Tennessee Physical Therapy CE Requirements (2026): 30 Hours Every 2 Years
At a Glance
30
Contact Hours
2 yr
Renewal Cycle
Yes
Online Allowed
No
Carry-Over
Tennessee physical therapists and PTAs must complete 30 contact hours of continuing competence every 24 months before their license renewal month, with at least 20 hours from Class I activities and up to 10 from Class II. Four of those hours must be an APTATN-approved ethics and jurisprudence course, required every renewal cycle. A prior 10-hour cap on online CE was removed from the rule effective December 29, 2025.
Disclaimer: This information is for reference purposes only. Requirements are set by the Tennessee Board of Physical Therapy and may change. Always verify current requirements directly with the board.
Requirements Overview
The Tennessee Board of Physical Therapy requires every licensed PT and PT assistant to complete 30 clock hours of continuing competence for the 24 months preceding their individual renewal month. At least 20 hours must come from Class I activities (courses, seminars, university credit, peer review), while up to 10 hours may come from lower-tier Class II activities like reading professional literature or in-service programs.
Four hours must be an ethics and jurisprudence course approved by APTATN (APTA Tennessee), required every renewal cycle. A December 29, 2025 amendment removed the state's former 10-hour cap on online coursework — many CE sites still describe that outdated cap.
Tennessee has no carry-over provision. Licensees retain documentation for 5 years and report completion through CE Broker, mandatory since July 1, 2020. New PTs licensed by exam skip the general 30-hour requirement initially but still owe the 4-hour ethics course.
Mandatory Topics
| Topic | Hours | Frequency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethics and Jurisprudence | 4 | Every renewal | Must be at least two (2) hours each in duration (i.e., typically two 2-hour courses), must be Class I activities, and must be approved by APTATN (APTA Tennessee, formerly named the Tennessee Physical Therapy Association / TPTA in earlier rule text). Content must cover both an ethics component (APTA Code of Ethics, ethical decision-making model, case analysis) and a jurisprudence component (Occupational and Physical Therapy Practice Act, Chapter 1150-01 rules, Board policy statements, licensure/scope-of-practice/supervision topics). Applies identically to PTs and PTAs. New licensees by examination must also complete these 4 hours during their initial licensure period even though they are otherwise exempt from the general 30-hour requirement for that period. |
Renewal Pathways
30 hours CE (20 Class I min, 10 Class II max) incl. 4 hrs ethics/jurisprudence
30 hours
Standard 24-month renewal cycle for both PTs and PTAs: minimum 20 hours Class I, up to 10 hours Class II, with 4 of the Class I hours being the mandatory ethics/jurisprudence course(s), required every renewal cycle.
4 hrs ethics/jurisprudence only, initial licensure period
4 hours
Applicants approved for initial licensure by examination are considered to have met continuing competence for their INITIAL period of licensure via their entry-level education/exam requirements, EXCEPT they must still independently complete the 4-hour ethics and jurisprudence requirement during that initial period. Does not apply to the general 30-hour Class I/II requirement, which begins applying at the next full 24-month cycle.
Exemptions
- Initial Licensure By Exam Partial Exemption — Applicants initially licensed by examination are deemed to have met the general 30-hour Class I/II continuing competence requirement for their initial licensure period through their entry-level education and examination requirements.Still must independently complete the 4-hour ethics and jurisprudence requirement during the initial licensure period — this specific requirement is NOT waived.
- Hardship Illness Disability Waiver — The Board may, at its discretion, waive continuing competence requirements and/or extend the deadline to complete them in cases of documented illness, disability, or other undue hardship.Licensee must request the waiver/extension in writing with supporting documentation before the end of the 24-month period in which the requirements were not met.
How You Can Complete Your CE
💻
Online / Distance
Allowed, no limit
🏫
In-Person / Live
Allowed
Tennessee CE Rules & Limits
Details specific to Tennessee that generic CE guides tend to miss:
- No CCU/point-system conversion applies — Tennessee uses direct "clock hours"/contact hours for continuing competence, so total hours is recorded directly with no unit conversion needed.
- The Board's own website (tn.gov/health/licensure/pt.html, fetched same day as the primary rule PDF) still publishes narrative CE text dated "Effective June 29, 2016" stating PTAs need only 20 hours and that "no more than ten hours may be acquired online" — both figures are stale. The current SOS-published rule text (effective December 29, 2025, and confirmed identically worded in the prior May 2025 revision) instead requires 30 hours for PTAs (same as PTs) and contains no online-hour cap at all. Similarly, law.cornell.edu's LII regulatory database (a third-party legal aggregator, not the official rule repository) also shows the stale 20-hour PTA / 10-hour-Class-I-minimum / "every other 24-month period" ethics cadence.
