Psychologist Licensure in New York: Degree, Supervised Hours and the EPPP

Article 153 ties both the practice of psychology and the words psychologist, psychology and psychological to a licence.

Two limited permits exist, and their clocks differ.

The supervised-experience permit (Educ.

Law 7604(1-a); 8 NYCRR 72.4(c)) goes to an applicant who has met every licensure requirement except the exam and/or experience, holds the awarded doctoral degree with the dissertation done, and works under a psychologist licensed and registered in New York: 12-month terms, extendable for two more 12-month periods to a three-year aggregate, plus one additional one-year extension where the department finds good-faith efforts to finish the exam or experience, or other good cause, to 48 months total.

The out-of-state permit (Educ.

Law 7604(1); 8 NYCRR 72.4(b)) goes to a licensee of another state or country approved for exam admission who has resided in New York six months or less: at most 12 months, ending early on exam failure or results, and not renewable.

Doctoral students practise under training-status titles: psychological intern or psychological trainee (Educ.

Law 7605(2)).

The degree rule is written around the department's own registry: a doctoral degree in psychology granted on completion of a program registered with the department as licensure-qualifying, or the substantial equivalent.

The requirements page describes the program shape: at least three years of full-time study (or the part-time equivalent), including at least 30 semester hours of course work at the degree-granting institution, coursework spanning research, ethics, individual and cultural diversity, assessment and diagnosis, intervention and related areas, and one year of supervised practicum, internship, field experience or applied research — where a practicum must be the equivalent of an internship.

A graduate of an out-of-state or international program is evaluated for substantial equivalence, so confirm the program's status with the Office of the Professions before counting on it.

Applicants must also complete the state's coursework in the identification and reporting of child abuse.

The experience rule asks for two years of full-time supervised experience or the part-time equivalent, 3,500 clock hours in total.

No more than one year — 1,750 clock hours — may come from the internship required for the doctoral degree, and the remaining experience must be completed after receipt of the qualifying doctoral degree.

That is the postdoctoral requirement as written: an applicant cannot carry both years out of the doctorate.

Separately, in addition to other forms of satisfactory experience, the department may accept up to one year of a university-approved doctoral-level practicum, internship, field experience or applied research (research outside the dissertation or thesis), or of teaching psychology as a faculty member — an acceptance list for what can count as experience, not a second route around the internship cap, and teaching is bounded by the same setting, duration and supervision rules.

Confirm with the Office of the Professions how your own hours will be credited before you rely on them.

New York requires the EPPP with a converted score of at least 75, as determined by the State Board for Psychology, and nothing else in the texts read: no jurisprudence examination and no oral exam are stated.

Admission to the exam runs through the licence application itself — the degree must be conferred and the education verified and approved before ASPPB is notified — so the exam follows the doctorate in New York's sequence.

The board also notes that New York candidates may take the exam only four times a year.

One date belongs on any EPPP Part 2 statement: ASPPB's single integrated EPPP becomes the required exam for first-time takers from fall 2027 and the only version from April 1, 2028, so the version a New York candidate sits depends on when they test.

For an associate choosing where to count hours, the rule is concrete.

Full-time experience means 35 to 45 hours a week; part-time means 16 to 34 hours a week spread over at least two days.

Every full-time experience carries weekly supervision — one hour of face-to-face individual supervision on the services rendered, plus a second hour that may be face-to-face, group supervision, seminars or workshops, or apprenticeship activities — and part-time experience takes two hours in every two-week period, one face-to-face.

Face-to-face supervision may use technology acceptable to the department, including secure video-conferencing.

The supervisor must be a psychologist licensed where the experience occurs, must own, be employed by, or consult to the setting, and in every New York setting, including exempt settings, must be licensed and registered under Article 153 or hold qualifications satisfactory to the department.

The setting itself must be an authorized setting under the rule.

The licence protects both the work and the words.

The practice it covers is defined broadly: psychological and neuropsychological testing, counseling, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and the diagnosis and treatment of mental, nervous, emotional, cognitive and behavioral disorders.

What it may never include is prescribing — Section 7606 prohibits any licensee from prescribing or administering drugs as a treatment, therapy or professional service, and bars invasive procedures, a term the statute defines to include surgery, lasers, ionizing radiation, therapeutic ultrasound and electroconvulsive therapy.

There is no prescriptive pathway to add later: New York is not among the states whose legislatures have enacted prescribing for specially trained psychologists.

The PSYPACT Commission map, as read in September 2026, files New York under legislation introduced in 2025 — bills A06744 and S7136 — and its key treats introduced legislation as a non-participant until enacted and effective.

A New York psychologist therefore cannot take PSYPACT's telepsychology or temporary in-person authorizations to another member state, and a psychologist licensed in a member state has no compact authorization to practise here.

PSYPACT is doctoral-only in any case, so no other New York credential is affected.

The routes that do exist for crossing New York's border are endorsement, the limited permit and the temporary-practice exemption below.

8 NYCRR 72.8 requires all of: age 21; licensure by another jurisdiction with standards equivalent to New York's, as determined by the department; a doctorate that qualified you for licensure there; supervised experience that qualified you for initial licensure there; an examination acceptable to the department; five years of satisfactory experience in the ten years before applying; child-abuse identification coursework or its exemption; good moral character; and acceptable licence and discipline status everywhere you are licensed.

ASPPB must send your EPPP-1 scores; no other examination is accepted, and the CPQ is declined.

Without the five years you are not eligible for endorsement — apply as an initial applicant.

If your initial jurisdiction's requirements are not significantly comparable to New York's, you file the initial-licensure documentation for substantial-equivalence review even with the five years.

The out-of-state permit covers an applicant awaiting the exam: 12 months at most, not renewable, six months or less of New York residence on filing.

Temporary practice runs under the one-time exemption: 10 consecutive business days, 15 in any 90.

Registration runs in three-year terms, and each triennial period carries at least 36 hours of acceptable learning activities, at least three of them in professional ethics, including the laws, rules and regulations for practice in New York.

The first registration period is exempt, hours are prorated at one per month for early registrants from January 1, 2021, and unused hours never roll into the next triennium.

The rule adds shape: three of the 36 hours must cover professional boundaries between licensees and patients for registration periods beginning on or after April 1, 2023, self-study is capped at 12 hours per triennium, and formal courses must come from department-approved providers.

Keep records for six years; the department can ask for them.

In the sources read, Article 153 and Part 72 carry one dated change in this window: from registration periods beginning on or after April 1, 2023, three of the 36 continuing-education hours must cover maintaining appropriate professional boundaries between licensees and patients, from a department-approved provider.

No other 2023–2026 amendments to New York's psychology statute or rules were located in the sources read.

The Education Law's mandatory continuing-education regime itself dates to January 1, 2021.

New York has no master's-level psychology licence: Article 153 licenses psychologists only, at the doctoral level.

What the law provides is an employment exemption.

Section 7605(13) and 8 NYCRR 72.7 authorize a person holding a master's-level degree in psychology or its equivalent — a Part 52-registered program or one accredited to substantially equivalent standards — who is employed in a program or service operated, regulated, funded, or approved by the Department of Mental Hygiene, the Office of Children and Family Services, or a local government unit or social services district to perform activities and services within the scope of practice, under the supervision of a psychologist licensed and registered under Article 153.

Within that supervised practice, the rule says the individual may use the title psychologist and the words psychologist, psychology or psychological in connection with the practice.

The authority runs with the job: it is an exemption for supervised practice inside those settings, not a psychology licence.