Social Work Licensure in Georgia: LCSW Requirements, Hours and Exams

Georgia's Chapter 135-5 rules issue exactly two social work licenses.

The Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW) provides evaluation, prevention and intervention services — community organization, counseling techniques, and supportive services such as administration, consultation, research or education — and may supervise bachelor-level social workers, whose own supervisors the statute addresses separately at O.C.G.A.

43-10A-7(b)(14).

The Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) is the clinical tier: every authorized LMSW service plus supervision, direction, psychosocial evaluation, counseling and psychotherapy, in settings from private practice to health care facilities.

For a new MSW graduate the sequence is fixed: the LMSW comes first, and the LCSW is earned on top of it, not instead of it.

Both licenses require the same degree: a master's in Social Work from a program accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, and the school must have held candidacy, conditional or accreditation status when the degree was awarded — a program that was still a candidate at graduation qualifies.

The timing rules bind a new graduate quickly.

Practicing social work under direction and supervision while preparing for the master's examination is allowed for up to one year following the degree, and within one year of graduating, an individual practicing social work in Georgia must apply to take the licensing examination.

The LCSW rule repeats the same degree requirement and adds no coursework, so what separates the licenses is supervised experience and the clinical exam, not more school.

The master's-degree route starts from three years' full-time supervised experience after the MSW, of which only the first two must be under direction.

Inside that, the rule counts exactly: 3,000 hours of clinical social work over no less than 36 months or more than 108 months, the first 2,000 hours under supervision and direction, and 120 hours of supervision with no more than half in group and at least half from a duly qualified LCSW.

An MSW who also holds a doctorate in a listed field with a supervised clinical internship may substitute: 2,000 hours under direction in no less than 24 or more than 72 months, with 80 hours of supervision, half of which may be group and half of which must come from an LCSW.

If hardship or good cause threatens the window, the Board may extend the period in its sole discretion — ask before the clock runs out.

The rules speak of "the master's social work licensing examination" and "the Clinical Social Work licensing examination"; the rule text read does not name ASWB, so no exam level is stated here.

The order of operations differs by tier.

An LMSW applicant must pass the required examination before applying for the license, while an LCSW applicant applies first and, on Board approval, schedules the exam directly with the testing authority.

Each exam may be taken a total of three times.

A master's graduate who fails three times may not continue practicing social work in Georgia until they pass, absent a statutory exemption; the clinical rule bars private practice of counseling or psychotherapy after three failures until the exam is passed.

A qualified supervisor is an LCSW, Professional Counselor, Marriage and Family Therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist who has practiced in their specialty for at least 2000 clock hours over a minimum of 2 years following licensure.

Individual supervision means one supervisor with at most two supervisees; group supervision means at most six.

The hours rule then narrows the mix for LCSW candidates: at least half of the 120 supervision hours must come from a licensed clinical social worker who meets that definition.

An associate whose employer's supervisor is a counselor or psychologist should line up an LCSW for the other half before the hours start.

Both supervisor and supervisee keep a contemporaneous record of each session — date, duration, type and a brief summary — to submit to the Board on request.

The LMSW license does not start independent.

The first two years of practice after it is issued run under direction and supervision — direction being administrative oversight, supervision the direct clinical review of your client work.

After two years the licensee may engage in private practice, but a master's licensee whose practice includes counseling or psychotherapeutic techniques may do that work only under supervision, and only for the period prescribed to qualify for the clinical exam.

In practice, the counseling and psychotherapy lane is not open to a standalone LMSW in Georgia, and the 60-day rule later on this page sets how quickly the clinical application must follow.

The Board's Licensure by Endorsement rule licenses without examination any Professional Counselor or Marriage and Family Therapist currently licensed in another state whose own requirements are substantially equal to or greater than Georgia's.

Social workers are not named, and the sources read located no social-work endorsement rule.

That is a statement about what these rules contain, not a finding that no route exists: an out-of-state clinician should ask the Composite Board directly how it handles an applicant already licensed elsewhere, and what verification it wants.

What the rules do describe for social workers is the standard examination route above, with the degree, hours and exam requirements applied.

Georgia has enacted the Social Work Licensure Compact: SB 195, 2024-05-02, recorded in the commission's news post — no primary enactment document was read.

Georgia appears on the commission's list of member jurisdictions.

The compact is not operational: as of September 2026 the commission is not issuing multistate licenses anywhere, and it estimates its data system will be complete in spring 2027 rather than giving a launch date.

Practicing in Georgia therefore still takes a Georgia license by the routes above, and both the statute's status and the multistate license are worth rechecking with the commission and the Board before you rely on them.

Renewal runs on a two-year cycle beginning October 1 of each even-numbered year and ending September 30, and each license needs 35 hours of continuing education.

At least 5 hours are ethics, obtained through synchronous activities only; of the remaining 30, at least 15 must be core hours in your specialty and no more than 15 related hours; a maximum of 10 hours may be asynchronous.

Independent study is capped at 5 hours and never counts as ethics or core, and no single course, workshop or presentation may supply more than 20 hours unless it is a conference.

A license first issued in the second year of the cycle owes no CE at its first renewal — but the rule says that break ends when a master social worker license is superseded by a clinical social worker license, so newly upgraded LCSWs owe the full 35.

Keep documentation for four years.

Qualifying for the LCSW while working as an LMSW in private practice starts a clock.

Within 60 days of meeting the experience and supervision requirements, the licensee must apply for the Clinical Social Work license to continue that private practice, then sit the first scheduled examination for which they qualify unless the Board approves a postponement for good cause.

Failing the exam keeps the work supervised until it is passed.

The exam may be taken three times in total, and a licensee who fails three times may not engage in the private practice of counseling or psychotherapy in Georgia until they pass, absent a statutory exemption.

For an LMSW counting hours toward the LCSW, the application date belongs in the plan next to the 108-month deadline.