South Carolina Licensing for a Military Spouse

Section 25-1-170, enacted by 2020 Act No. 139 as the Armed Services Members and Spouses Professional and Occupational Licensing Act, binds every board, agency, commission or other entity in South Carolina that issues professional licences or certificates for employment purposes. Who it covers, from subsection (B): an individual married to and living with an active duty member of the United States Armed Forces who is relocated to and stationed in this State under official military orders, who has not committed or participated in an act that would ground refusal, suspension or revocation of a licence, who is not under discipline or investigation in any jurisdiction in relation to a licence, and who pays the required fee and submits to any required background check. Note three boundaries in that list. The member must be active duty, so a Guard or reserve spouse without active duty orders is outside the section. The spouse must be living with the member, so a geographic bachelor arrangement does not qualify. And an open investigation anywhere, not a finding, is disqualifying. What the board owes. Subsection (C) is the interim right: a qualifying spouse who holds a valid licence in another state, district or territory with requirements "greater than or substantially similar to" the South Carolina requirements "must be approved to continue work in that profession or occupation upon relocation to this State for such time as normally allotted with receipt of a license or certificate". The spouse keeps working while the application is processed. Subsection (D) is the deadline: on completion of an application documenting compliance with the agency's requirements, the board "shall process the application and issue a license within fifteen business days after receipt of the application." Fifteen business days is roughly three calendar weeks, and the obligation is stated as a shall. Subsection (E) lists what the application must contain beyond the ordinary material: proof of the marriage and cohabitation with an active duty member relocated under orders, proof of a valid licence in another state, district or territory, and a certificate of good standing from the issuing jurisdiction. The exclusions, in subsection (G), are narrow but absolute: the section does not apply to the practice of law or the regulation of attorneys, or to educators. A military spouse who is a lawyer goes through the South Carolina Bar's own military spouse provisions if any, and a teacher goes through the Department of Education's certification route. Neither gets the fifteen-day guarantee. Subsection (H) ties the licence's term to the ordinary term for that profession, so this is not a provisional or short-dated licence. Subsection (I) preserves the board's power to revoke, penalise or suspend under the ordinary code sections. Subsection (F) permits, but does not require, a board to establish reciprocity with other states for military spouse licensing. Subsection (A) allows each board to promulgate rules "in conformity with this section", which means the detail varies by profession. Check the board's own rules for what it treats as substantially similar, because that judgement is where an application stalls. Federal law now goes further than Section 25-1-170 for a family moving on orders, and it is the first thing to cite where the state section falls short. Since December 23, 2024, 50 U.S.C. 4025a, as rewritten by section 587 of Public Law 118-159, provides that a service member or spouse who relocates on military orders and holds a licence in good standing elsewhere, with no discipline and no pending investigation in any state, has that licence "considered valid for the scope of practice" in the new state on application with the orders, a marriage certificate for a spouse and a notarized affidavit; a board that cannot act within 30 days may issue a temporary licence with the same rights. The federal rule reaches the service member as well as the spouse, has no substantially similar test, does not require the spouse to be living with the member, and contains no exclusion for educators, although a licence held under an interstate compact follows the compact instead. Whether it reaches lawyers is doubtful, because it binds a state board, commission, department or agency and South Carolina admits lawyers through its Supreme Court. It covers people serving and their spouses, not veterans after separation.