LMFT Licensure in Connecticut: Requirements, Hours and Exams

Connecticut issues the license itself through the Department of Public Health; the chapter creates no board.

Both rungs are licenses, and the associate rung is worth reading closely: it is defined as a person licensed by the department whose license permits practice under the clinical supervision of a licensed marital and family therapist, not a registration or a permit.

The associate requirement is the specializing graduate degree alone (20-195c(b)), so you can hold it before any postgraduate hour is counted.

Except for the exemptions discussed below, practicing without a license is barred, and both titles — licensed marital and family therapist and licensed marital and family therapist associate — are protected (20-195b).

Subdivision (1) accepts a graduate degree program specializing in marital and family therapy from a regionally accredited college or university, or a postgraduate clinical training program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education and offered by a regionally accredited institution.

The practicum or internship must carry an emphasis in marital and family therapy and be supervised by the degree-granting program or by an accredited postgraduate training program.

DPH's page frames the degree choice as a COAMFTE-accredited program or a program meeting Section 20-195a-2 of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies; those regulations were not among the sources read, so ask DPH how a non-COAMFTE program documents equivalency.

The statute sets no minimum practicum hour count; the former 500-hour minimum was deleted effective July 6, 2021.

The experience rule has three numbers, and none is rounded here: 24 months of relevant postgraduate experience, at least 1,000 hours of direct client contact offering marital and family therapy services, and 100 hours of postgraduate clinical supervision by a licensed marital and family therapist.

The 1,000 direct hours must come after the master's or doctorate is awarded, or after the training year specified in subdivision (2) if your program uses one.

The 24-month minimum is new as of July 1, 2024 — P.A.

24-68 replaced twelve months with twenty-four — so a guide written before that date understates the requirement.

The statute sets no separate couples-and-families hour quota; the relational focus lives in the practice definition at 20-195a(3).

The statute requires only that you passed an examination prescribed by the department; DPH's requirements page names it: the Examination in Marital and Family Therapy of the Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards.

No Connecticut-specific law or jurisprudence exam appears in the sources read.

Mechanically, you submit the online application and fee plus an official transcript sent directly from your school; after DPH reviews the file and makes an eligibility determination, examination registration information is emailed to you.

If your degree program was approved by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy after 1979, no further educational documentation is required; otherwise a Verification of Course of Study form goes to DPH with the transcript.

The statute requires the 100 supervision hours to be provided by a licensed marital and family therapist; no AAMFT Approved Supervisor designation or other supervisor credential is named.

DPH splits the 100: at least 50 must be individual supervision, and the remaining hours may be group supervision as defined in the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies.

The planning point for an associate: if your experience and supervision hours occur in Connecticut, you must hold the Connecticut associate license while you earn them, and that license now runs twelve months at a time with at most three renewals.

Whether supervision delivered by video counts is not stated in the sources read — put that question to DPH before you rely on remote supervision.

The practice definition is relational by design: marital and family therapy means the evaluation, assessment, diagnosis, counseling, management and treatment of emotional disorders, whether cognitive, affective or behavioral, within the context of marriage and family systems, through individual psychotherapeutic and family-systems theories and techniques delivered to individuals, couples and families.

Except as 20-195f allows, no one may practice marital and family therapy in Connecticut without the license.

The exemptions cover a student whose activities are part of a supervised course of study, a faculty member performing duties consistent with their position, and a person licensed in this state in a field other than marital and family therapy practicing within the scope of that license or certification.

An applicant already licensed or certified as a marital or marriage and family therapist — or as an associate — in another U.S. state, territory or commonwealth may be licensed without examination if DPH finds that jurisdiction's standards equivalent to or higher than Connecticut's.

No license issues to an applicant against whom professional disciplinary action is pending or who is the subject of an unresolved complaint.

Where the standards fall short, 20-195c(e) lets you substitute three years of licensed or certified work experience in the practice of marital and family therapy in lieu of the practicum and the 24-month experience — not in lieu of the degree or the exam.

DPH's page describes the same trade: at least 3 years of documented licensed work experience replaces both items.

There is no MFT compact, so this endorsement route is the only door.

The LMFT license may be renewed annually; the statute sets a two-hundred-dollar initial application fee and a two-hundred-dollar renewal fee, while the associate's initial application and each renewal run one hundred twenty-five dollars.

Each year you renew, DPH requires a minimum of 15 hours of qualifying continuing education in the one-year period, including not less than one contact hour on cultural competency and two contact hours on mental health conditions common to veterans and family members of veterans — the veterans' hours in the first renewal period in which CE is required and not less than once every six years thereafter.

A licensee applying for renewal for the first time is exempt from CE until the next registration period.

Associates renewing must also furnish evidence of satisfying the CE requirements, and completion certificates are retained at least three years.

Four amendments retrace this page.

P.A.

23-101, effective July 1, 2023, set the associate-license terms by issue date — licenses issued before that date run twenty-four months with at most two renewals, licenses issued on or after it run twelve months with at most three — and cut the fees: the LMFT application from $315 to $200, the LMFT renewal from $320 to $200, the associate renewal from $220 to $125.

P.A.

23-195, also effective July 1, 2023, made separate associate-license changes: in (d)(2) it replaced "once for an additional" with "for", allowing renewal more than once, and it replaced the evidence of working toward the postgraduate experience with evidence of having satisfied the continuing education requirements — the CE condition on associate renewals dates to this act.

In (b) it deleted the requirement that associate applicants verify they were working toward completing that experience.

P.A.

23-31, effective July 1, 2023, added the 120-day temporary authorization for new graduates.

P.A.

24-68, effective July 1, 2024, replaced twelve months with twenty-four months in the postgraduate experience requirement.

Between graduation and a license, 20-195c(f) authorizes a graduate of a qualifying degree program or postgraduate clinical training program to practice marital and family therapy for a period not greater than 120 calendar days after completing the program, provided the work is under the clinical supervision of a licensed marital and family therapist.

It is a bridge, not a credential: the statute issues no license for it and caps it at 120 calendar days.

Because hours earned in Connecticut require the associate license, the practical move for a new graduate is to file the associate application — a one-hundred-twenty-five-dollar initial fee — before or during the window, then count hours on the license itself.