This document describes techniques and devices for efficient handling of a resource control state change and multi-node connectivity. Instead of performing multiple radio resource control (RRC) procedures to change a resource control state of a user equipment (UE) and establish, modify, or release a connection with multi-node connectivity, the techniques described herein combine the multiple RRC procedures into a single RRC procedure that supports both a resource control state change and multi-node connectivity. In particular, a master node sends a resource control state and multi-node connectivity message that includes both state change information and multi-node connectivity information. With this single message, timing and power resources of the UE can be conserved and failures resulting from asynchronous communication of the state change information and the multi-node connectivity information can be avoided.