LMFT Licensure in Colorado: Requirements, Hours and Exams

Colorado has one independent license, the LMFT, and its pre-licensure vehicle is a registration: the marriage and family therapist candidate (MFTC).

The order matters more than it looks.

The Division of Professions and Occupations says post-degree hours only count if you were already registered as a candidate, or qualify another way, before you started accruing them — so hours gathered before the registration issues do not count.

The DPO page names the other pre-counting routes: a current Unlicensed Psychotherapist registration, or practicing in an exempt facility as permitted.

The Applications page also lists a Provisional Marriage and Family Therapist license, but its statutory basis and conditions were not in the sources read.

The rule starts from accreditation: a master's or doctoral degree from a program approved by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE).

A non-COAMFTE graduate can still qualify, but as an equivalent program — and the applicant, not the board, carries the burden of establishing equivalency, with evidence such as institutional documents published when you enrolled.

DPO has contracted all education equivalency reviews for LPC, MFT, psychology and addiction counselor applicants to the Center for Credentialing & Education, so a non-COAMFTE applicant's first stop is CCE, not the Board.

Foreign-trained applicants must submit their credentials to a credentialing agency the Board uses for equivalency evaluation.

Because the Board warns that some programs labeled as marriage and family are not primarily MFT programs, check a program's status before you enroll rather than after.

Post-master's, the supervised practice in individual and marriage and family therapy cannot be completed in fewer than twenty-four months, and the two years of practice the statute requires — section 12-245-504(1)(d), C.R.S., as quoted inside the rule — must include at least 2,000 hours of practice.

Within that total sit at least 1,500 hours of face-to-face direct client contact, of which at least 1,000 must be with couples and families for diagnosis, assessment and intervention, distributed reasonably uniformly across the 24 months.

Sessions with one member of a couple or family count toward the relational hours when they are part of and in furtherance of ongoing work with that couple or family, so a candidate carrying a mostly individual caseload should map their hours against this before assuming they qualify.

Teaching the practice counts up to 300 hours of practice and 30 hours of supervision.

A doctoral applicant has the shorter track: at least 12 months, with at least 1,500 face-to-face direct client contact hours including at least 1,000 with couples and families.

Colorado tests twice.

The national half is the marriage and family therapy examination administered under contract with AMFTRB; the state half is a Board-developed jurisprudence examination, and candidates must pass the jurisprudence exam as well as license applicants.

A student in the final semester or quarter of a COAMFTE-approved or non-approved graduate program may apply directly to AMFTRB to sit early, and an applicant who fails reapplies to AMFTRB under its requirements.

Timing is the detail to plan around: passing scores on the AMFTRB examination are valid for up to five years.

The DPO Applications page keeps a jurisprudence examination guide among its downloadable forms.

Colorado sets supervision as a ratio, not a flat total: for each 1,000 hours of supervised practice, at least 50 hours of supervision, of which at least 25 must be face-to-face individual supervision; the remainder up to the 50 may be group supervision of no more than ten people.

On the 2,000-hour post-master's minimum, that arithmetic works out to 100 supervision hours with at least 50 individual — a computed figure, not one the rule prints.

Both the individual and the group portions may be in-person or by telesupervision, and consultation is not supervision and earns no credit.

The Board may approve as a supervisor an LMFT or other licensed mental health professional in good standing with education, clinical experience and clinical supervisory experience in marriage and family therapy, an MFT who was an AAMFT approved supervisor at the time, or an LPC, psychologist, LCSW or LAC with a substantially equivalent MFT supervisory background.

The supervisor files a verified statement, signed under penalty of law, attesting to your supervised practice, and keeps records of the exact hours.

There is no MFT compact; Colorado licenses therapists from elsewhere through its Occupational Credential Portability Program.

Every applicant starts from a current, unrestricted license in good standing from another state, a US territory or the federal government.

Route (a) requires all of: an MFT degree from an accredited or equivalent program, an attested passing score on a national or state MFT examination, and an attested two years of post-master's or one year of post-doctoral practice under clinical supervision — or, in place of that supervised practice alone, two years of active practice, meaning at least 20 hours per week averaged with no more than a six-month absence.

Route (b) stands alone: proof of at least one year holding a current, unrestricted license in good standing in a jurisdiction whose scope of practice is substantially similar to Colorado's.

Every endorsement applicant passes the Board's jurisprudence examination, and the Board will consider post-degree supervised experience earned in another jurisdiction where you were not licensed as an MFT, if that jurisdiction offered no such license.

LMFT and Provisional licenses expire on August 31 of odd-numbered years; MFTC registrations expire on December 31 every 3 years.

For licensed therapists, renewal is not a plain course log: the Continuing Professional Development program asks for a Professional Practice Survey, a Learning Plan built on it, and documentation of 40 Professional Development Hours each cycle, with no more than 20 PDH credited to a single activity, a maximum of 5 carried over, and 1.66 PDH accrued for each month for someone licensed partway through a cycle.

Approved activities range from coursework and group learning to supervision and volunteering, and documentation is kept at least five years in case the Board asks.

Candidates are not exempt: an MFTC must complete 60 continuing professional development and educational hours before a second or subsequent renewal.

The change the rule itself dates is the candidate CE requirement: effective May 22, 2024, marriage and family therapist candidates must complete 60 continuing professional development and educational hours before a second or subsequent renewal of the registration.

The chapter was then amended effective June 14, 2025 (48 CR 09), the latest amendment shown in the saved rule text; the sources read date that amendment but do not isolate every section it touched, so confirm the current subsection text with the Board before relying on it.

Note the shape as well as the size: Colorado runs a CPD portfolio of survey, learning plan and documented hours rather than plain CE hours, so an unstructured course list does not satisfy renewal.

A licensure application stays active for one year; if you are not licensed within it, you file a new application and fee and must meet the education, experience and examination requirements then in effect, unless the Board extends it for good cause.

The rule also looks backward: an applicant must have passed the required examination no more than five years before applying, and experience and supervision that predate the application by more than five years are not accepted absent good cause — though the rule says this may not apply to exceptions allowable under the statutes concerning marriage and family therapist candidates.

Practically, a candidate who drifts toward the five-year mark between accruing hours and applying should raise the timing with the Board before assuming the oldest hours still count.