What a professional license costs in your state, every fee added up

Why a total by state, and where each line comes from

A license fee is never one number. A Texas real estate applicant pays the commission to apply, Pearson VUE to sit the exam and IDEMIA for fingerprints, three payees on three pages. A Washington cosmetology student pays the Department of Licensing a small application fee and then Prov twice, for a written and a practical exam that cost more than the license itself. Search results answer with national averages from schools that sell the course, which says little about the state you live in.

This site reads the documents a board actually publishes: its fee page, its fee rule in the state code and the candidate handbook of the exam vendor it names. Every amount is stored with the address of that page and the line that shows it, and each state page lists them with a link. Where a state offers a combined exam, the combined one is counted; where a fee is optional, it is shown and left out; where one fee could not be read, the state is not priced rather than half priced. The method page gives each reading rule and the list of states still missing.

Fees, tuition and time are three different bills

State fees are the part nobody can negotiate, and the part this site totals for you. Tuition is set by each school and changes often, so the calculator leaves a field for the quote you received instead of printing an average. Time is the third cost: a cosmetology license asks for a thousand hours or more of school, an electrician's for years of supervised work, a notary commission for a few hours of reading or none. The calculator turns the required hours into weeks at the pace you choose, and the time page compares licenses side by side.

Renewal is the bill that comes back. Most licenses renew every one to four years, some with continuing education hours; a few, like insurance producer licenses in several states, never expire as long as the education is done. The renewal page adds the renewals due over the years you plan to work.

What these totals are not

They are the published fees of each board, not a promise that a board will accept your file. Criminal history reviews, school transcripts, experience affidavits and reciprocity requests are decided by the board, sometimes after months. A board can also raise a fee by rule at any time: every state page shows the date its documents were read and links to them, so you can check the line before you pay.