Medical license data by state is uneven. For example, when did a doctor get licensed? Every state medical board will tell you, one doctor at a time, on its website. Only some states publish the whole list as a file anyone can download. As of November 2026 we found nine that publish physician licenses with the date each license was first issued: California, Texas, Illinois, Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont and Alabama. Together they give us license dates for about 355,000 physicians.
Medical license data by state: who publishes license dates
These files are free, need no account and are updated by the states themselves. We match each license to the number the clinician reported in the NPI registry, and show the result on their profile as “Licensed in Texas since 2010, according to the Texas Medical Board.”
| State | Published by | How it’s shared | Licenses we matched |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | Medical Board of California; Osteopathic Medical Board of California | Department of Consumer Affairs licensee files, refreshed monthly | 132,285 (84% of physicians who list a California license) |
| Texas | Texas Medical Board | Texas Open Data Portal (data.texas.gov) | 89,454 (91%) |
| Illinois | Department of Financial and Professional Regulation | Illinois open data portal, Open Database License | 48,924 (74%) |
| Washington | Department of Health | data.wa.gov, public domain | 34,622 (91%) |
| Colorado | Department of Regulatory Agencies | data.colorado.gov, public domain | 26,974 (92%) |
| Connecticut | Department of Public Health | data.ct.gov, public domain | 21,051 (96%) |
| Delaware | Division of Professional Regulation | data.delaware.gov, public domain | 4,974 (85%) |
| Vermont | Board of Medical Practice | Public roster (MDs; Vermont DOs are licensed by a different office) | 3,116 (83%) |
| Alabama | Board of Medical Examiners and Medical Licensure Commission | Free daily roster (active licenses only, so expired licenses can’t be matched) | 10,714 (61%) |
Unmatched licenses are usually ones written in a different format in the NPI registry, or old licenses a state no longer lists. California’s files include only current, delinquent and inactive licenses, so expired California licenses can’t be matched.
Free, for a fee, or lookup only
Other states share their lists in other ways. What we found so far:
| Access | States | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Free download with an account | Florida | The Department of Health’s data download portal offers licensure data for free after you create an account. |
| Free lists, not yet usable | Michigan | Michigan generates license lists inside its licensing system (MiPLUS); they can’t be downloaded automatically, and we haven’t confirmed they include issue dates. A public records (FOIA) request is the other route. |
| Sold or sent on request | Georgia, Oregon, Virginia, Indiana, Mississippi, Minnesota | Georgia sells a copy of its medical board database by mail order; Oregon sends licensee files on request for a fee; Virginia sells a download that includes the initial license date ($100 plus $20 per 1,000 records); Indiana charges for customized bulk data; Mississippi’s board sells an electronic database download ($25); Minnesota sells its licensee list as a mailing list. Texas also sells detailed reports alongside its free file. |
| Lookup only | New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee | We found no bulk file, only a search page for one licensee at a time. |
| Not yet checked | All other states | Every state board has a free online license lookup. We’ll add states as we review them. |
Nationally, the Federation of State Medical Boards runs DocInfo, a free lookup of a physician’s licenses in every state, and sells a national licensure file to organizations.
Why many states don’t publish a file
License status is public everywhere, but publishing the whole list is a choice each state makes. Common reasons states hold back:
- Revenue. Licensing boards are often funded by fees, and selling lists to recruiters, marketers and credentialing companies is a source of income.
- Privacy and addresses. A board’s “address of record” can be a home address. Some states limit bulk releases, or the use of lists for solicitation, for that reason.
- Public records rules. In many states the list is public but must be requested, and agencies may charge for copies.
- Old systems. Licensing software run by outside vendors may offer a lookup page but no export, and adding one costs money.
- No open-data program. The states on our list mostly publish through a statewide open-data portal; states without one rarely publish licensing data on their own.
What a license date tells you, and what it doesn’t
- It’s when that state first licensed the doctor. A doctor licensed in 2015 in Texas may have practiced in another state for years before.
- It isn’t when residency ended. Many states issue a full license during or right after residency; residents usually work under a training permit, which we don’t count.
- Status words differ by state. “Delinquent” in California and “Not renewed” in Illinois usually mean the renewal lapsed, not discipline. Check the board for details.
- It isn’t the date a doctor got their NPI number, which is a billing ID that began in 2005–2007.
How we match and update
- We download each state’s file again with every data update and match licenses to the license numbers clinicians report in the NPI registry, using each state’s number format (for example “A123456” in California or “036.123456” in Illinois).
- We drop matches that can’t be right: a first license dated before the doctor graduated from medical school, or before 1940. That removed under 1% of matches in each state.
- We keep only the license number, dates and status. We don’t copy names, addresses or birth years from state files.
Find a doctor’s license details with Find a doctor. More about our sources is on the Methodology page and in our FAQ.
Sources: California Department of Consumer Affairs; Texas Medical Board; Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (contains information from the Professional Licensing dataset, made available under the Open Database License; our matched Illinois file is shared under the same license: download); Washington State Department of Health; Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies; Connecticut Department of Public Health; Delaware Division of Professional Regulation; Vermont Board of Medical Practice public roster; Alabama Board of Medical Examiners license roster; NPPES NPI Registry (November 2026).