LMFT requirements in California

When your hours start counting

As a trainee, you can start gaining hours once you have completed 12 semester (18 quarter) units of your degree, and only while you are enrolled in practicum. Up to 1,300 pre-degree hours count, of which no more than 750 can be counseling and supervision. Trainees can’t work in a private practice or a professional corporation.

After your degree, hours count from the day your AMFT registration is issued, or earlier under the 90-day rule. All three of these must be true:

• The Board receives your AMFT application within 90 days of your degree being granted.
• If you graduated on or after 1 January 2020, your workplace required Live Scan fingerprinting before you started gaining hours there. Hours count only from the date on that “Request for Live Scan Service” form, you need one for each employer, and you send a copy with your licensure application. The Board won’t accept DOJ results or a letter from your employer instead.
• Your registration is later granted.

Hours under the 90-day rule can’t be earned in a private practice or professional corporation.

What counts, and the caps

Of your 3,000 hours, at least 1,750 must be direct clinical counseling with individuals, groups, couples or families, and at least 500 of those must be diagnosing and treating couples, families and children.

No more than 1,250 hours can be non-clinical: direct supervisor contact, administering and evaluating psychological tests, writing clinical reports, writing progress or process notes, client-centered advocacy, and workshops, seminars, trainings or conferences. No more than 1,200 hours can be under a licensed educational psychologist.

There is no limit on telehealth hours. Some older guides still mention personal therapy counting triple toward your hours; that is not in the current law.

Supervision each week

One unit of supervision is one hour of individual supervision (you and your supervisor), one hour of triadic supervision (two supervisees), or two hours of group supervision (no more than eight people receiving supervision). Group time can be split into segments of at least one continuous hour.

• You need at least one unit in every week you claim hours, in each work setting, in the same week.
• As an associate, a week with more than 10 hours of direct counseling in a setting needs one additional unit for that setting.
• As a trainee, you need an average of one unit for every five hours of direct counseling each week in each setting (only the units beyond the first can be averaged).
• No more than six hours of supervision count in any week.
• At least 52 of your 104 weeks must include individual or triadic supervision.
• After you finish your hours, you still need at least one hour a week in each setting where you see clients.

Video: supervision by two-way, real-time video counts in every setting, permanently since 1 January 2026. Your supervisor has to assess and document that video is appropriate for you within 60 days of starting. Supervision by telephone never counts.

Who can supervise you

An LMFT, LCSW, LPCC, psychologist, a licensed educational psychologist (for educationally related services only, up to 1,200 of your hours), or a psychiatrist certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. They must:

• have held an active license for at least two of the last five years, and practiced or supervised psychotherapy for two of them;
• hold a current California license that is not suspended or on probation;
• never have been your therapist, and not be your spouse or a relative;
• have completed 15 hours of supervisor training (psychologists and psychiatrists are exempt), then six hours in each renewal period, and have filed a one-time self-assessment report with the Board within 60 days of starting to supervise.

You and your supervisor sign a Supervision Agreement within 60 days of starting (for supervision that began on or after 1 January 2022). If your supervisor isn’t employed by your employer, or is a volunteer, they and your employer also sign a written oversight agreement before supervision starts. Whether a supervisor has to be on site depends on the situation.

Where you can work

You must be a W-2 employee or a volunteer, not an independent contractor, and you can’t take payment from clients or pay your employer rent or fees. As an associate you can work in a private practice or professional corporation only under your first registration number, with a supervisor who is employed or contracted by the practice (or an owner) and who either sees clients there or has a written contract giving the same access to records. A supervisor in a nonexempt setting can have at most six individual or triadic supervisees at once.

Time limits

Your hours must have been earned within the six years before the Board receives your licensure application; up to 500 hours of practicum experience are exempt from that limit. Your AMFT registration lasts a year, renews up to five times, and can’t go beyond six years. After that you can apply for a subsequent registration number, but only once you have passed the Law and Ethics exam, and you can’t work in a private practice under it.

Forms: what you keep, what you send

• Weekly Log (37A-525): your supervisor signs it every week, and you keep it until you are licensed. Don’t send it unless the Board asks. Use a separate log for each supervisor and each work setting, and keep pre-degree and post-degree hours on separate logs.
• Experience Verification (37A-301): your supervisor completes and signs it when supervision ends, and you send it with your licensure application, one for each supervisor and each employer, with pre- and post-degree hours on separate forms.
• With your licensure application you also send the Supervision Agreement(s), any written oversight agreements, W-2s (or a current pay stub for a year not yet finished) or volunteer letters, your employer’s Live Scan form if you used the 90-day rule, proof of the suicide-risk and telehealth coursework, and the fee.

Signatures: the Board’s own FAQ says “Signed documents may be original, scanned, or have an electronic signature,” and the Experience Verification form asks for an original or electronic signature.

Coursework beyond your degree

Everyone applying needs six hours of suicide risk assessment and intervention (coursework, supervised applied experience, or continuing education) and, for applications on or after 1 July 2023, three hours on telehealth, including telehealth law and ethics. If you started your degree on or after 1 August 2012, or finished it after 31 December 2018, the other required topics are built into it and you don’t need to prove them separately. Older degrees need additional coursework, which the Board’s application lists.

The exams

Take the California Law and Ethics exam in your first year of registration, and at least once in every renewal cycle until you pass; you have to take it to renew, but you don’t have to pass it to renew. There is a 90-day wait between attempts. You need to pass it before a subsequent registration number or the clinical exam, and you can file your licensure application before you pass it.

You become eligible for the Clinical exam once your hours and education are complete, you have passed Law and Ethics, and the Board approves your application. Take it within a year of becoming eligible or your file can be abandoned; the wait between attempts is 120 days. Once you pass, request your license within a year.

What changed recently

• 1 January 2020: the 90-day rule started requiring employer Live Scan for new graduates.
• 1 January 2022: Supervision Agreements, supervisor self-assessments and training requirements, and new rules for supervisors in private practice.
• 29 August 2022: video supervision allowed in every setting.
• 1 July 2023: the three-hour telehealth course became required.
• 1 January 2025: everyone in a supervision group, including licensees, counts toward the limit of eight.
• 1 January 2026: video supervision made permanent; a current pay stub can stand in for an unfinished year’s W-2.

Other California licenses: LPCC (APCC) · LCSW (ASW)