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No Initial Application Fee for Military-Trained Applicants and Military Spouses
Every occupational licensing board in the state is barred from charging a military-trained applicant or a military spouse an initial application fee — including for a temporary practice permit, which must be issued within 15 days and runs at least a year.
Verified August 22, 2026
What this benefit is
Every occupational licensing board in the state is barred from charging a military-trained applicant or a military spouse an initial application fee — including for a temporary practice permit, which must be issued within 15 days and runs at least a year.
What it's worth: No initial application fee at any state licensing board, plus a temporary permit inside 15 days
- Initial application fees differ board by board, so we carry no dollar figure. The bar on charging one does not depend on the board.
- The waiver is on the initial application fee. Renewal fees, examination fees and background-check costs are not addressed by this section.
Who is entitled to it
- You served, so the military-trained applicant route is open to you.
- You are a military spouse, which is the second route.
- Your home is in North Carolina.
Not sure whether that describes you?
Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.
How to claim it
- 1Say which route you are on when you apply, and say it in writing — the fee bar attaches to the status, and a board that does not know your status will invoice you.
- 2The military-trained route asks for a military occupational specialty substantially equivalent to the licensure requirements, active practice of the occupation for at least two of the five years preceding the application, and no disqualifying conduct or pending complaint.
- 3If your specialty does not map cleanly, ask about the alternative route: official notarised documentation such as a DD-214 plus a proficiency examination the board must offer. Where the board already runs an ordinary examination, that examination satisfies the requirement.
- 4The spouse route asks for a current licence from a jurisdiction with substantially equivalent standards, plus competency shown either by continuing education or by two of the last five years in practice.
- 5Ask for the temporary practice permit at the same time. The board must issue it within 15 days where the other jurisdiction is substantially equivalent, and it lasts for the later of one year or the ordinary renewal date for that occupation.
- 6Have volunteer and part-time work counted. The statute credits all relevant experience of a military spouse, full-time and part-time, paid or unpaid, in the calculation of years of practice.
- Form
- Board application, claiming military-trained applicant or military spouse status
- File with
- The occupational licensing board for your profession
- Documents you will need
- dd214
- At each renewal
- Claimed again whenever the underlying licence or registration renews.
CorrectionThe fee bar is the part that gets dropped. Subsection (k) says a licensing board "shall not charge a military-trained applicant or a military spouse an initial application fee" — and it reaches the temporary practice permit too. Summaries that describe this statute purely as training-credit understate it by the whole cost of applying.
Worth knowingThe temporary permit does not expire the moment full licensure is decided one way or the other; it runs for the later of one year or the occupation’s ordinary renewal date, so a slow review does not put a spouse out of work.
Worth knowingVolunteer hours count. For a military spouse the statute credits all relevant experience "regardless of whether in a paid or volunteer capacity" toward years of practice — which matters where postings have made continuous paid employment impossible.
Known gapThe legislature’s statute server (ncleg.gov and ncleg.net) answers WebFetch with HTTP 403 and answers a browser with a Cloudflare challenge, so the section is quoted from a state licensing board’s own reproduction rather than from the legislative text. The board is itself bound by the section.
Sources
- authority · statuteN.C.G.S. §93B-15.1, as published by the North Carolina State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners — subsections (a), (a2), (b), (c), (f) and (k)
- operating · published policyN.C. Office of Emergency Medical Services — Military Equivalency Credential, applying N.C.G.S. §93B-15.1 (two-of-five-years practice test, 15-day written verification)
This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.