LMFT Licensure in Georgia: Requirements, Hours and Exams

Georgia issues two licenses on this ladder.

The associate marriage and family therapist license is a license — not a registration or trainee status — and its holder may engage in the practice of marriage and family therapy only while under direction and supervision, for a period not to exceed five years.

The rule is strict about the name: the holder may only use the title associate marriage and family therapist.

The LMFT is the independent tier, and there is a third way in: a direct application route under rule 135-5-.06(2)(b) for a master's-prepared applicant who never holds the associate license, priced in more years, more direct hours and double the supervision.

Two degree routes match the two experience routes.

For the associate license, the master's must come from a program in marriage and family therapy, a program equivalent to one, or any COAMFTE-accredited program, at an institution accredited when the degree was awarded.

The rule defines an MFT program by courses: three in marriage and family studies, three in marriage and family therapy, three in human development — one of which must be a course in either psychopathology or the diagnosis of mental problems and conditions — one in MFT ethics and one in research.

The associate route also requires a one-year practicum including a minimum of 500 hours of direct clinical experience and 100 hours of supervision.

The direct route to the LMFT accepts a master's in marriage and family therapy, counseling, social work, medicine, applied psychology, psychiatric nursing, pastoral counseling, applied child and family development or applied sociology, or a COAMFTE-accredited program, plus at least two MFT courses, two marriage and family studies courses, one ethics course and one psychopathology or diagnosis course.

The routes split cleanly.

With an associate license: two years of full-time post-master's experience or its equivalent under direction and supervision, including a minimum of 2,000 hours of direct clinical experience; part-time, over two to five years.

Full-time experience means a minimum of 20 hours per week in direct clinical experience.

Supervision runs alongside: 100 hours concurrent, 50 individual minimum and 50 group maximum, at least 5 supervision hours per 100 direct hours.

Without the associate license: three years of full-time post-master experience with a minimum of 2,500 hours — one year may be an approved 500-hour practicum, and at least two years, including a minimum of 2,000 hours, must be in MFT practice — plus 200 hours of supervision, at least 100 by an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, a Georgia Board Approved MFT Supervisor, or a person receiving supervision-of-supervision, with at least 50 of those 100 individual.

The doctoral route takes two years of full-time post-master or post-doctorate experience with a minimum of 1,500 direct clinical hours and 100 supervision hours.

No separate couples-and-families hour quota applies on any route.

Associate applicants register and sit for the Examination in Marital and Family Therapy, the national MFT licensing exam, after the board approves the application, and passing it is a requirement for licensure.

An associate who applies to move up to the LMFT does not re-take it — the rule waives it outright.

An applicant on the direct route, who never held the associate license, sits for it at the LMFT stage, as does a doctoral-route applicant.

No state jurisprudence or law exam appears in the rules read.

For the associate route's 100 hours, a qualifying supervisor is a licensed marriage and family therapist, professional counselor, clinical social worker, psychiatrist, or psychologist licensed and in good standing for a minimum of three years — or an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, a Georgia Board Approved Marriage and Family Therapy Supervisor, or a person receiving supervision-of-supervision to qualify for either designation.

Group sizes are fixed: individual supervision is one supervisor with a maximum of two supervisees, group supervision a maximum of six.

For an associate choosing a supervisor, the practical check is that three-year standing or a designated-supervisor credential — a newly licensed LMFT does not qualify on the license alone.

Supervisors may not supervise family members, or a practitioner whose family holds an ownership interest in the supervisor's business.

Supervision itself may be delivered by TeleMental Health under rule 135-11-.01(b)2., after the supervisor completes at least nine CE hours including three on supervising TeleMental Health therapy, with the supervisee's verbal and written consent, and the 135-5 requirements still met.

The rule defines the practice of marriage and family therapy as evaluating, diagnosing, and treating emotional and mental problems and conditions, whether cognitive, affective or behavioral, resolving intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts, and changing perception, attitudes and behavior — all within the context of marital and family systems.

It names individual, group, couple, sexual, family and divorce therapy as included, along with assessment instruments, treatment design and psychotherapy and counseling.

The associate license carries the same practice definition; what differs is that it may be exercised only under direction and supervision, inside the five-year window.

Since July 1, 2024, the board shall issue an expedited license by endorsement to an applicant who completes the application and pays all applicable fees, holds a current, valid, and unrestricted license to practice as a marriage and family therapist issued by another state, is in good standing there and not the subject of an investigation or a disciplinary proceeding, has no disqualifying criminal record, and has been verified to have lawful presence in the United States.

The license must issue no later than 30 days after a complete application.

The older endorsement rule, 135-3-.04, still prints a substantially-equal-to-or-greater-than test, but the 2024 statute overrides it for full MFT licensees; the research describes the design as the AAMFT Access MFTs full-endorsement model.

Georgia is not a member of an MFT compact — no such compact exists.

All licenses, associate and LMFT, expire on September 30th of even-numbered years.

Renewal takes 35 hours of continuing education per two-year biennial cycle, including associate level licenses: a minimum of 5 in professional ethics, obtained through synchronous activities only; of the remaining 30, a minimum of 15 core to marriage and family therapy and not more than 15 related; a maximum of 10 asynchronous; independent study is capped at 5 hours and cannot count as ethics or core.

A license initially issued in the second year of the cycle owes no CE at its first renewal — but when an associate license is superseded by the LMFT license, that exemption does not apply, so new LMFTs owe hours on the next cycle.

Missing the October 31 late-renewal date has the same effect as revocation, a lapsed associate license can be reinstated only once at the board's discretion, and inactive status is not available to associates.

SB 373 added the expedited endorsement subsection, effective July 1, 2024 per the published code annotation; the enrolled bill itself carries no special effective-date section.

The research also found a board notice of intent, signed March 3, 2025, to amend rules 135-5-.05 and 135-5-.06 — the associate and LMFT requirement rules that set every hour figure on this page.

The adopted text and effective date could not be verified because the board's site blocks automated access, so confirm the current rule text with the board before relying on any hour figure quoted here.

Before any post-graduate hour counts, the associate applicant must submit a Contract for Post-Graduate Experience and Supervision on board forms and obtain board approval, and any change to it goes back to the board within 30 days.

An applicant who has not yet secured employment or begun supervision says so on the contract and updates it within 30 days of either.

The rule also separates direction from supervision: direction is the employer-side oversight a director — the employer or the superior in the administrative chain of command — attests to, while supervision is the clinical review that fills the 100 hours.

Directors may not direct family members or a practitioner whose family has an ownership interest in the business, and the same prohibition binds supervisors.