LPCC requirements in California

When your hours start counting

Only hours after your degree count; no hours earned as a trainee count toward the 3,000. After your degree, hours count from the day your APCC registration is issued, or earlier under the 90-day rule. All three of these must be true:

• The Board receives your APCC 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 Live Scan you did for the Board’s own registration doesn’t count, and DOJ results or an employer letter won’t be accepted.
• Your registration is later granted.

You can’t work in a private practice or professional corporation before your registration is issued.

What counts, and the caps

At least 1,750 of your hours must be direct clinical counseling with individuals, groups, couples or families. No more than 1,250 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. No more than 1,200 hours can be under a licensed educational psychologist.

There is no limit on telehealth hours. The old requirement of 150 hours in a hospital or community mental health setting ended on 1 January 2022, and there are no hour multipliers.

Couples and families: since 1 January 2022 you don’t need extra coursework, supervised hours or continuing education to work with couples and families. The law now asks only that you refer clients whose needs are beyond your own education, training and experience.

Supervision each week

One unit of supervision is one hour of individual supervision, 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.
• A week with more than 10 hours of direct counseling in a setting needs one additional unit for that setting.
• 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 counsel.

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

Who can supervise you

An LPCC, LMFT, LCSW, psychologist, a licensed educational psychologist (limited scope, 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 license that is not suspended or on probation;
• never have been your therapist, and not be your spouse, domestic partner or a relative;
• have completed 15 hours of supervisor training (psychologists and psychiatrists are exempt), then six hours each renewal period, and have filed a one-time self-assessment report within 60 days of starting.

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, a written oversight agreement is signed before supervision starts. Whether a supervisor has to be on site depends on the situation.

Private practice

You can work in a private practice or professional corporation only under your firstregistration 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. There are no exceptions. 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. If an application is abandoned and you reapply, the six years are counted from the new application. Your registration renews up to five times and can’t go beyond six years; a subsequent registration number requires a passed Law and Ethics exam and doesn’t allow private practice.

Forms: what you keep, what you send

• Weekly Log (37A-638): your supervisor signs it every week, and you keep it until you are licensed. Use a separate log for each supervisor and each work setting, and don’t send it unless the Board asks.
• Experience Verification (37A-675): 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 your application you also send the Supervision Agreement(s), any written oversight agreements, W-2s 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. If a substitute supervisor covers more than 30 days in a row, they need their own plan and verification form.

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

Coursework beyond your degree

Everyone applying needs six hours of suicide risk assessment and intervention and, for applications on or after 1 July 2023, three hours on telehealth, including telehealth law and ethics. The degree itself must be at least 60 semester units (48 for some older degrees), with a practicum of at least 280 hours of face-to-face supervised clinical experience (150 for some older degrees).

The exams

Take the California Law and Ethics exam before your first registration renewal and at least once in every renewal cycle until you pass, with a 90-day wait between attempts. You can file your licensure application before passing it. You need all your hours, your education and a passed Law and Ethics exam to become eligible for the NCMHCE; take it within a year of approval (and of any retake) or your file can be abandoned. 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 2021: six hours of suicide-risk training required.
• 1 January 2022: the couples-and-families add-on requirements and the 150 hospital/community mental health hours ended; Supervision Agreements and supervisor training rules began.
• 29 August 2022: video supervision allowed in every setting.
• 1 July 2023: the three-hour telehealth course became required.
• 1 January 2026: video supervision made permanent.

Other California licenses: LMFT (AMFT) · LCSW (ASW)