California has not enacted the PA Licensure Compact, and that cuts in both directions.
Both directions
No compact privilege will authorize practice in California when privileges open. And a California license will not serve as the qualifying license for a privilege anywhere else.
The second half is the one that surprises people. A PA who has practiced in California for fifteen years with an unblemished record has, as things stand, no route into the compact at all — not a slower route, none.
What a California license costs
The Physician Assistant Board charges a 5 application fee and 00 for the initial license, with biennial renewal at 00. A rulemaking has proposed raising the initial license fee to 50, and AB 1501 would authorize the Board to go considerably higher — up to 00 for initial licensure and the same for renewal. Confirm the current schedule before filing, because this is a moving figure.
As application fees go, 5 is among the lowest in the country. The cost sits in renewal, not entry.
Planning around it
If California is where you work, keep the license and treat the compact as irrelevant to your practice until the legislature acts.
If you work in California and want optionality elsewhere, the move is a second license in a member state — obtained now, on an ordinary two-to-four-month timeline, rather than in the rush when privileges open.
Membership changes with legislative sessions. Check our California state page for the date we last verified it.
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