A New York pharmacist license comes from the State Education Department, through its Office of the Professions, under the Board of Regents. You qualify on education, satisfy the experience requirement if one applies to you, pass the NAPLEX and the New York State specific MPJE within a five-year window, and file Form 1 with a $339 licensure and first registration fee. That is the sequence, and the order inside it matters more than candidates expect.
Candidates arriving from other states usually spend their first hour hunting for a New York board of pharmacy website. There is a State Board for Pharmacy, but it advises the Regents and the Department; it does not issue your license. Everything you file goes to the Department at op.nysed.gov.
Who issues a New York pharmacist license?
New York regulates all of its licensed professions under the education system rather than a health department. The Board of Regents supervises admission to the professions, and the State Education Department administers licensure through the Office of the Professions, which is why the forms read like generic professional-licensure forms.
The agency question gets tested. Candidates reach for "the board of pharmacy" by reflex, because in most states that reflex is right, and an answer choice that has the New York State Board of Pharmacy revoking a license on its own authority exists to catch it. Our New York MPJE pillar post covers how the exam frames the agency question.
What do you need to qualify?
New York sets the gates on its pharmacist license-requirements page: at least 21 years of age, good moral character as the Department determines, acceptable pharmacy education, the experience requirement, and the required examinations. Miss one gate and nothing downstream helps you.
Education runs through one of three pathways. The ordinary one is a degree at bachelor's level or higher from a program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, which today means a PharmD. New York also accepts a CCAPP-accredited Canadian program, subject to conditions tied to when you graduated. A graduate of a non-accredited or foreign program takes the long road: FPGEC certification plus departmental approval of at least 60 semester hours of preprofessional study and 90 semester hours of professional study.
On examinations, New York requires the NAPLEX and the MPJE, and the Department's updated FAQs say specifically that applicants must pass the New York State specific MPJE. Both parts have to be passed within five years, and the scores you submit must come from exams taken within the past five years. New York used to add a third, state-specific Part III examination, eliminated effective January 1, 2022, so any guide still listing three exams is describing a New York that no longer exists.
How many intern hours does New York require?
Three different answers, and which one applies to you depends entirely on your degree.
| Your degree | Internship New York requires |
|---|---|
| ACPE-accredited PharmD | None |
| ACPE or CCAPP accredited program below the PharmD | 6 months, 1,040 hours |
| Non-accredited or foreign program | 12 months, 2,080 hours, completed before you sit the MPJE |
Most current US graduates fall in the first row and owe no hours at all, because the Department treats the doctoral program as having satisfied the experience requirement. That is why Form 4, the internship certification, is not required of PharmD graduates of accredited programs. Applicants who do need it file a separate Form 4 for each pharmacy where hours were served, and for each preceptor.
The figure candidates most often carry into New York is 1,500 hours. It is not a New York number in any row of that table, and it is wrong twice over for a PharmD graduate, who owes none.
The bottom row carries a constraint the other two do not, though not the one most people assume. Anyone who owes hours has to have them certified on Form 4 and approved before the Department will admit them to the MPJE, and that applies to the 1,040-hour row too. What is unique to the bottom row is the order of the exams: a foreign or non-accredited graduate has to pass the NAPLEX before the internship hours can begin, a rule the Department added effective January 1, 2022. That pushes the earliest possible MPJE date out by a year or more.
Hours in any row must be served in a pharmacy registered with the Department, under a pharmacist who is both licensed and currently registered. The permit for that work is the limited permit, Form 5, at a non-refundable $70.
How do you register for the New York MPJE?
Registration runs through NABP, not the Department. Which way the confirmation then travels depends on which door you came in by.
If you are applying for initial licensure, log in to your NABP e-Profile, open the Exam Services tile, apply for exam eligibility and pay the $100 eligibility application fee. NABP then asks the Department about you. New York hands you no eligibility letter to carry over.
Endorsement applicants get the reverse. File Form 1 and your e-LTP application first, and the Department emails you when you are cleared to apply to NABP for the MPJE.
Once the Department verifies you, a purchase link appears in your e-Profile. Buy the MPJE for $170, and your Authorization to Test arrives by email, generally within about a day. Schedule with Pearson.
Your eligibility period is usually valid for one year from the date eligibility is granted. NABP has no authority to extend it, though the board can. The ATT itself is good for one testing session only. Two smaller rules inside that year catch people. You cannot purchase an exam or a resit with 10 or fewer business days left in your eligibility period, and rescheduling costs a non-refundable $50 to Pearson, due at least two business days ahead. Miss the appointment and you forfeit the fee.
What does a New York pharmacist license cost?
| What | Paid to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Exam eligibility application | NABP | $100 |
| MPJE exam purchase | NABP | $170 |
| Licensure and first registration, Form 1 | NYSED | $339 |
| Limited (intern) permit, Form 5 | NYSED | $70 |
| Rescheduling a Pearson appointment | Pearson | $50 |
The MPJE side comes to $270 for a first attempt, which we get by adding the two NABP line items; NABP publishes no total. New York is not on NABP's list of jurisdictions charging the extra $85 eligibility processing fee, and the Department charges no separate jurisprudence-examination fee: the $339 is licensure and first registration. The NAPLEX is billed separately, and the full New York MPJE cost breakdown sets out every line.
Does New York require child abuse or infection control training for pharmacists?
No. Check that against whatever else you have read, because getting it wrong costs you money and a weekend.
New York does mandate child abuse identification and reporting coursework, and it does mandate infection control training, for a long list of health professions. Dentists, optometrists, podiatrists, registered nurses, and physicians appear on those lists. Pharmacist appears on neither. The Department publishes both lists on its mandated-training pages.
