How the totals are built

Each total on this site is the sum of the fees that one state's licensing board, its exam vendor and its fingerprint vendor publish for a first license, read on their own pages in October 2026, with every amount linked to the line where it appears. 173 state tables for 10 licenses were read one by one; one script turns them into the table that every page and calculator uses.

The pages that rank for these searches are written by schools and course sellers: they quote a national range, keep their own price behind a cart or an information form, and leave the state fees to you, while the boards spread those fees over several pages without a total. This site reads every fee a state board, its exam vendor and its fingerprint vendor charge, links each line to the page it came from, and adds them into one total for your state, with your tuition, exam retakes, training time and renewals.

1. The documents

For each license and state we looked for the board's fee page, then its fee rule in the administrative code or the statutes, then the candidate handbook of the exam vendor it names (PSI, Pearson VUE, Prometric, Prov, Credentia, D&S Diversified, Continental Testing). Insurance license fees come from the resident licensing pages that the National Insurance Producer Registry keeps for each state department of insurance (NIPR). When a board's site refused automated reading, the same rule was read on the state's official code site or on a dated archive of the board's page; the state page says so where it matters. Each amount is stored with the address of the page and a short quotation, so that it can be checked.

2. What a total counts

The total is what an applicant pays to the state and to the vendors it imposes before holding the license: application, license or registration, exams, fingerprints and background check, and the small state funds some boards add (recovery funds, technology fees). Where a state offers a combined exam that replaces two single exams, the combined one is counted. Optional routes, such as a trainee registration, are shown on the state page and left out of the total. A retake fee that differs from the first sitting is counted only from the second attempt.

Not counted: school tuition, books, kits and uniforms, which no board sets; the premium of a surety bond, which an insurer prices (the bond amount the law requires is shown); the DOT medical examination for a commercial driver, which the examiner prices; card processing fees of payment portals. When a board requires fingerprints but leaves the price to its vendor without publishing it, the state page says "not published" and the total leaves it out.

3. Exam attempts and tuition

The calculator counts each exam fee once per attempt you enter. The tuition field adds the quote you received from a school or course; the site publishes no tuition figure, because schools set their own prices and change them often.

4. Training time

Required hours are those the state sets in law or rule: course hours for real estate and insurance, school hours for cosmetology, esthetics and barbering, program hours for nurse aides, supervised work hours for electricians. The weeks shown divide those hours by the pace you choose; the default paces (30 hours a week for beauty schools, 15 for self-paced real estate and insurance courses, 40 for work hours) are our assumption, not a rule. A nurse aide program can never be shorter than the federal floor of 75 hours with 16 of supervised practice (42 CFR 483.152).

5. Renewals

Renewals are counted at each full cycle within the years you choose, at the fee the board publishes today. Continuing education hours are multiplied the same way. Licenses that never expire but require continuing education, such as insurance producer licenses in several states, show no renewal fee.

6. A worked example

A real estate sales agent in Texas pays the Texas Real Estate Commission $206 to apply, $58 to Pearson VUE for the state exam and $37 for fingerprints: $301 in all at the first attempt, $359 with one retake. The license requires 180 hours of qualifying courses. Over five years, 2 renewals at $110 add $220.

7. States not priced, and why

8. Limits

• A board can change a fee by rule at any time, and some do it every year. The amount on the board's page wins over ours; the date each table was read is on every state page.
• Fees for applicants licensed in another state (reciprocity or endorsement) often differ; the totals describe a first license by examination.
• Some states prorate a first license to a renewal date; the total uses the full fee the board lists.
• Nothing here is legal advice. Whether your hours, your record or your out-of-state license qualify is decided by the board.

Corrections: contact page.