- Online CE hour cap removed: rule text through at least May 2025 explicitly stated "only ten (10) may be acquired online" within the 20 Class I hours; this phrase is absent from the rule as amended (filed September 30, 2025; effective December 29, 2025). Content generation should NOT cite a 10-hour online cap as currently binding, even though many commercial CE-seller sites and the Board's own page still do.
- APTATN renaming: the current rule text refers to "APTATN" as the sole ethics/jurisprudence course approval entity, replacing the prior name "Tennessee Physical Therapy Association (TPTA)" used in the May 2025 and earlier rule text — consistent with the national APTA chapter renaming trend (APTA Tennessee).
- CE Broker is the Board's official CE tracking/reporting system; mandatory reporting of CE completion to CE Broker began July 1, 2020 (including at license renewal). This is a reporting mechanism, not an additional hour requirement.
- Record retention: licensees must retain CE completion documents (certificates, transcripts, syllabi, etc.) for five (5) years and produce them for Board inspection/verification upon written request. CE providers/sponsors must also retain records for at least 5 years.
- Unacceptable CE activities are explicitly listed and excluded from counting toward the requirement: OSHA courses, Tennessee TOSHA courses, CPR courses, general safety courses, non-educational meetings at association/chapter meetings, entertainment/recreational activities, and visiting exhibits.
- Reinstatement/reactivation of an expired or retired license (Rule 1150-01-.12(9)): applicants (whether expired/retired 3 years or less, or more than 3 years) must submit documentation of continuing competence initiated and completed within the two (2) years prior to the reinstatement/reactivation application; for licenses expired/retired more than 3 years the Board may additionally require extra education, supervised clinical practice, exam passage, or issue a provisional license at its discretion.
- Dry Needling (Rule 1150-01-.22) is a SEPARATE, one-time practice-privilege prerequisite for PTs who wish to perform dry needling — NOT part of, and not counted toward, the standard 30-hour continuing competence renewal requirement. It requires 50 hours of general instruction (musculoskeletal/neuromuscular systems, pain mechanisms, trigger points, universal precautions) plus 24 hours of dry-needling-specific instruction (technique, indications/contraindications, documentation, adverse-effect management, psychomotor competency, OSHA bloodborne pathogens), and ALL of this instruction must be obtained in person — it "may not be obtained online or through video conferencing." A newly licensed PT may not practice dry needling for at least 1 year post-licensure unless this training was completed via pre-licensure coursework. Dry needling may only be performed by a PT, never delegated to a PTA, student, or support personnel.
- Both the Ethics/Jurisprudence course requirement and the general Class I/II hour requirement apply identically to Physical Therapists and Physical Therapist Assistants under the current rule — there is no PT/PTA hour differential (unlike some other states).
Provider Requirements
Aside from ethics/jurisprudence courses (which must be pre-approved by APTATN, the sole approval entity, and are then deemed approved by the Board), the Board does NOT pre-approve Class I or Class II continuing competence courses, programs, or activities. It is the licensee's own professional responsibility to determine whether a given course meets the requirements of Rule 1150-01-.12. FSBPT-approved activities also separately qualify as Class I evidence. Note: an earlier version of this rule (through at least May 2025) additionally stated that APTA/its sections, the Tennessee Physical Therapy Association, and accredited Tennessee PT/PTA schools were "deemed to be appropriate CEU granting agencies" with their courses "deemed pre-approved" — that specific deeming sentence does not appear in the current December 29, 2025 revision.
Tips for Tennessee PTs
- Confirm your personal 24-month lookback window with the Board — the compliance period runs relative to your individual renewal month, not a fixed statewide two-year calendar.
- Don't assume a 10-hour online CE cap still applies: it was removed from Rule 1150-01-.12 effective December 29, 2025, though many CE vendor sites and even the Board's own page haven't caught up with the change.
- Book your ethics and jurisprudence course through an APTATN-approved provider specifically — the Board does not accept ethics/jurisprudence credit from other approval sources, unlike general Class I/II coursework where you use your own professional judgment.
- Cap your Class II hours at 10 and make sure at least 20 of your 30 hours come from Class I sources like accredited courses, university credit, or peer review — narrow Class II categories like reading professional literature max out at just 1 hour each cycle.
- Report every completed course to CE Broker as you finish it rather than waiting until renewal, since CE Broker reporting has been mandatory since July 1, 2020 and the Board audits completion through that platform.
Sources
Each figure on this page is taken directly from the Tennessee Board of Physical Therapy's official rules and continuing-education sources and recorded with the exact source excerpt. Last verified Jul 2026. Read how we compile and verify this data.