MFT License Requirements by State: LMFT Hours and Exams

There is no national figure.

3,000 hours is common, but several states license marriage and family therapists on fewer, and boards count differently: some set a total, some set only a direct-contact floor, and some let part of the total come from graduate practicum.

Use your own state's number, never a national one.

Here are ten states, each from its board's statute, rule or requirements page:

Two rules in that table change your timeline.

The minimum time frame means working faster does not finish sooner: California spreads its 3,000 hours over at least 104 weeks and credits no more than 40 hours in any seven days.

Pre-degree hours can shorten the post-degree stretch: California counts up to 1,300 hours earned before the degree, North Carolina up to 500 earned as a master's student.

Relational hours, time with couples or families in the session, are the MFT-specific requirement.

A job with plenty of individual clients can leave you short on them.

What counts as a supervised hour in the first place is covered in associate vs. independently licensed, and how these totals turn into years in how long it takes to get licensed as a therapist.

A master's or doctoral degree in marriage and family therapy, or in a related field with equivalent coursework.

The board sets the minimum credit load: California requires 60 semester or 90 quarter units for graduate study begun on or after August 1, 2012; Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina require 60 semester hours; Illinois and South Dakota 48; Texas 60 semester hours for programs started on or after August 1, 2017.

Accreditation decides how much paperwork the board makes you do.

COAMFTE (the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education) is the profession's own accreditor.

Texas, Illinois, Alabama and South Carolina also accept a CACREP-accredited program, and a related-field degree is checked against the board's coursework list.

In California, COAMFTE is one accepted route, not a requirement.

Florida accepts an MFT-emphasis master's from an institutionally accredited school only for degrees conferred before September 1, 2027.

Why boards write accreditation into the rule is explained in CSWE vs CACREP vs COAMFTE.

The degree also carries a graduate practicum or internship.

California requires at least 150 hours of face-to-face counseling within it; Ohio and New York at least 300 client-contact hours; Maryland 300 direct hours, at least 100 of them relational.

Between the degree and the full license, many states put you on a pre-licensure credential while you earn supervised hours.

The letters differ by state, and so does their meaning: "LMFT" is not always the independent tier.

The full decoder across counseling, social work and MFT is the pre-licensure title alphabet.

For MFTs, the boards use these titles:

ALMFT is Illinois's spelling; LAMFT is the spelling most of the states above use.

Either way, an associate credential is issued by one state's board, and AAMFT's portability model law covers full LMFT licensure only, not associate licensure.

Most states use the AMFTRB Examination in Marital and Family Therapy, usually called the national MFT exam.

AMFTRB (the Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards) owns it; it is delivered through Prometric and scored by the Professional Testing Corporation (PTC).

AMFTRB does not decide who may sit it: your state board approves you.

California is the exception.

It does not use the AMFTRB exam for initial licensure: applicants pass the California Law and Ethics Exam and a clinical exam set by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS).

A 2025 law (SB 775) lets the BBS specify an outside clinical exam by regulation, so check the BBS site for which clinical exam applies when you register.

Several states add a state law exam: Texas a jurisprudence exam, Maryland an exam on Maryland law, Florida a laws-and-rules requirement.

Texas also accepts the California exam in place of AMFTRB's.

Format, scoring and how the MFT exam compares with the counselor and social work exams are in the therapist licensing exams guide.

Supervision hours sit inside the experience requirement and carry their own floor: 200 hours in Texas, Illinois, Virginia and Washington; 120 in South Carolina; 100 in Florida and South Dakota, and for the Kansas LCMFT.

Boards also set a ratio or a weekly minimum.

Kansas wants one hour of supervision per 15 direct hours, South Dakota one per 20, and California at least one hour each week in each work setting.

Who can supervise is a board rule too.

Texas requires an LMFT holding its LMFT-S supervisor designation.

Washington wants 100 of the hours from an LMFT with at least two years' experience.

North Carolina requires a supervisor meeting the AAMFT standard.

California accepts an LMFT, LCSW, LPCC, psychologist or board-certified psychiatrist licensed for at least two of the last five years and trained in supervision.

Confirm that an employer's supervisor qualifies under your board's rule before you accept the job.

Who pays for clinical supervision covers the cost side, and choosing a first therapist job that gets you licensed covers what to ask.

There is no MFT interstate licensure compact (checked September 2026).

Licensed marriage and family therapists who move apply to the new state's board for licensure by endorsement, and each board writes its own test.

AAMFT, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, promotes a portability model law that grants a full license to anyone holding a valid, unrestricted LMFT license in another state; it covers full licensure, not associates.

Four examples.

California asks for a license at the highest independent level, current and unrestricted for at least two years, plus California law and ethics coursework and its law and ethics exam; the clinical exam is waived.

North Carolina asks for two continuous years licensed and practicing.

Illinois drops the education and experience paperwork after five consecutive years at the independent level without discipline.

New York wants five years of licensed practice in the ten years before you apply.

The full process is in moving states as a therapist: license transfer and endorsement.

Every board runs its own application, so forms, fees, background checks and processing times differ by state.

Applicants should expect the board to verify the degree, the supervised hours and the exam result before it issues the license.

Check your state's page above for the board's own requirements and links.

Once licensed, you renew on the board's cycle and complete continuing education (CE): 36 hours every two years in California, 30 every two years in Texas and Florida, 20 a year in North Carolina and Virginia, and 36 every three years in New York.

Pay for licensed MFTs is on the LMFT salary page, and open roles are listed on the marriage and family therapist jobs board.