Continuing Education for Land Surveyors: A State-by-State Overview

Licensed land surveyors carry a distinct professional responsibility, and their continuing-education obligations reflect it. While the structure resembles the PDH system engineers know, the acceptable subject matter, hour totals, and terminology differ, and they vary considerably from one state to the next. Whether you hold a PLS, RPLS, or an equivalent survey license, this overview explains how surveyor continuing education generally works and what to verify for your own board.

PLS, RPLS, and the Terminology

Different states use different titles for the same profession. You may be licensed as a Professional Land Surveyor (PLS), a Registered Professional Land Surveyor (RPLS), a Professional Surveyor and Mapper, or another variation. The continuing-education requirements attach to the license regardless of the title, and in states that license both engineers and surveyors under one board, surveyors often have their own dedicated CE rules rather than sharing the engineering requirements.

How Hours Are Measured

Like engineers, surveyors typically earn credit in Professional Development Hours, with one PDH equal to roughly one contact hour of instruction. Continuing Education Units and college credits convert at similar rates to the engineering system. The core principle is the same: the activity must maintain or advance your competence as a surveyor.

Common Hour Totals

Requirements vary, but many surveyor boards land in a familiar range, commonly on the order of 15 PDH per year or a comparable two-year cycle total. Some states set the requirement lower, and a few do not mandate continuing education for surveyors at all. Because the spread is wide, the total that applies to your license is one of the first things to confirm. Our state requirements overview is a good place to start before you build your plan.

Surveying-Specific Acceptable Topics

What distinguishes surveyor CE is the subject matter boards expect. Qualifying topics generally center on the practice of surveying rather than general engineering, and often include:

• Boundary law and the location of property lines, including riparian and easement issues
• Legal principles and case law affecting surveys, deeds, and land descriptions
• Geodesy, datums, and coordinate systems, including modern reference frames
• GPS/GNSS and modern measurement technology, such as scanning and drone-based survey methods
• Photogrammetry, mapping, and geographic information systems
• Writing legal descriptions and platting
• Standards of practice and minimum technical standards for surveys

General technical courses aimed at engineers may not count toward a surveyor requirement if they do not address surveying practice, so choose courses framed for the profession.

Ethics and Rules for Surveyors

Many boards apply the same kind of ethics or laws-and-rules component to surveyors that they apply to engineers. This might be a required ethics hour, a state rules course, or both. Because surveyors work directly with property rights and public land records, ethics and standards-of-practice content is especially relevant, and boards often emphasize it. Confirm whether your state carves out a required ethics or rules subset separate from your general hours.

Documentation and Audits

Surveyor boards audit continuing education just as engineering boards do. Keep for each activity a record of the course title, provider, date, subject matter, and hours, along with a certificate of completion. Retain these records for the period your board specifies, which often extends a cycle or two beyond the current renewal. Storing everything in one place as you complete it makes an audit a non-event rather than a scramble.

Multi-Discipline and Dual Licensees

Some professionals hold both an engineering and a surveying license, sometimes in more than one state. In that situation you must satisfy each license’s requirement, and hours that qualify for one may not fully satisfy the other because of the subject-matter differences. Track each license’s cycle and required topics separately so nothing slips.

Plan Around Your Board’s Rules

The single most important takeaway is that surveyor CE is genuinely state-specific in both quantity and content. Start by confirming your total hours, any required ethics or rules component, and the acceptable-topic definitions your board uses, then select courses that clearly match. You can find surveying-relevant offerings in our course catalog.

Before your next renewal, pull your board’s current surveyor CE rule and map your hours against the surveying-specific topics it recognizes so every credit you earn actually counts.

This article is general information, not legal advice — always confirm current rules with your state licensing board.