LMFT Licensure in Florida: Requirements, Hours and Exams

Florida has one license, the licensed marriage and family therapist, and one pre-licensure registration in front of it.

The statute is explicit about order: an individual who has not satisfied the post-master's experience requirements must register as an intern before commencing the post-master's experience requirement (491.0045(1)).

An intern registration is valid for 5 years, and any registration issued after March 31, 2017, expires 60 months after the date it is issued (491.0045(5), (6)).

In emergency or hardship cases, the board may grant a one-time exception extending registration status for 24 months from the initial registration's expiration — for an intern who has passed the theory and practice examination and completed all educational requirements, confirms in writing circumstances beyond their control, and files the request at least 30 days before the registration expires (491.0045(6); 64B4-3.0085(10), (11)); failing the exam is not itself a hardship.

A provisional license also exists under rule 64B4-3.0075; its conditions are not restated on this page, so confirm them with the board before relying on one.

Route (a) is a master's degree in marriage and family therapy from a program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE).

Route (b) is a master's with a major emphasis in marriage and family therapy or a closely related field from a CACREP-accredited university program, plus graduate courses approved by the board.

Route (c) accepts an institutionally accredited master's with an MFT emphasis — but only for degrees conferred before September 1, 2027.

A graduate whose degree did not include all of the required coursework cannot start counting post-master's experience until they complete a minimum of 10 of the required courses, with at least 6 semester hours or 9 quarter hours of that credit in marriage and family systems, theories, or techniques (491.005(3)(d)).

The degree itself is where Florida first demands relational hours — see the practicum floor in the rule quoted below.

The statute frames the requirement as at least 2 years of clinical experience during which 50 percent of the applicant's clients were receiving marriage and family therapy services, at the post-master's level, under a qualified supervisor.

Board rule 64B4-2.001 turns those 2 years into two exact quantities: at least 1,500 hours of providing psychotherapy face-to-face with clients as a registered intern, accrued in no less than 100 weeks.

Within the 2 years, the applicant must provide direct individual, group, or family therapy and counseling to cases including unmarried dyads, married couples, separating and divorcing couples, and family groups that include children.

A doctoral internship may be applied toward the requirement.

There is no separate post-degree relational-hour quota: after the degree, relational work is measured as a client-percentage condition and a case-mix obligation, while supervision hours are counted separately, under their own rule below.

The statute requires a passed theory and practice examination designated by board rule and demonstrated knowledge of the laws and rules in a manner designated by board rule (491.005(3)(e), (f)).

The board rule names the national exam: the examination for Marriage and Family Therapists is the one developed by the Examination Advisory Committee of the Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Board (64B4-3.003(2)(c)).

The laws-and-rules element is not a second exam but a board-approved Laws and Rules course of a minimum of eight (8) hours, completed before licensure, which must include a testing mechanism on which a passing score of 80 percent is required and may be offered online (64B4-3.0035).

The same rule requires HIV/AIDS education providing a minimum of three hours before licensure.

Treat the exam, the course and the HIV/AIDS education as three separate boxes to check.

Supervision is credited when the intern received at least 100 hours of supervision in no less than 100 weeks, provided at least 1,500 hours of face-to-face psychotherapy with clients, and received at least 1 hour of supervision every two weeks (64B4-2.002(1)).

Electronic supervision is allowed, but the supervisor and intern must have in-person face-to-face contact for at least 50 percent of the required interactions, and they must meet in person at least once before any online supervision begins (64B4-2.002(3)).

Group supervision must alternate hour-for-hour with individual supervision, must be conducted with all participants present in person, and takes more than 2 but no more than 6 interns; individual supervision is one supervisor to no more than 2 interns (64B4-2.002(4)).

A qualified supervisor may supervise a maximum of 25 registered interns simultaneously (64B4-2.002(5)).

In a private practice setting, a licensed mental health professional must be on the premises when a registered intern provides clinical services (491.005(3)(d)).

Endorsement runs through the MOBILE Act.

The applicant must hold an active, unencumbered license from another state, the District of Columbia, or a U.S. territory in a profession with a similar scope of practice; must have obtained a passing score on a national licensure examination or hold a national certification recognized by the board; and must have actively practiced the profession for at least 2 years during the 4-year period immediately preceding the application (456.0145(2)(a)).

The applicant must not be the subject of a pending disciplinary proceeding and must have had no discipline in the preceding 5 years.

The board's endorsement form rule took effect 2024-11-27 (64B4-3.0031).

There is no MFT compact: the compact named in the endorsement statute is the Counseling Compact, which covers professional counselors — not marriage and family therapists.

The statute's own wording, quoted below, is why readers should not assume compact privileges from it.

Renewal is biennial, at a fee set by rule not to exceed $250 (491.007(1)).

Rule 64B4-6.001 excuses the first renewal from continuing education entirely; each subsequent renewal requires 30 hours of approved continuing education credit, including 2 hours on the prevention of medical errors and 3 hours relating to professional ethics and boundary issues or telehealth — and the same course may not be taken in consecutive renewal periods.

A 2-hour domestic violence course is due within six months of initial licensure and every third renewal; every third renewal after initial licensure also requires 3 hours of laws and rules continuing education, and qualified supervisors must complete 4 hours of supervisory training on the same cycle.

No more than 6 of the 30 hours may be non-clinical (administrative or office management), and the statute caps required continuing education at 25 classroom hours per year (491.007(2)).

Three dated changes matter.

First, degree route (c) — the non-COAMFTE, non-CACREP path — closes to degrees conferred on or after September 1, 2027 (491.005(3)(c)1.c., 2025 statute text); the enacting bill is not identified in the sources read.

Second, the board's MOBILE Act endorsement form rule took effect 2024-11-27 (64B4-3.0031).

Third, the intern-registration rule was amended effective 2023-05-30, again effective 2024-07-11, and again effective 2024-11-24 (64B4-3.0085), and the qualified-supervisor duties rule was amended effective 2025-06-29 (64B4-2.0025).

Against all of these, the register-first rule is unchanged and is the one that voids completed work: a post-master's clinical hour earned before the intern registration issues does not count toward licensure, no matter how it was supervised (491.0045(4)).

Rule 64B4-21.007 defines a qualified supervisor four ways: an LMFT holding an active Florida license; an MFT licensed or certified in another state (or a person residing in a state that does not license MFTs) with at least 6 semester/8 quarter hours of graduate coursework in marriage and family systemic theories and techniques and 5 years of MFT clinical experience; an AAMFT Approved Supervisor; or a clinical social worker or mental health counselor licensed in Florida or in the state where the supervision took place, with the same coursework and 5 years of MFT clinical experience.

A qualified supervisor providing supervision in Florida must also have 5 years of clinical experience — 2 of which can come from a post-master's internship, the remaining 3 earned post-licensure — and post-licensure training in supervision (a graduate or CE course meeting 64B4-6.0025's 12 clock hours of live didactic and interactional instruction) or AAMFT Approved Supervisor designation.

Supervision by the applicant's own therapist, close relatives, employees, or anyone in a romantic, domestic or familial relationship does not count (64B4-2.003).