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Occupational Licensure for Military Members and Spouses — Thirty Days, and No Fee At All

A licensing board must issue the licence within thirty days of a completed application from an active-duty member or their spouse who holds a similar licence elsewhere — and SDCL 36-1B-4 bars the board from charging an application fee or any other fee for it.

Verified August 22, 2026

What this benefit is

A licensing board must issue the licence within thirty days of a completed application from an active-duty member or their spouse who holds a similar licence elsewhere — and SDCL 36-1B-4 bars the board from charging an application fee or any other fee for it.

What it's worth: Licence issued within thirty days of a completed application, with no application fee or any other board fee

  • The fee bar does not reach permits that require an inspection — the inspection cost still stands.
  • The out-of-state requirements must be substantially equivalent to those here; the board judges that.

Who is entitled to it

  • You or your spouse serve or served in the armed forces.
  • You are in this state.

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

  1. 1Identify the board that licenses your profession and ask for its application under SDCL ch. 36-1B specifically — asking for the ordinary application gets you the ordinary fee.
  2. 2Show a valid, similar licence from another state or the District of Columbia, and the military transfer that brought you here. A spouse qualifies by having left employment to accompany the member.
  3. 3Send nothing with the application by way of payment. The chapter says no licensing body may charge an application fee or any other fee payable to it for a licence issued under it.
  4. 4Once the board deems the application complete, it has thirty days to issue. Get the completeness confirmed in writing — the clock starts there, and that is the date worth having on record.
  5. 5The licence renews until active-duty orders move you out of state, the original licence lapses, maintenance requirements go unmet, or active-duty status ends. Ask the board which of those it tracks and how.
  6. 6If your profession is covered by an interstate compact, the compact route is not overridden by this chapter — check which of the two gets you working sooner.
Form
Board application citing SDCL 36-1B
File with
The licensing board for your profession
Documents you will need
dd214
Periodic
Re-confirmed from time to time.
CorrectionThis is routinely summarised as "expedited licensing for military spouses". The expediting is the smaller half. The fee bar is absolute — no application fee and no other fee payable to the board — and it is the part that boards do not volunteer.
Worth knowingThe exception is worth knowing so you do not think you are being overcharged: a permit that requires an inspection still carries the inspection cost. That is the only carve-out.
Worth knowingThe chapter is written around the active-duty member and the spouse who moved with them. A veteran who separated years ago is not the person this chapter was drafted for — ask the board whether it has a separate veteran route rather than assuming this one covers you.

Sources

Why only one source type: The chapter itself was read in full from the legislature's own statute service, and it states the thirty-day duty, the fee bar and the renewal conditions in terms. No administering board publishes a single page covering all licensing boards, because each board applies the chapter itself.

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.