Psychologist Licensure in Arizona: Degree, Supervised Hours and the EPPP

Arizona issues one psychology credential, the psychologist licence, and the statute defines the practice broadly: psychological assessment, diagnosis, treatment or correction of mental, emotional, behavioral or psychological abilities, illnesses or disorders, and purporting or attempting to do so also falls within it, so a job title that implies psychology practice needs the licence.

Two temporary licences sit alongside it.

Under 32-2073(B), the board may issue a 36-month temporary licence to an applicant already working under supervision for postdoctoral experience who meets the degree, coursework and supervised-hours subsections and files the written training plan with the application; under 32-2073(A), if the board requires an additional examination it may issue a temporary licence to a psychologist licensed in another jurisdiction who meets the education, experience and first-examination requirements, running from approval until the last day of the month the additional-exam results arrive, not extendable, renewable or reissuable (32-2073(C), (D)).

From January 1, 2022, a temporary-licence applicant must also have applied for a fingerprint clearance card.

A graduate whose remaining 1,500 hours are preinternship or internship hours never needs the postdoc rung.

Section 32-2071(A) asks for a doctoral degree in clinical or counseling psychology, school or educational psychology, or another applied-psychology subject the board accepts, from an institution accredited by one of six named regional accreditors, with the program meeting eight criteria: a labeled psychology program with identified entry and exit criteria, an identifiable psychology faculty, competence demonstrated in eight core content areas, at least the equivalent of three full-time academic years of graduate study (two at the degree-granting institution), a defended dissertation with primarily psychological content, official transcripts, and credit only for regionally accredited coursework.

APA accreditation is not required by name.

Didactic coursework must be complete before supervised experience begins (32-2071(C)), and the degree needs a residency: 18 semester hours within a 12-month consecutive period, or a minimum of 300 hours of documented student-faculty contact (32-2071(K)).

The board may require a respecialization program for applicants from unfamiliar applied areas (32-2071(L)).

This is Arizona's answer to the postdoc question: the rule does not contain one.

It asks for 3,000 hours of supervised professional work experience, of which at least 1,500 come through an internship meeting subsection F; the remaining 1,500 may be any combination of supervised preinternship experience (subsection E), additional internship hours, or supervised postdoctoral experience (subsection G), so an applicant can finish all 3,000 hours before the degree is conferred.

Graduates of accredited programs count practicum and internship hours on the same terms as everyone else, because the statute builds no accreditation split into the arithmetic.

The clocks the statute sets: the organized-training-program route must finish within 24 consecutive months (32-2071(F)(10)), preinternship hours within 72 months, postdoctoral hours capped at 1,500 within 36 consecutive months, and no more than 40 hours of credit in any week (32-2071(H)).

Twenty years of licensed or certified practice waives subsection F entirely, and ten years waives E and G (32-2071(I), (J)).

The statute text read carries no effective date for this structure.

Every applicant must pass the EPPP, the ASPPB national examination, at 70% on the written version or a scaled score of 500 on the computer-based version (32-2072(A)).

The board may approve an applicant who already holds the doctorate to sit for the EPPP before the supervised hours are complete (32-2072(C)), which lets a new graduate bank the exam early; an applicant who fails three times must meet additional board requirements before retaking.

Subsection (B) lets the board implement an additional examination on ethics and state law; whether one is currently administered is not stated in the sources read, because the R4-26 rules were not readable.

No EPPP Part 2 requirement appears in the statute read; from fall 2027 ASPPB's integrated EPPP replaces both parts for first-time takers, and from April 1, 2028 it is the only version.

The supervision arithmetic is set per 20 hours, and it differs by stage.

Preinternship hours need at least 2 hours of contemporaneous supervision per 20, including at least 1 hour of in-person individual supervision, with at least 50% of the time in psychological service-related activities, at least 25% face-to-face, and at least 75% of the supervision from an independently licensed psychologist designated by the training program (32-2071(E)(4)).

