, or a borrowed CHEA logo
CHEA never charges individuals and never licenses its name or logo. A demand to pay to confirm accreditation, or a pasted-on CHEA badge, is itself the scam.
To check whether an accreditor itself is real, use the US Department of Education or CHEA recognized lists, and remember the FTCwarning that a mill's tell is a self-created, official-sounding accreditor.
Yes. The major paid providers nurses search for all hold genuine, verifiable ANCC-recognized nursing CE accreditation (some directly, some through joint accreditation). The accredited legal entity is sometimes named differently from the brand, which is normal. We track pricing and accreditation for each:
Compare them, and find the cheapest accredited option, on the CE provider reviews page. Always check free first in the free CE catalog.
This is general educational information. CE acceptance rules vary by state and change over time; your state board of nursing is the authority on what counts toward your renewal. Verify acceptance before you rely on any course.
Once a course checks out, log it. RenewRN tracks your CE hours against your state's requirement and tells you exactly what is left before renewal, free.
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