LMFT Licensure in Maine: Requirements, Hours and Exams

Maine's pre-licensure rung is a conditional license, and the rule treats it as a license with real obligations rather than a registration.

The conditional application must show the qualifying education, a supervision plan on the board's form meeting the supervised-experience rules, three reference letters dated within one year, license verifications from every jurisdiction where you have ever been licensed as a mental health professional, and either a passing AMFTRB score or a request to take the exam.

The license runs for 2 years and may be renewed for up to two additional 2-year periods, so the runway ends at the 6-year mark unless the board finds genuine hardship.

While it is active, the conditional licensee practices only under supervision.

A separate temporary conditional license of up to 6 months covers applicants who have everything but the exam pass, and the board may also waive conditional licensure in whole or in part under §5(4).

The degree is a master's or doctorate of at least 60 semester hours from a regionally accredited institution.

Route A: a CACREP-accredited marital, couple, and family counseling/therapy program, accredited when the degree was awarded.

Route B: COAMFTE accreditation at the doctoral level only; a COAMFTE master's alone is not a listed route.

Route C is an organized 60-hour sequence substantially satisfying nine areas: marital and family studies (9 hours including 3 in general systems theory), marital and family therapy (9), human development (6), human sexuality, diagnosis and treatment, professional orientation, research and evaluation, a practicum, and an internship of at least 900 clock hours with at least 360 of direct client contact.

In lieu of practicum and internship, 1,000 hours of lawfully obtained supervised MFT counseling (at least 400 direct) can substitute.

Since January 1, 2009, a 36-to-59-hour marital, couple and family master's can qualify with supplemental graduate coursework to at least 60 total hours.

Check your internship first: a 600-clock-hour internship is deemed a qualifying degree but moves you onto the alternate path in §4(2).

The statute and the rule split the work: the statute sets the buckets, the rule adds the 3,000-hour total.

It requires two years of experience after the degree comprising at least 1,000 hours of direct clinical contact with couples and families and 200 hours of supervision, at least 100 individual.

The rule sets the standard path at 3,000 hours of supervised clinical counseling experience over not less than 2 years after the qualifying degree, with supervision at the approximate rate of one hour per 15 hours.

Degrees whose internship reached at least 600 clock hours instead of 900 take the alternate path in §4(2): 4,000 hours, at least 1,500 of direct clinical contact with couples and families, and 300 supervision hours (150 individual) at one hour of supervision per 13.

The direct-contact bucket is couples-and-families hours specifically, with no separate figure for individual casework — a caseload light on relational sessions will not fill it.

Both paths run post-degree, and the rule directs that the experience be earned during the conditional licensure period unless the board waives it under §5(4).

Maine requires a single examination, and the rule applies it at both gates: to qualify for either conditional or full licensure, the applicant must achieve a passing score on the Marital and Family Therapy Examination administered by the AMFTRB.

Both applications leave room to sequence the paperwork — the conditional application (§5(1)(B)) and the full-licensure application (§7(2)) may each include a request to take the exam in place of proof of a pass — but the sections read do not say a license issues, or supervised hours start counting, before the score arrives.

The statutory carve-out is the temporary conditional license: up to 6 months, for an applicant who meets every §13858(3) requirement except the exam pass, employed at an agency under clinical supervision, with the exam completed inside the period.

Its failed-exam clause is the trap: any clinical experience gained during those 6 months is prohibited from being used to qualify for licensure.

Supervision must come from a supervisor approved by the board who is not related to you, living with you, or in a personal relationship with you, and who holds one of the listed licenses — licensed clinical professional counselor, licensed marriage and family therapist, licensed pastoral counselor, licensed clinical social worker, certified social worker-independent practice, licensed psychologist or licensed psychiatrist — while not under suspension or probation.

