All 24 Ohio Professional Licensing Boards — What They Cover
February 12, 2026 · 10 min read
Ohio regulates professional licenses through 24 separate boards and agencies, each responsible for different professions. Here is a complete directory of all 24 boards, the professions they regulate, and their renewal cycles.
The 24 Ohio Licensing Boards
Accountancy Board
Renews: 2 years (Dec 31)Licenses: CPAs, Public Accounting Firms
Architects Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Architects, Landscape Architects
Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Funeral Directors, Embalmers, Funeral Homes
Board of Pharmacy
Renews: 1 yearLicenses: Pharmacists, Pharmacy Interns, Distributors
Casino Control Commission
Renews: 1–2 yearsLicenses: Casino Employees, Management, Suppliers
Chemical Dependency Professionals Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Chemical Dependency Counselors (CDC, LICDC)
Chiropractic Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Chiropractors (DC), Chiropractic Assistants
Cosmetology and Barber Board
Renews: 1 yearLicenses: Cosmetologists, Barbers, Estheticians, Nail Technicians
Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: LPCs, LPCCs, LSWs, LISWs, MFTs
Dental Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Dentists (DDS/DMD), Dental Hygienists, Dental Assistants
Department of Behavioral Health
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Chemical Dependency Counselor Assistants
Dept of Commerce – Manufactured Homes
Renews: 1 yearLicenses: Manufactured Home Dealers, Installers
Div. of Industrial Compliance: Elevator
Renews: 1 yearLicenses: Elevator Mechanics, Contractors, Inspectors
Engineers and Surveyors Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Professional Engineers (PE), Surveyors (PS)
Medical Board
Renews: 2 years (birth month)Licenses: Physicians (MD, DO), Physician Assistants, Respiratory Care
Motor Vehicle Repair Board
Renews: 1 yearLicenses: Motor Vehicle Repair Facilities
Nursing Board
Renews: 2 years (Oct 31)Licenses: RNs, LPNs, APRNs, Dialysis Technicians
ODA Auctioneer Program
Renews: 1 yearLicenses: Auctioneers, Apprentice Auctioneers, Auction Companies
ODH Environmental Health Specialist
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Registered Environmental Health Specialists (REHS)
OTPTAT Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Athletic Trainers
Psychology Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Psychologists, School Psychologists
Speech and Hearing Professionals Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Speech-Language Pathologists, Audiologists
Veterinary Medical Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Veterinarians (DVM/VMD), Veterinary Technicians
Vision Professionals Board
Renews: 2 yearsLicenses: Optometrists (OD), Dispensing Opticians
Verify Any Ohio Professional License
All 24 boards have their license data available through OhioLicenseCheck.com and the official Ohio eLicense portal. Search by name or license number, see current status, and set up expiry alerts for free.
How Ohio\u2019s licensing system is actually structured
Ohio does not run licensing through a single agency. Twenty-four separate boards and commissions each regulate their own professions, set their own renewal cycles, define their own continuing-education requirements, and issue their own license-number formats. What they share is the statewide eLicense system, which is why a single search here can cover all of them at once.
Across those boards, Ohio maintains 262 distinct license types and about 2.09 million issued license records. The distribution is heavily weighted toward healthcare: nursing alone accounts for over half a million records, and the medical, pharmacy, dental, and allied-health boards add hundreds of thousands more. Full figures are in our original data reports.
Why renewal cycles differ so much
Renewal cycles are set board by board, not statewide, and this trips people up constantly \u2014 particularly professionals who hold credentials from two different boards. Nursing renews on a two-year cycle ending October 31 of odd years. Other boards use birth-month cycles, annual cycles, or triennial cycles. There is no single Ohio renewal date.
If you hold more than one Ohio license \u2014 an RN who is also a licensed massage therapist, say, or an engineer who is also a surveyor \u2014 assume the deadlines are different until you have confirmed each one, and set separate reminders.
Finding the right board quickly
The fastest route is usually the license-number prefix, which identifies the issuing board. Failing that, work from the profession: patient-facing clinical roles are split across nursing, medical, dental, pharmacy, optometry, chiropractic, psychology, counseling/social work, and the OTPTAT board; the built environment sits with engineers and surveyors, architects, and the elevator and manufactured-homes programs; personal services fall under cosmetology and barbering.
Every board has its own page here with what it regulates, its renewal cadence, and a direct link to the board itself for anything we do not cover.
Frequently asked questions
Can one person hold licenses from multiple Ohio boards?
Yes, and it is common. Each license renews on its own board's schedule with its own CE requirements — track them separately.
Which board is largest?
The Board of Nursing, with over 600,000 license records including RNs, LPNs, APRNs, and dialysis technicians.
Do all boards publish disciplinary actions?
All boards record a board-action flag on the license, and each publishes its own orders and meeting minutes. The level of published detail varies by board.
Why we wrote this
Twenty-four boards, twenty-four sets of rules, and no single Ohio renewal date \u2014 this trips up more people than anything else we see, especially anyone holding two credentials at once. We keep this directory current because we needed it ourselves while building the search, and it turned out to be the page people share most.
— The OhioLicenseCheck team, Columbus, Ohio