Kentucky Board of Pharmacy License Renewal: February 28 Deadline and CE

Your Kentucky pharmacist license renewal is due by February 28 every year, costs $95, and is filed online through the Board of Pharmacy’s Licensure Gateway at gateway.pharmacy.ky.gov.¹ The portal opens during the first week of January, giving you roughly eight weeks to confirm your continuing education credits, pay the fee, and file. Miss the deadline and your license immediately moves to expired status, which stops you from practicing in Kentucky until you reinstate.

The February 28 Deadline

Every Kentucky pharmacist license expires on February 28, regardless of when you were first licensed. The Board emails a renewal reminder about eight weeks before expiration and opens the online portal in early January.² The continuing education earning period runs on the same cycle, March 1 through February 28, so your CE and your license live on the same calendar.³

There is no grace period. A license not renewed by February 28 is expired on March 1, and you cannot legally practice pharmacy in Kentucky while expired.

Continuing Education You Need Before You File

Kentucky requires 15 contact hours (1.5 CEUs) of continuing pharmacy education per year, and all 15 must be completed before you submit your renewal. KRS 315.065 caps the Board’s CE authority at 1.5 CEUs per year, and 201 KAR 2:015 implements that figure.⁴ Excess hours do not carry forward.³

For licensing years 2023 through 2028, at least one of those 15 hours must cover the opioid epidemic or opioid use disorder.⁵ Every activity you count must be approved by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) or directly approved by the Kentucky Board. Programs without one of those approvals do not count.³

If you were first licensed in Kentucky within the 12 months immediately before the renewal date, you are exempt from CE for that first year.³

Check Your CPE Monitor Transcript Early

The Board does not want certificates submitted with your renewal. Instead, it audits compliance through NABP’s CPE Monitor, which automatically pulls completed activities from more than 325 ACPE-accredited providers into your transcript, provided your NABP e-Profile ID is set up correctly.²⁶ Credits from board-approved programs that are not ACPE-accredited will not appear automatically and may need to be submitted separately.

Pull your transcript well before February 28. A missing credit discovered in the last week of February is the most common reason a renewal goes off the rails. Submitting a fraudulent CE statement is grounds for discipline under KRS 315.121.³

Filing Through the Licensure Gateway

All renewals go through gateway.pharmacy.ky.gov. The Board does not accept paper renewal applications under normal circumstances. For most pharmacists with current information and a clean CE transcript, the filing takes about ten minutes.

Log in with your existing Licensure Gateway credentials. If you have never used the Gateway, register and link your NABP e-Profile ID first.
Review the pre-populated information. Confirm your pharmacy practice site address, contact details, and state of residence, and update anything that has changed.
Answer the required disclosures about disciplinary actions, criminal history, and changes to your professional standing. False answers can trigger a Board investigation.
Pay the $95 fee on the secure payment screen using a major credit or debit card. A receipt goes to the email address you enter.
Submit and save or print the confirmation screen as proof of timely filing.¹

Printing Your Renewed Certificate

Kentucky does not mail paper license certificates. Once the Board processes your renewal, log back into the Gateway, click the tile for your license number, and use the print certificate button under your license options.⁷ KRS 315.110 requires the renewal certificate to be displayed at the pharmacy where you work, so print a copy for your employer or print it on-site.

If You Miss February 28

An unrenewed license expires automatically on March 1. You cannot practice until you reinstate, and the cost scales with how long the lapse continues.

Lapsed Five Years or Less

If your license has been expired for up to five consecutive years, reinstatement requires 15 hours of CE for each lapsed calendar year, the $95 renewal fee for each lapsed year, and a $95 delinquent penalty for each lapsed year. A two-year lapse, for example, costs $380 ($190 per year times two) plus 30 hours of CE before you can practice again.⁸

Lapsed More Than Five Years

If your license has been expired for five or more consecutive years, the Board requires you to retake and pass both the NAPLEX and the MPJE in addition to paying the cumulative renewal and delinquent fees for each lapsed year.⁹ At that point you are effectively repeating the initial licensure process. The reinstatement application itself is filed through the Licensure Gateway, and CE proof can come from your CPE Monitor transcript.⁸

Inactive Status Instead of Letting It Lapse

If you are stepping away from practice, going inactive is far cheaper than letting the license expire. Under 201 KAR 2:160, inactive status is available through the Licensure Gateway for a $10 annual fee, and that $10 fee continues each year to keep the status.² You do not need to complete CE while inactive, and you do not need to maintain active practice. One limit: you are not eligible for Kentucky inactive status if you hold an active pharmacy license in another state.¹⁰

Coming back to active practice from inactive requires meeting the CE requirements for each year you were inactive, passing a jurisprudence examination, and paying all cumulative active-rate renewal fees. If you have been inactive for more than five years, the Board requires a satisfactory examination rather than just the jurisprudence exam, plus the cumulative fees.¹⁰ Compared with reinstatement from an expired license, inactive status skips the delinquent penalty fees entirely. For a planned career break, retirement, or relocation, switching to inactive before February 28 is the better financial move.

1
Kentucky Board of Pharmacy. Licensure Gateway
2
Kentucky Board of Pharmacy. Pharmacist Information
3
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. 201 KAR 2:015 – Continuing Education
4
Justia. Kentucky Code 315.065 – Continuing Education Requirements
5
Kentucky Board of Pharmacy. Continuing Education Requirements
6
NABP. CPE Monitor
7
Kentucky Board of Pharmacy. Pharmacy Technicians
8
Kentucky Board of Pharmacy. Lapsed/Inactive License Reinstatement Requirements
9
Justia. Kentucky Code 315.120 – Renewal After Lapse of Five or More Years – Inactive License
10
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. 201 KAR 2:160 – Licensees; Inactive Status