The supervisor then qualifies by route A (at least five years of licensed practice, including no more than two as an entry-level conditional licensee), route B (certification by a national professional organization in training or supervision — the rule gives NBCC approved clinical supervisor as its example), or route C (30 contact hours of training in supervision plus at least one year of licensed practice above entry-level conditional).

Video counts within caps: up to 50 hours of individual supervision on the standard path, 75 on the alternate.

Changing supervisors mid-course takes the board's prior written approval, a termination/evaluation report from the outgoing supervisor and a substitute supervision plan on the board's form.

The licensure statute opens with baseline gates that apply at every level: age 18, demonstrated trustworthiness and competence to practice counseling in a manner that safeguards the public, an application and fee, and the board's prescribed examination.

It then does something specific with the MFT license: it puts the LMFT in the same clinical tier as the licensed clinical professional counselor and licensed pastoral counselor categories.

For a job seeker the practical reading is that the LMFT is a diagnostic license in Maine — the diagnosis-and-treatment grant comes through clinical status itself.

What the statute does not do is spell out setting-by-setting practice authority, so confirm any specific setting or payer question with the board.

Chapter 6-A, effective April 1, 2023, gives out-of-state licensees a route under 10 M.R.S. §8003-H: a valid, active counseling license from another US jurisdiction whose pathway to initial licensure is substantially equivalent to Maine's, plus an application, fee and disclosure statement.

For the LMFT, substantially equivalent means a 60-semester-hour master's in marital, couple, and family counseling/therapy from an accredited program or an organized sequence matching the rule's nine areas, a pass on the Marital and Family Therapy Examination administered by the AMFTRB, and supervised clinical counseling experience including direct contact with couples and families plus individual and group supervision.

The definition names the shape of the pathway, not hour totals.

Good standing is defined strictly and checked in every jurisdiction where you hold or have held a license, and the statute bars revoked or suspended applicants unless the period is completed and the board conducts a competency review.

A September 24, 2026 check found no MFT compact; §13858-A already references LMFT compact-privilege applicants, so confirm compact status with the board — endorsement is the route these sections establish.

Renewal carries a 55-contact-hour continuing education obligation for each license biennium, attested at the time of renewal.

Within the 55, at least four hours must relate to subjects addressed in the Code of Ethics, and up to 15 hours may be peer consultation — individual or group — provided by a licensed mental health professional; supervision or consultation received under a board order or consent agreement does not count toward it.

The remaining hours may address any aspect of the theory or practice of professional counseling, including extra ethics.

The same 55-hour standard reaches back into your conditional years: the application for full licensure must include certification of 55 hours of continuing professional education completed during the term of the conditional license, unless the board waived conditional licensure or it was not required.

Start logging continuing education as soon as the conditional license issues, since that certification covers the whole conditional term, and the same 55-hour standard then applies at each renewal.

Two changes define the current rule set.

First, chapter 6-A took effect April 1, 2023 under filing 2023-048, creating the endorsement route for counseling licenses issued under 10 M.R.S. §8003-H, including the LMFT — before that, the sections read name no endorsement chapter for the board.

Second, PL 2025, c.

366 §19 added §13858-A, which imposes background-check requirements on initial and endorsement LMFT applicants.

The experience, education, supervision and CE chapters this page cites carry no amendment date in the sections read, so a guide written after April 2023 should read the same on hours; what it may miss is the endorsement chapter and the background-check law.

Confirm both with the board when you apply.

The conditional license comes with ongoing duties that are easy to miss.

Both the licensee and the supervisor maintain ongoing records of supervision and must produce them for inspection and copying at the board's request.

The supervisor files a termination/evaluation report when supervision changes, when it ends before the experience is complete, and when it is complete.

A mid-course supervisor change requires prior written board approval, with the report and a substitute plan on the board's form.

The board's own note on the full-licensure application urges conditional licensees to apply promptly once the supervised experience is done, to avoid a gap in licensure.

And the designation requirement follows the licensee into everything the rule names: documentation, correspondence and informational materials.