Free Nursing CE Providers: Can They Cover Your Full Renewal?
Short answer: partly. The free sources below offer real ANCC-accredited nursing contact hours. None of them is verified to cover every mandated topic in California, Texas, Washington, Pennsylvania or Florida, so we rate each one as covering part of a renewal, not all of it.
Free CE sources at a glance
| Free source | Nursing hours we verified | Full or partial? |
|---|---|---|
| CDC / NIOSH: Workplace Violence Prevention for Nurses (WB5032) | 2.5 (CDC designates this activity for 2.5 nursing contact hours). | PARTIAL |
| CDC: Zoonoses and One Health Updates (ZOHU) Call | 1.0 per call (ANCC CNE statement on the page). CE is available for three years after each call’s live date. | PARTIAL |
| American Nurses Association (ANA): free online courses | Environmental Infection Control: A Focus on High-Touch Cleaning and Disinfection (1.0); Risk Associated with Non-sterile Glove Use (1.0); The Concept of Infection Control (0.5); Asking and Advocating for What Nurses Need (1.5). That is 4.0 ANCC contact hours in total. | PARTIAL |
| HHS Think Cultural Health: CLAS in Nursing | 4 hours for nurses. HHS notes the course is under review for updates. Listed expiration: December 31, 2026. | PARTIAL |
| University of Washington: National HIV Curriculum (4th Edition) | UW lists 77.50 free CME/CNE/CE across the curriculum. Each activity carries up to 2.0 ANCC contact hours. | PARTIAL |
| Medscape Education | Hours vary by activity. We couldn't verify a nursing-hour total or count. | PARTIAL |
CDC / NIOSH: Workplace Violence Prevention for Nurses (WB5032)
| Item | What we verified |
|---|---|
| Cost | Free. The page says “No fees are charged for CDC's CE activities.” |
| Nursing contact hours | 2.5 (CDC designates this activity for 2.5 nursing contact hours). |
| Accreditor | CDC is jointly accredited by ACCME, ACPE and ANCC. |
| How to get the certificate | On CDC TRAIN, search WB5032, register and complete the course, pass the post-assessment at 81%, complete the evaluation, then open “Your Learning” for the certificate. Deadline listed: July 9, 2029. |
| Topic fit | Workplace violence prevention. We did not find a board page that counts it toward Washington health equity or suicide prevention, Texas jurisprudence and ethics, or any other mandated topic we track. |
Covers 2.5 hours. It cannot cover any state’s full hour total, and no state we checked lists it as meeting a mandated topic.
CDC: Zoonoses and One Health Updates (ZOHU) Call
| Item | What we verified |
|---|---|
| Cost | Free. CDC calls it “free continuing education (CE)” through CDC TRAIN. |
| Nursing contact hours | 1.0 per call (ANCC CNE statement on the page). CE is available for three years after each call’s live date. |
| Accreditor | CDC (ANCC statement on the page). |
| How to get the certificate | Watch the webinar, register for the course on CDC TRAIN, check the CE type you need, pass the 5-question assessment at 80%, complete the evaluation, then open “Your Learning.” |
| Topic fit | One Health / zoonotic disease. Not a mandated topic in any state we checked. |
1.0 hour per call. You would need many calls to reach a full total, and no mandated topic is covered.
American Nurses Association (ANA): free online courses
| Item | What we verified |
|---|---|
| Cost | $0.00 list and member price on ANA’s catalog for each course below. |
| Nursing contact hours | Environmental Infection Control: A Focus on High-Touch Cleaning and Disinfection (1.0); Risk Associated with Non-sterile Glove Use (1.0); The Concept of Infection Control (0.5); Asking and Advocating for What Nurses Need (1.5). That is 4.0 ANCC contact hours in total. |
| Accreditor | ANA lists each course with “ANCC Contact Hours.” |
| How to get the certificate | We couldn't verify ANA’s claim steps without signing in. |
| Topic fit | Infection control and nurse advocacy. Not a mandated topic in any state we checked. |
4.0 hours in total, which is below every state hour total we track. It covers no mandated topic.
HHS Think Cultural Health: CLAS in Nursing
| Item | What we verified |
|---|---|
| Cost | Free (“this free, four-hour e-learning program”). |
| Nursing contact hours | 4 hours for nurses. HHS notes the course is under review for updates. Listed expiration: December 31, 2026. |
| Accreditor | Cine-Med (jointly accredited by ACCME, ACPE and ANCC) with HHS. The page says these hours “are recognized by the State of California Board of Registered Nursing.” |
| How to get the certificate | Register on the site, review each module, score at least 80% on the post-test, and complete the evaluation. The certificate arrives by email. |
| Topic fit | Cultural competency. This is not California’s implicit bias requirement. It is also not on Washington DOH’s list of free health equity trainings, so we couldn't verify that it meets Washington’s health equity rule. |
4 hours, and the only free source here that says in writing that California’s BRN recognizes it. That still falls short of California’s 30 hours.
University of Washington: National HIV Curriculum (4th Edition)
| Item | What we verified |
|---|---|
| Cost | No cost. “All continuing education activity is provided at no-cost” (HRSA-funded). |
| Nursing contact hours | UW lists 77.50 free CME/CNE/CE across the curriculum. Each activity carries up to 2.0 ANCC contact hours. |
| Accreditor | UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine (jointly accredited by ACCME, ACPE and ANCC). |
| How to get the certificate | Sign in, read a lesson or Question Bank topic, score 80% on the quiz, submit the survey, then print or save the CE transcript (held in a UAB account). |
| Topic fit | HIV diagnosis, treatment and prevention. These are hours in your area of practice only if your practice involves HIV care. No state mandated topic we track is met by name. |
This is the only free source we checked with enough hours to reach a full state total. But it covers none of the required topics, and the hours only count if HIV care is in your area of practice (Texas, for example, requires this).
