Pennsylvania Medical License

A Pennsylvania medical license costs $35 to apply for and $360 to renew every two years. MDs file with the State Board of Medicine; DOs file with a separate osteopathic board that charges more and renews on a different date. Below: the steps, the real costs, both 2026 deadlines, and how to verify any license.

Key Takeaways

• Cost for MDs: $35 to apply as a US or Canadian graduate, $85 as an international graduate, then $360 every two years.
• Two boards license physicians here. DOs pay $205 to apply and $450 to renew, and their licenses expire in October, not December.
• Both cycles close in 2026: October 31 for DOs, December 31 for MDs. Renewal opens in PALS about 60 days before each date.
• CME is 100 hours per cycle: 20 in Category 1, 12 in patient safety, 2 in child abuse recognition, 2 in opioid prescribing.
• New since May 1, 2026: 2 hours of organ and tissue donation education, once every five years.
• IMLC member: Yes. Pennsylvania fully implemented the Compact on July 7, 2025 and can act as your state of principal licensure.

The Verdict: Pennsylvania is cheap to enter and easy to trip over. The $35 application fee is a twentieth of what New York charges, but the state runs two physician boards with different fees, different renewal months, and a child abuse course that has to reach the Board from the provider rather than from you. The files that stall here are rarely the complicated ones. They are the files missing a verification from a training permit somebody held fifteen years ago.

How do you get a Pennsylvania medical license?

You apply online through PALS to the board that matches your degree. The file needs an FBI fingerprint check through IdentoGO, primary source verification of medical school and two years of ACGME training, license verifications from every jurisdiction where you have ever held one, and three hours of child abuse education sent in by the provider.

1. Pick your board. MDs apply to the State Board of Medicine, DOs to the State Board of Osteopathic Medicine. A PA files under whichever board licenses the supervising physician.
2. Choose the accredited or unaccredited application. Graduates of US and Canadian schools use the accredited form. Graduates of schools outside the US and Canada use the unaccredited form and need ECFMG certification.
3. Open the application at pals.pa.gov, work through the checklist, upload what it asks for, and pay the fee. The Board does not take paper applications.
4. Get fingerprinted. Pre-register with IdentoGO and use the service code from your application so the results reach the Board.
5. Send credentials through FCVS. The Board accepts FCVS for medical education, postgraduate training, and exam scores, as long as FCVS received them from the primary source.
6. Order every license verification. Every state or country where you hold or ever held a health-related license, registration, or permit, whatever its status today.
7. Finish the child abuse course. Three hours from a Board-approved provider, with confirmation sent to the Board electronically by that provider.

Watch out: initial licensure takes three hours of child abuse recognition and reporting education. Renewal takes two. Physicians who took the shorter course before applying end up buying the longer one anyway, and the provider can need up to seven days to transmit the record.

What are the Pennsylvania medical license requirements?

A Pennsylvania medical license requires a medical degree, one acceptable licensing examination sequence, and two full years of graduate medical training accredited by the ACGME, with at least one year at PGY-1 level and one at PGY-2. International graduates add ECFMG certification. Everyone adds fingerprints and the mandated education hours.

• Examination: USMLE Steps 1, 2 and 3, or one of the older FLEX and National Board combinations the Board still accepts, completed inside a seven-year window.
• Training: two years of ACGME-accredited graduate medical training. Applicants still in their second year cannot have the program director sign the form more than 30 days before training ends.
• Opioid education: four hours, two in pain management or the identification of addiction and two in prescribing or dispensing opioids, documented within a year of licensure.
• Liability coverage and the PDMP: practicing physicians carry the required professional liability insurance, and every prescriber registers with the Pennsylvania Prescription Drug Monitoring Program before writing for controlled substances.

Two years of postgraduate training is the requirement that catches people. Plenty of states license a US graduate after a single intern year. Pennsylvania does not, and there is no shortcut for someone who stopped after one year.

Pro tip: order the verification of your old training permit at the same time as everything else. In our experience helping physicians across all 50 states, the single most common reason a Pennsylvania file sits idle is a missing verification for a residency-era permit the applicant had forgotten counted as a license.

What does a Pennsylvania medical license cost?

Board fees run from $35 to $450 depending on your degree and the stage you are at. An MD pays $35 to apply and $360 every two years. A DO pays $205 and $450. Fingerprinting, FCVS and course fees sit on top and go to vendors, not to the Board.

The gap between the two boards is real money over a career. A DO pays $170 more to walk in the door and $90 more every renewal, for a license that carries identical practice rights. Nobody chooses their degree for that reason, but DOs relocating from a single-board state are often surprised by the bill.

By the numbers: renewing a Compact license here is two payments and two systems. $360 or $450 to Pennsylvania through PALS, then $25 to the IMLC, and the Board warns that doing it in the other order can delay the renewal.

How does Pennsylvania compare to neighboring states?

Pennsylvania is the cheapest of its neighbors to enter and mid-priced to keep. The $35 application fee compares with $310 in Maryland, $305 in Ohio, and a $735 filing fee in New York that also buys the first registration period. Carrying cost tells a different story: at $360 every two years an MD license works out to about $180 a year, against $152.50 in Ohio and $256 in Maryland, while the Pennsylvania osteopathic license runs $225. See the full 50-state comparison for where that sits nationally.

How long does a Pennsylvania medical license take?

The Board publishes no average processing time, which is unusual and worth saying plainly. It states that applications are reviewed in the order received and breaks the wait into three phases: its own first review, the time third parties take to send documents, and the final decision once the file is complete.

That middle phase is the one you control. Fingerprint results, FCVS profiles, out-of-state verifications and course confirmations all arrive on somebody else’s schedule, and the Board cannot start the clock on a decision until the last one lands. Timelines quoted on commercial licensing sites, anywhere from six weeks to five months, are not Board figures and should not be planned around.