The ten criteria in subsection F, among them at least 25% direct client contact, 1 hour of individual supervision per 20 hours plus 2 weekly learning hours, and at least half the supervision from psychologists, attach to its third route: an organized training program, which is how an internship that is neither APA-accredited nor APPIC-member qualifies (32-2071(F)).

A postdoctoral supervisor must have held an independent-level licence for at least two years, take full legal responsibility for clients, and the supervisee spends at least 40% of the time in direct contact (32-2071(G)).

An associate choosing a postdoc supervisor should check that two-year rule before signing.

No licence below the doctorate was found in the statutes read — no master's-level licence of any title.

The nearest is an exemption, not a credential: a government-agency employee in a subdoctorate position who uses assistant or associate after the title, supervised by a doctorate-position employee licensed as a psychologist (32-2075(A)(2)).

Other exemptions carry conditions: a DOE-certified school psychologist in a school setting, only for work that is part of their school employment or contract (32-2075(A)(1)); a graduate student at a 32-2071-accredited institution using trainee, intern or extern, only for activities in the supervised program (32-2075(A)(3)); a subsection G supervisee whose supervisor has been licensed at least two years, whose clients are told the services are training, and whose title shows training status (32-2075(A)(6)); university faculty, exempt for salaried faculty duties but not direct services or supervising students who provide them, and only with a 32-2071 doctorate (32-2075(A)(5)); and other licensed professions practising within their scope if they do not claim to be psychologists (32-2075(B)).

Prescribing stays outside the chapter: 32-2076 keeps the practice of medicine for its own licensees.

The PSYPACT Commission map, as read in September 2026, lists Arizona as a member in effect: HB 2503, enacted May 17, 2016, effective July 1, 2020.

A psychologist licensed here uses the compact through ASPPB's E.Passport plus a PSYPACT APIT authorization to practise telepsychology, or the Interjurisdictional Practice Certificate plus a TAP authorization for temporary in-person work capped at 30 calendar days per year, keeping Arizona as the home state where they are physically located while delivering telepsychology.

PSYPACT is doctoral-only under the compact's own rule, which is a clean fit here: Arizona issues only the doctoral licence.

The article read contains no general reciprocity or endorsement section, only targeted waivers.

A diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology, or a holder of ASPPB's Certificate of Professional Qualification in good standing, is exempt from the national examination (32-2072(D)).

Twenty years of licensed or certified practice waives the internship requirement (32-2071(I)), and ten years waives the preinternship and postdoctoral requirements (32-2071(J)).

A psychologist licensed in another jurisdiction who meets the education, experience and first-examination requirements may hold a temporary licence where the board requires an additional examination, effective from approval until the last day of the month the additional-examination results arrive; it cannot be extended, renewed or reissued (32-2073(A), (C), (D)), and an out-of-state psychologist may work in Arizona within their customary area of practice for up to 20 days per year, with the client or public told of the limited nature of the services and that the psychologist is not licensed in this state, under exemption (32-2075(A)(4)).

Whether the board's unread R4-26 rules add further endorsement routes is not stated in the sources read.

Licences renew every other year by the last day of the licensee's birth month, in odd-numbered years for odd-numbered licences and even for even (32-2074(B)).

A licence that misses the deadline expires, with reinstatement windows that can require proof of competency (32-2074(C)), and every renewal must attach a report of disciplinary actions taken by other boards or ethics committees (32-2074(D)).

Continuing education is required in the amount and during the period the board prescribes (32-2074(E)), but the hour figure sits in rule R4-26, which the sources could not read, so it is not stated in the sources read.

An initial renewal on or after January 1, 2022 also requires a fingerprint clearance card (32-2074(G)).

Licensees who step away can go inactive and renew that status every two years (32-2073(G), (H)).

The fingerprint clearance card is the dated change: from January 1, 2022, temporary-licence applicants and licensees making an initial renewal must have applied for one (32-2073(J); 32-2074(G)).

The research identified no 2023–2026 amendments to this article, and the azleg pages read do not display session-law history, so a recent amendment could sit unlisted.

The effective date of the 3,000-hour, optional-postdoc structure is likewise not in the statute text read.

Before relying on any hour figure or deadline, confirm it with the board.