Medscape Education
| Item | What we verified |
|---|---|
| Cost | Free. Medscape’s help center says “All of Medscape's content is available completely free of charge,” including CME activities. You need a free account and must be logged in. |
| Nursing contact hours | Hours vary by activity. We couldn't verify a nursing-hour total or count. |
| Accreditor | Medscape, LLC is accredited by ANCC as a provider of continuing nursing education (and by ACCME and ACPE). |
| How to get the certificate | Log in, open an activity at medscape.org, finish all pages, pass the test (at least 75% correct), complete any evaluation, then view the certificate in the Activity Tracker. |
| Topic fit | We couldn't verify a Medscape nursing activity that meets a state-mandated topic. |
We couldn't verify how many nursing hours are available or whether any of them meet a mandated topic. So we can only call it partial.
Can free CE cover a full renewal? State by state
| State | What the board requires (official page) | Can free CE cover it? |
|---|---|---|
| California | 30 contact hours every 2 years from a CE provider the BRN recognizes. The BRN accepts ANCC-approved courses taken out of state; courses offered in California by out-of-state organizations need a BRN-approved CEP number. New licensees need 1 hour of implicit bias from a BRN-approved CEP. CPR/BLS do not count. | PARTIAL. Think Cultural Health (4 hours) is the only free source here that says in writing that California’s BRN recognizes it. We couldn't verify that hours from CDC, ANA, UW/UAB or Medscape count in California, and we found no free implicit bias course from a BRN-approved CEP. |
| Texas | 20 contact hours every 2 years in your area of practice (or an approved national certification), from a Board-recognized credentialing agency or provider. ANCC is on the list. You also need 2 hours of nursing jurisprudence and ethics before the end of every third renewal cycle. That course must cover the Texas Nursing Practice Act, BON rules including 217.11, position statements, nursing ethics and professional boundaries. BLS, CPR and employer in-services do not count. | PARTIAL. The ANCC hours here meet Texas’s accreditor rule. For nurses whose practice fits, the National HIV Curriculum alone has enough hours for the 20-hour total. None of these free sources covers Texas jurisprudence and ethics, so no combination is verified as complete for a cycle when that course is due. We did not check every other targeted Texas requirement. |
| Washington | 8 CE hours every year, including 2 hours of health equity CE, plus 96 practice hours and a one-time 6-hour training in suicide assessment, treatment and management from a qualified program. | PARTIAL. None of these free sources is verified as meeting Washington’s health equity or suicide prevention training. Washington DOH keeps its own list of free health equity trainings; see the WA DOH link. |
| Pennsylvania | 30 hours every 2 years, including 2 hours of Board-approved child abuse recognition and reporting each renewal, and 2 hours of organ donation education once within 5 years (beginning May 1, 2026). | PARTIAL. None of these free sources is verified as Board-approved child abuse or organ donation education, and we did not verify that Pennsylvania accepts each accreditor. |
| Florida | 24 hours every 2 years, including prevention of medical errors, Florida laws and rules, and human trafficking every renewal, plus other topics on set cycles. Florida requires electronic reporting to CE Broker. | PARTIAL. None of these free sources is verified as meeting a Florida mandated topic, and we couldn't verify that any of them report to CE Broker. If a provider doesn’t report, check with CE Broker on how to add the course yourself. |
How free hours get validated
Free hours count only when four things line up:
- A recognized provider or accreditor. Your board decides which accreditors it accepts. Texas lists ANCC. California generally wants a provider the BRN recognizes.
- A complete certificate. Texas, for example, wants the provider name, title, date and location, contact hours, provider number (if applicable), and the credentialing agency (Texas BON FAQ). Keep certificates for the full audit window your board sets.
- A topic fit. Mandated topics, such as Washington health equity, Texas jurisprudence and ethics, or Florida laws and rules, need a course that meets that state’s rule. General hours do not substitute.
- Reporting. In CE Broker states, the hours must get into CE Broker. We couldn't verify that any free source on this page reports there automatically.
RN.org’s free sample course is covered separately in our RN.org review and is not reviewed again here.
Free nursing CE FAQ
Can I complete my whole nursing CE renewal for free?
Not with the free sources we verified, in any of the five states we checked (CA, TX, WA, PA, FL). The free courses give real ANCC contact hours. In some cases, such as Texas through the National HIV Curriculum, they can reach the hour total. But none of them covers every state-mandated topic, so each one is partial.
Do free CE hours count the same as paid ones?
Yes, when the same rules are met. Your board has to recognize the provider or accreditor, the course has to fit any topic or area-of-practice rule, and you keep a certificate with the details your board requires. Price does not change whether hours count.
Does every state accept ANCC free CE?
No. We did not verify that every state accepts every ANCC course. California, for example, generally requires a BRN-recognized provider, and Texas requires CE in your area of practice. Check your own board’s rules.
Do CDC TRAIN, ANA or Medscape report my hours to CE Broker?
We couldn't verify that any of the free sources on this page reports to CE Broker. In states that require CE Broker reporting, such as Florida, plan to confirm how the hours get recorded.
Methodology
We only included free sources whose own official pages show, as of Nov 6, 2026, that they are free or charge no fees, list nursing contact hours, and name an accreditor. Board rules come from official board pages. We did not rank these sources, use reviews, or estimate course counts. Where we could not confirm something, we say “we couldn't verify.”
Checked but not included: APNA eLearning and PCSS-MOUD. We did not complete verification of their cost, hours and accreditor on first-party pages for this edition.