Free Nursing CEUs 2026: Free Courses for Every State

Which free CE providers are worth your time?

These are the providers behind most of the courses in the directory, with what each one actually charges. Every figure was read on the provider’s own page on September 30, 2026.

Medscape Education is jointly accredited, including by the ANCC, through July 2028, and most nurses know it as a free source. Its activities sit behind a Medscape login, so we could not read a price on any course page and it is not in the directory table. Use it, but check the activity before you rely on it.

What free CEUs does the CDC offer?

CDC is jointly accredited to award nursing contact hours and states that no fees are charged for its CE activities. You take the course on CDC’s site and claim the certificate on CDC TRAIN, which needs a free account. The directory lists eleven of CDC’s opioid, pain and substance use modules, most between half an hour and an hour, which are the easiest way to meet a small prescriber requirement such as North Carolina’s one hour or New Jersey’s one hour on opioids.

NIOSH’s Workplace Violence Prevention for Nurses is now course WB5032: 2.5 contact hours in six units, free, with credit available until July 2029. It replaced the older WB4525R version, which some lists still quote.

How many free contact hours does the ANA offer?

On September 30, 2026, 25 courses in ANA’s catalog cost $0 for non-members, about 45.9 contact hours in total. You do not need to be a member, but you do need an ANA account and a checkout at $0. See You Now, the podcast series on inequity in care, is now four separate 4-hour courses, and Mental Health Trailblazers is two courses of 3 and 4 hours. The rest is mostly short infection control modules and workplace violence.

Not everything in the catalog is free to everyone. Some courses are free only to members, and ANA’s human trafficking course costs non-members $25; for that topic, HHS SOAR and Nemours offer free versions, both in the directory. Membership adds more CE and $100 off ANCC certification exams. Use our nursing certification comparison to see whether a certification pays for itself in your specialty.

What other providers offer free nursing CEUs?

State boards and state agencies are the most overlooked source, and for required topics often the only free one. The Kentucky Board of Nursing gives every nurse its courses free, including the one-hour dementia course Kentucky requires. Alabama’s board runs its mandatory class for new licensees at no cost. Iowa’s health department offers the only approved mandatory reporter courses free, New York’s child abuse reporting training is free through the state, and Nebraska’s health department posts the opioid modules its prescribers need. The directory flags each of these with the state it is approved for.

NursingCE.com rotates a small set of free courses; two were free when we checked. HHS SOAR covers human trafficking in 2 hours, and Nemours offers a 2-hour human trafficking course from a Florida Board of Nursing approved provider.

Several well-known providers, including Nurse.com, Wild Iris and Elite Learning, blocked our checks, so we could not confirm what is free on their sites today. They are left out rather than listed on trust.

Where can nurses find free specialty-specific CEUs?

For psychiatric and addiction nursing, APNA’s free opioid use disorder courses and the PCSS-MOUD training are the strongest options. For infectious disease, the University of Washington’s National HIV Curriculum and its hepatitis B and C courses carry a large share of pharmacology hours, which is useful for nurse practitioners who need pharmacology credit. For long-term care, CDC’s nursing home infection preventionist training is free, though the page gives no exact contact hours.

The free 8-hour substance use disorder training from PCSS-MOUD meets the one-time DEA training requirement that took effect June 27, 2023, and awards 9.25 nursing credits through AAAP. That requirement applies to DEA-registered prescribers, which in nursing means APRNs. Staff RNs do not hold DEA registrations and are not required to take it. PCSS-MOUD’s federal funding ended on September 29, 2026; AAAP says the course remains available. Who needs it, what counts and the free options are in our guide to the DEA 8-hour training for NPs.

Specialty organizations bundle CE into membership rather than giving it away: AACN membership is $78 a year. If you’re considering a specialty, our nursing career change quiz and certification comparison cover the CE each certification expects.

What free CEUs do government agencies offer nurses?

Beyond CDC, the federal sources that award nursing contact hours at no cost are HHS’s Think Cultural Health (culturally and linguistically appropriate care, 4 hours for nurses), HHS SOAR for human trafficking, and the SAMHSA-funded PCSS-MOUD substance use training. State health departments fill in the state-specific topics, as the Iowa, New York, Nebraska and Texas courses in the directory show.

One federal source is often listed as free nursing CE and is not: AHRQ’s PSNet WebM&M cases carry physician CME only. OSHA’s Worker Safety in Hospitals pages are worth reading on safe patient handling and workplace violence, but check for a certificate before you count them.

Can nurses earn free CEUs from podcasts?

Yes, and the easiest free one is ANA’s. The See You Now series is four 4-hour courses and Mental Health Trailblazers two more of 3 and 4 hours, all $0 for non-members. Audio CE from commercial providers is usually part of a subscription; CEUfast’s annual plan is $39.99.

If you’re preparing for the NCLEX rather than renewing, see our NCLEX-PN study guide and NCLEX study while working guide.

How should nurses track their continuing education?

The biggest mistake nurses make with CE is losing certificates or forgetting which courses they’ve completed, and it only matters when you are audited, which is the worst time to go looking.

If your state uses CE Broker, check the CE Broker line under each course in the directory. “Reports for you” means the provider says it sends your completion; for everything else, upload the certificate yourself. Most of the free courses here, including all of CDC’s, do not report. The free CE App (myceapp.com) is a tracker, not a course provider: it holds your certificates in one place.

What are the best low-cost CE options for nurses?

If your state’s required topics have no free course, or you want everything in one place, these are the cheapest ways to buy it.

At $19.99 a year, RN.org is the cheapest unlimited option we found, and the only low-cost one that says it reports to CE Broker. Before you buy for a required topic such as Florida’s laws and rules, confirm the provider is approved by your board for that topic.