About OPLR

The Office of Professional Licensure Review (OPLR) was created to fulfill the vision of Governor Spencer Cox in his Executive Order 2021-01 and the statute enacted by the Utah Legislature in SB 16 (2022 General Session), later amended by HB 474 (2025 General Session). The current version of OPLR’s statute can be found here.

OPLR assesses occupational regulation through:

  1. Periodic Reviews: Review current requirements in statute and rule for each regulated occupation in Utah once every ten years, based on a schedule approved annually by the Utah Legislature
  2. Sunrise Reviews: Review requests submitted to OPLR that propose regulating currently unregulated professions (request form)
  3. Legislative Inquiries: Respond to state legislator inquiries about licensure-related topics (inquire here)
  4. Public Input: Collect public input on existing state occupational regulations that may need to be modified or repealed (request form)

OPLR’s criteria for reviewing occupational regulation are outlined in statute, Utah Code 13-1b-302. The criteria seek to balance protecting the health, safety and financial welfare of the public with minimizing the costs of regulation on qualified practitioners, members of the public seeking services, and the state in administering regulations.

OPLR has developed a framework to help apply the criteria. A current working draft of this framework can be found here.