PE Ethics 2026: NCEES Model Law, Rules, and What Changed
Last updated October 7, 2026
NCEES writes the Model Law and Model Rules for state licensing boards to adopt into their own engineering laws and rules. NCEES voted on revisions to the Model Law and Model Rules at its August 2026 meeting. Fraudulent seals are now an NCEES enforcement priority, and a 2025 NCEES position statement covers how engineers should use AI. The course explains which 2026 changes were reported adopted and which are still pending. A Model Law or Model Rules revision applies to you only after your state board adopts it. The course also covers what to do if your seal appears on work that's not yours. The rest of the course teaches the core provisions of the Model Law and Model Rules. Topics include offering services in a state where you are not licensed, sealing multi-discipline and digital documents, reporting violations to the board, the disciplinary process, and keeping licenses in several states. Because the course teaches the NCEES model and not one state's rules, it does not replace a state-specific laws-and-rules course that your board may require.
Learning Objectives
Decide whether a 2026 NCEES change applies to your practice, based on whether NCEES adopted it or left it pending and whether your state board has adopted it.
Check and document the output of AI tools before relying on it, as NCEES Position Statement 6.10 expects.
Apply the responsible charge and sealing requirements to the documents you issue, on paper or digitally.
Recognize when the rules of professional conduct require you to notify, report, or disclose.
Keep your licenses in good standing by meeting the renewal and continuing-competency requirements of each state that issued one.
BasePDH | Course 033 | 2 Professional Development Hours
PE Ethics 2026: NCEES Model Law, Rules, and What Changed
Introduction
A professional engineer (PE) is licensed by a state board and practices under that state's licensing statute and board rules. The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) is made up of the engineering and surveying licensing boards of the U.S. states and territories, its member boards [2]. It writes a template for each state's law: the Model Law for the statute and the Model Rules for the board's rules [2]. This course teaches that template: what counts as practicing engineering, what responsible charge and the seal require, the rules of professional conduct, and how discipline and renewal work.
It starts with what changed in 2026. At their August 2026 annual meeting, NCEES delegates adopted "a number of" Model Law and Model Rule revisions, with details to follow in the official minutes [4]. NCEES has also made fraudulent seals and the verification of engineering work a priority [4], and in 2025 it adopted a position on engineers' use of artificial intelligence [5].
In this course, the board is the engineer's own state licensing board, a jurisdiction is the model's word for a state, the District of Columbia, or a U.S. territory, commonwealth, or possession that licenses engineers, and a licensee is a licensed engineer or surveyor [2]. The course teaches the model, not any one state's rules, so it does not meet a board requirement for a course on a particular state's laws and rules. Where a state's text differs from the model, the state's text governs.
1. The 2026 Picture: Amendments, Enforcement, and AI
An engineer meets model text secondhand, in a state board's rules or a board's notice of a proposed rule. Before relying on a provision, the engineer needs to know whether it is current model text, an amendment voted on in 2026, or a proposal still in committee, and whether the state has adopted it.
1.1 The Amendment Process for the Model Law and Model Rules
The Council, the delegates from NCEES's member boards, amends the model at its annual meeting by voting on motions from NCEES committees and task forces [4] [3]. A motion takes one of two forms [3]:
- A direct amendment moves that a provision "be amended as follows" and prints the new text. Revisions are decided by Council vote at the annual meeting [2].
- A charge moves that the Committee on Uniform Procedures and Legislative Guidelines (UPLG Committee) "be charged with incorporating" an amendment. The committee revises the language and brings it back for a Council vote at the next scheduled annual meeting [2].
The 2026 direct amendments to the Model Law and Model Rules were all UPLG Committee motions (UPLG Motions 1 to 13), several of them carrying out motions the Council adopted in 2025 [3].
Before the meeting, NCEES published the 2026 Action Items, its book of motions and committee reports, with each motion's text, rationale, and the position of NCEES's board of directors (NCEES's own board, not a state board) [3]. The board of directors endorsed every Model Law and Model Rules motion except Licensure Motion 10 [3]. It listed UPLG Motions 1 to 13, and every other motion in Section 1.2, as potential items for the consent agenda, which the Action Items proposes delegates approve together in a single motion unless a member board asks for an item to be considered separately [3].
The Action Items records no outcomes. After the meeting, the October 2026 Licensure Exchange, an NCEES periodical, reported that the delegates adopted "a number of" Model Law and Model Rule revisions, with details to come in the official minutes later in 2026 [4]. Neither publication says which Model Law and Model Rules motions passed. This course therefore treats a 2026 direct amendment as reported adopted, to be confirmed in the official minutes, and a charge as pending until a later annual meeting votes on it.
NCEES provides the model for its member boards to adopt [2], so even an adopted amendment binds an engineer only after the state writes it into its own statute or rules.