For an attorney already licensed in one U.S. jurisdiction, bar exam reciprocity by state comes down to one waiver route: admission on motion.
Per NCBE's jurisdiction pages (October 2026), 43 jurisdictions provide it and eight states — California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Rhode Island and South Carolina — have no rules providing for it.
Where the route exists, the practice window is typically 3 of the past 5 or 5 of the past 7 years.
Here is how it works, and what it costs.
What is admission on motion?
Admission on motion is the route that lets a jurisdiction admit an attorney already licensed in another one, based on that license and a record of practice, instead of the new jurisdiction's bar exam.
NCBE, the National Conference of Bar Examiners, publishes a directory page for each U.S. jurisdiction with a "Rules Provide for Admission on Motion" field, and the yes-or-no answer on that page is the data behind "reciprocity states" lists.
The shorthand and the rule are not the same thing.
"Reciprocity" sounds like two states agreeing to honor each other's licenses; admission on motion is a rule one jurisdiction sets on its own terms, and the conditions attached — the practice window, what counts as practice, the forms and fees — are set jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
Two boundaries define the route.
First, NCBE compiles the directory but decides nothing: each jurisdiction decides who is fit to practice, so the admitting authority is the one whose yes or no governs.
Second, admission on motion never skips character and fitness — background investigations are part of the admission process in every jurisdiction, whether an applicant sits for the exam or motions in.
For where this route sits in the whole process, the bar admission guide covers all five steps end to end.
Which states allow admission on motion?
Per NCBE's jurisdiction pages, 43 jurisdictions provide for admission on motion as of October 2026.
Which jurisdictions don't is the next section's subject.
New York, Texas, Illinois and Virginia are all on NCBE's map as providing the route.
A yes only opens the door; the conditions behind it are each jurisdiction's own.
NCBE's directory tells you the route exists and carries a per-jurisdiction practice-years field, but the admitting authority's own rules hold the full eligibility conditions.
Read the directory to narrow the list, then confirm with the jurisdiction itself before you plan a move around it.
Because the rules move, the count moves with them.
The 43-and-8 picture in this article is NCBE's directory as it read in October 2026, not a permanent feature of the map.
How many years of practice do you need?
The headline condition is time in practice.
On NCBE's jurisdiction pages, the typical admission-on-motion requirement is 3 of the past 5 years or 5 of the past 7 years; Washington's page lists 1 of the past 3.
The field is labeled "Number of Years of Practice Required," and it is the first number to check against your own timeline.
The windows are literal: 3 of the past 5 means three years of practice within the last five, and what counts as a qualifying year is defined by each jurisdiction's own rules.
Our research captured the two typical windows and Washington's; it did not capture the year-by-year number for all 43 jurisdictions.
NCBE's directory lists the number on each jurisdiction's page — that page, plus the admitting authority's rules, is where to confirm the requirement that applies to you.
Which states do not allow admission on motion?
Eight states have no rules providing for admission on motion, per NCBE's October 2026 jurisdiction pages: California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
Among the territories, NCBE lists Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau and Puerto Rico as having none either.
If you searched for reciprocity with one of these jurisdictions, the answer on NCBE's directory is no.
What the no means: NCBE lists no rules providing for admission on motion — not that the jurisdiction is closed to outside attorneys altogether.
An attorney licensed elsewhere who wants one of these bars needs a different admission route, and which routes exist is the admitting authority's to say.
Each answer in the table comes from that jurisdiction's own page on NCBE's directory, read in October 2026:
| Jurisdiction | Rules provide for admission on motion |
|---|---|
| California | No |
| Delaware | No |
| Florida | No |
| Hawaii | No |
| Louisiana | No |
| Nevada | No |
| Rhode Island | No |
| South Carolina | No |
| Guam | No |
| Northern Mariana Islands | No |
| Palau | No |
| Puerto Rico | No |
Rules change — verify with the admitting authority
What does admission on motion cost, and how long does it take?
Admission-on-motion fees are set jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and the pages behind this article did not capture a fee schedule for any of the 43 — there is no national fee schedule on the pages we read.
Application fees, investigation fees and registration steps come from the admitting authority's own admissions pages.
The one fee movement in the record: NCBE's character report application fees increased effective October 1, 2026.
The new amounts were not in the pages we reviewed, so get the current fee from NCBE or the jurisdiction before you budget.
The investigation itself is universal — character and fitness checks are part of admission in every jurisdiction, and NCBE runs investigations and hosts applications for many jurisdictions while making no decisions or recommendations.
Who runs the paperwork varies more than the yes-or-no map suggests.
Per NCBE's jurisdiction pages, 26 jurisdictions use NCBE investigations for some application types — Florida and Virginia use NCBE only for foreign legal consultant applicants, and Massachusetts only for admission-on-motion applicants — while 27 jurisdictions, including California, New York, Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania, do not use NCBE's character and fitness services at all.
Jurisdictions also decide which questions appear on the standardized form and how the answers are evaluated.
Timeline is the same story: the pages we read did not capture processing times for admission-on-motion applications.
The admitting authority's admissions pages are the source for how long an application takes.
Admission on motion vs UBE score transfer
Admission on motion and a UBE score transfer are two different doors into the same room, and they turn on different records.
The motion route looks at where you are licensed and how long you have practiced.
The transfer route looks at an exam score: how high, and how old.
A portable UBE score has to be earned the right way — the MEE, MPT and MBE taken in the same UBE jurisdiction in the same administration.
Forty-two jurisdictions have adopted the UBE since 2011, and in each one the receiving jurisdiction applies its own passing score to transferees exactly as it does to its own test-takers.
A score that fell short in the testing jurisdiction can still transfer somewhere with a lower cut.
The limits: transferred scores age out, with maximum ages running from 2 years to 5 and most jurisdictions using 3.
NCBE charges $30 for each Official Bar Exam Score Transcript.
And no score skips character and fitness — each receiving jurisdiction runs its own review.
NextGen UBE scores are portable to jurisdictions that accept them, and some jurisdictions still giving the legacy UBE already accept transferred NextGen scores.
Which route applies comes down to your own record: whether your practice years clear the motion window, or whether your UBE score clears the receiving jurisdiction's cut before it ages out.
If the second license is for a job move, run the licensing check alongside the market check — our lateral attorney hiring guide covers the process from the employer's side.
Career information, not legal advice. Admission rules change jurisdiction by jurisdiction; confirm the current requirements with the bar admission authority in the state where you want to practice.