The North Dakota Pharmacy Benefits Manager license
Pharmacy Benefits Manager
Manages prescription drug benefits for a covered entity as a third party in North Dakota. The license runs a fixed year from 30 April to 31 March rather than from the day it is issued, it costs $10,000 to get and $10,000 again every year, and the applicant shows a million dollars of financial responsibility with the application and with every renewal.
Course
None
This license has no pre-licensing course route.
Ways in
1
There is no state exam for this license.
Exam
n/a
Not required on any of the routes below.
Every way to qualify
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Route 1 Apply for the license
No state exam for this license
Financial responsibility
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Evidence of financial responsibility of $1,000,000, filed with the initial application and with each renewal.
and service of process
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Service of process information filed with the application, which the Department asks for alongside the evidence of financial responsibility.
N.D.C.C. 26.1-27.1-02(1) forbids establishing or operating as a pharmacy benefits manager without a license and makes a breach a class C felony. Subsection 2 is the whole application: who the applicant is, who to contact, the federal employer identification number and whatever else the commissioner needs. There is no examination and no course. Subsection 3 sets the term at one year from 30 April through 31 March, and subsection 6 requires the million dollars every time. The fee is capped rather than fixed by statute: 26.1-01-07(1)(aa) lets the commissioner set an initial and a renewal fee that "may not exceed ten thousand dollars" each, and the Department has set both at the ceiling. The Department's third party administrator page adds a requirement this chapter does not carry, that a pharmacy benefits manager must also hold a certificate of authority as an administrator. The provision that used to put pharmacy benefits managers into the administrator chapter by name is repealed: 26.1-27-01.1 was headed Pharmacy benefits manager and now reads only "Repealed by S.L. 2025, ch. 278, section 11". The general definition at 26.1-27-01 could still reach the work, and none of its ten exceptions is a pharmacy benefits manager, so the second license is recorded here as the Department's own reading rather than dropped.
Read at the Department on 2026-08-20
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North Dakota sets no examination and no course for this license, so there is nothing for a school to sell. No national seller prices a North Dakota product for it.