Residents follow a separate route: the training hospital opens the graduate medical training application, and the physician then logs into PALS to finish their part.

Real scenario: a hospitalist DO moving from Columbus to Pittsburgh in September 2026 has a Pennsylvania license issued in June and assumes the renewal notice will come at Christmas, the way it does for the MDs on the same unit. The osteopathic cycle closes October 31, 2026. Miss it and the license expires, and reactivation is a new application rather than a late payment.

How do you verify or look up a Pennsylvania medical license?

Use PALS, the Pennsylvania Licensing System at pals.pa.gov. It is the state’s own license lookup, it is free, and it covers every profession the Department of State regulates, so one search checks an MD, a DO, a physician assistant or a nurse. The Department points employers to the same tool for license verification.

1. Open the Department of State verification service, which hands off to the PALS search.
2. Search by name or by license number. Partial names work, which helps when a doctor practices under a shortened first name.
3. Pick the right profession. Medical physician and surgeon, osteopathic physician and surgeon, and physician assistant are separate license types under separate boards.
4. Read the record: license type, license number, status, and expiration date. A license in good standing shows as active with a future expiry.
5. Check discipline separately. The Department publishes professional licensing disciplinary actions in its own section rather than inside the search result.

Two things confuse people searching a Pennsylvania doctor’s license status. First, an expired record does not always mean a problem, because a physician who moved away simply stops renewing. Second, the abbreviation collides: in Pennsylvania a search for a PA license can mean a physician assistant or a state license, and the profession filter is what settles it. For federal identifiers rather than state ones, our NPI number search covers that side.

How do you renew a Pennsylvania medical license?

Renewal happens in PALS, opens about 60 days before your license expires, and takes an attestation rather than uploaded certificates. MD licenses expire December 31 of even-numbered years and cost $360. DO licenses expire October 31 of even-numbered years and cost $450. There is no paper renewal form.

The current cycles both close this year: October 31, 2026 for osteopathic physicians and December 31, 2026 for medical doctors. The Board emails the notice roughly 60 days out to the address it has on file, and the Postal Service does not forward a license, so an unreported move is how physicians miss the window entirely.

The 100 hours are not free-form. Twenty have to be AMA PRA Category 1, twelve have to sit in patient safety or risk management, two cover child abuse recognition and reporting, and two cover pain management, the identification of addiction, or opioid prescribing. The child abuse and opioid hours count toward the 100 but cannot be double-counted against the twelve patient safety hours.

One requirement is new. Since May 1, 2026 both boards expect two hours of education on organ and tissue donation and the recovery process, completed once within five years of initial licensure or of a renewal. Older CME checklists still circulating do not mention it.

Some licensees are exempt from most of the load. A first-time licensee skips CME for the cycle in which the license was issued, trainees on a temporary training license are exempt, and an active-retired physician treating only immediate family still owes the child abuse and opioid hours. Renewal itself is an attestation, and the Board can audit it afterwards.

Can you get licensed by endorsement or through the Compact?

Yes, by three routes. Pennsylvania fully implemented the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact on July 7, 2025, so it now issues and receives Compact licenses and can serve as your state of principal licensure. Act 41 endorsement covers physicians who do not use the Compact, and an institutional license gives internationally trained physicians a supervised pathway.

• The Compact. Hold a letter of qualification from your SPL, add Pennsylvania through the IMLC, and you still complete the state’s own three hours of child abuse and four hours of opioid education. A Compact license here is an unrestricted Pennsylvania license, not a lesser one.
• Act 41 endorsement. For an out-of-state physician with an active license in good standing, no discipline or convictions, and active practice in at least two of the last five years.
• Institutional license. A supervised route inside an approved institution for internationally trained physicians building the US clinical experience that supports later endorsement.

Whichever route you take, the controlled substance side is federal and separate. Pennsylvania has no state CSR to buy, so prescribers move straight to DEA registration and PDMP enrollment once the license issues. Our team files physician applications in every state, and Pennsylvania is one of the few where the paperwork costs more than the fee.

Frequently asked questions

This article provides general guidance only. Physician licensing requirements change frequently and vary by state. Always verify current requirements with the Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine or the State Board of Osteopathic Medicine at pa.gov before submitting your application. Last fact-checked: September 7, 2026.

Written by Medicallicensing Team · Reviewed by David Ivaniuk, CEO Medicallicensing · Last updated: September 7, 2026 · Last fact-checked: September 7, 2026

About the reviewer

David Ivaniuk is the CEO of Medicallicensing, a licensing services firm that has helped physicians, PAs, nurses, and other healthcare professionals navigate state licensing, DEA registration, and payer enrollment across all 50 U.S. states.

References

1. Pennsylvania Department of State. “State Board of Medicine.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
2. Pennsylvania Department of State. “Physician and Surgeon Unrestricted Licensure Requirements Snapshot.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
3. Pennsylvania Department of State. “Board of Medicine Licensure Guide.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
4. Pennsylvania Department of State. “Renewal Information for the State Board of Medicine.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
5. Pennsylvania Department of State. “CME Requirements for the (MD) Physician and Surgeon License.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
6. Pennsylvania Department of State. “Renewal Guide for Compact Licenses, Rev. 7/2026.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
7. Pennsylvania Department of State. “Interstate Medical Licensure Compact.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
8. 49 Pa. Code § 16.13 and § 25.231, schedules of fees. Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
9. Maryland Board of Physicians. “2026 Physician License Renewal Information.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.
10. New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions. “License Requirements for Physicians.” Retrieved September 7, 2026. Link.