Bad advice here is common, and it has an obvious source: a writer who knows New York health licensure generally, but not pharmacy specifically, assumes the mandates run across the professions, because they nearly do.
The New York training a pharmacy intern may actually meet is immunization administration training. It is required within three years of applying for the permit, and only if you want immunization privileges under it. Your school certifies it on Form PH20-Intern if your program is in New York, on Form 2InternA if it is not. Check any list that says otherwise against the Department's own before you pay for a course.
What if you are already licensed in another state?
Endorsement is New York's word for reciprocity, and it exists: a pharmacist holding an active license in good standing elsewhere can apply at any point, transferring credentials through NABP's Electronic Licensure Transfer Program.
What endorsement does not do is excuse you from the New York MPJE. The Department requires applicants seeking New York licensure to pass the New York State specific MPJE, and twenty years behind a counter in another state changes nothing about that. The reasoning holds up: your NAPLEX travels with you, your knowledge of New York law does not, and the jurisprudence exam tests the second thing. It is the claim we see wrong most often, and the one most likely to cost someone a start date.
There is no score to bring with you either. Because the MPJE is built separately for each jurisdiction, NABP does not transfer MPJE results between states. New York has also not adopted the Uniform MPJE; as of September 2026, 13 jurisdictions have, and NABP maintains the current list. The sibling post on New York MPJE or the Uniform MPJE works through which exam a New York candidate actually sits.
An endorsement applicant is doing the paperwork and the exam preparation at once, usually while working. New York Pharmacy Law: A New York MPJE Study Guide 2026-2027 covers the New York and federal material with 150 checkpoint questions and full rationales, preparation that survives being done in ninety-minute pieces.
How long do results take, and what is the real deadline?
Two official sources disagree, so plan for the longer one. NABP says 14 business days from the exam date, in the Candidate Application Bulletin and on its MPJE results page. The Department's examinations FAQ says approximately seven. Work to 14 and treat anything sooner as a bonus.
Results are Pass or Fail. NABP releases no scaled score for the MPJE, so there is no number to compare against a cutoff. A failing report does carry something usable: it shows your relative performance in each of the four major competency areas.
Passing is not the last date either. The Department says normal processing takes four to six weeks before an official license is issued, and tells you to contact its pre-licensure unit if six weeks go by without one. Budget for that gap if you have a start date.
The deadline that actually bites is not the attempt cap. NABP allows five attempts per jurisdiction on the MPJE unless a board of pharmacy determines otherwise, and the Department publishes no additional New York attempt limit. What it does publish is the five-year window, which runs on the exams and on the scores you file. A candidate who passes the NAPLEX, takes a few years away, and then starts on the MPJE can run the older score out of date. That is a paperwork failure rather than an exam failure. If your NAPLEX is aging, sit the MPJE sooner and build your study plan around the date the older score expires.
The order to do it in
Confirm which pathway your degree puts you on. It decides whether you owe hours and whether you can sit the MPJE before completing them.
If you owe hours, apply for the limited permit on Form 5, then file a Form 4 for each pharmacy and each preceptor.
Have your school send Form 2 to the Department, file Form 1 with the $339 fee, then apply for exam eligibility in your NABP e-Profile and wait for NABP to confirm you before you purchase and schedule. Sit the NAPLEX and the New York MPJE inside the five-year window, watching the older score.
Foreign and non-accredited graduates run that order differently: Form 1, Form 2 and a passing NAPLEX all have to be on file before the Department will issue the intern permit.
Fees and form numbers change without much warning, and the Department's license-requirements and application-forms pages are the versions that count. Check both on the day you file.
FAQ
Does New York have a board of pharmacy?
Yes, but not in the sense most states mean. The State Board for Pharmacy advises the Board of Regents and the State Education Department on rules, examinations, and discipline. The license itself is issued by the Department through its Office of the Professions, and that is where your application goes.
Do PharmD graduates need internship hours in New York?
No. A graduate of an ACPE-accredited program leading to the Doctor of Pharmacy degree is treated as having satisfied the experience requirement, and Form 4 is not required. The hour counts apply to graduates of accredited programs below the PharmD, at 1,040 hours, and to graduates of non-accredited or foreign programs, at 2,080 hours.
Can I transfer an MPJE score from another state to New York?
No. NABP builds a separate MPJE for each jurisdiction and does not transfer MPJE results between them. Your NAPLEX score can transfer for a fee, and your license can transfer by endorsement, but the New York jurisprudence exam has to be taken in New York.
How much does it cost to get licensed as a pharmacist in New York?
The Department charges $339 for licensure and first registration, plus $70 if you need a limited permit. The MPJE costs $270 through NABP, being a $100 eligibility application and a $170 exam purchase, with no $85 processing fee for New York candidates. The NAPLEX is billed separately by NABP.
How many times can I take the New York MPJE?
NABP allows five attempts per jurisdiction unless a board of pharmacy determines otherwise, and the Department publishes no additional New York cap. Fail, and you must wait 30 days from the date of the failed attempt before you can schedule again; the Bulletin calls that policy mandatory with no exceptions, and where a jurisdiction requires longer, the longer wait applies. A retake also restarts the eligibility application, at $100, with a further $170 examination fee once the board reconfirms you.
Preparing for the New York MPJE? New York Pharmacy Law: A New York MPJE Study Guide 2026-2027 covers the state and federal material with 150 checkpoint questions, every answer explained. Not sure yet? Try 12 of its questions free and we'll email you the sampler PDF.
Mortar & Law is an independent publisher. MPJE and NABP are trademarks of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. CPJE is administered by the California State Board of Pharmacy. Our books are independent study material and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of them.
Nothing here is legal advice. Exam and licensure requirements change; verify anything you plan to act on with your state board of pharmacy.