LMFT Licensure in Virginia: Requirements, Hours and Exams

The pre-licensure rung is a temporary license, and the application builds the supervision in: you file on a board form that verifies your supervisory contract and names your supervisor, license number and practice location.

You attach a transcript showing the degree and the internship, pay a registration fee, submit an NPDB report, and show no unresolved disciplinary action anywhere your license was held.

The residency can only begin after the master's degree is complete.

Once licensed as a resident, the rule fences the title and the money: no presenting yourself as a marriage and family therapist, no direct billing, and written notice to every client of who supervises you.

The resident license renews annually with an attestation that a supervisory contract is in effect at each location and three hours of Virginia ethics CE.

The degree must come from a regionally accredited college or university whose program has an expressed intent to prepare marriage and family therapists, an identifiable MFT training faculty, and an academic unit with clear authority over the core areas.

CACREP or COAMFTE approval deems a program to meet those criteria — the recognition reaches the program criteria only, and the hour counts are stated separately in the coursework rule.

Coursework is 60 semester or 90 quarter hours with minimums set area by area: six semester or nine quarter hours each in marriage and family studies and in marriage and family therapy, and three semester or 4.0 quarter hours each in seven further areas running from human growth and development to assessment and treatment.

The supervised internship is its own requirement: at least 600 hours including 240 hours of direct client contact, of which 200 hours are with couples and families.

Graduates of programs outside the United States or Canada document their degree through a credential evaluation service the board can use.

Every hour counts after the degree, inside a residency.

The residency documents at least 2,000 hours of face-to-face client contact in clinical marriage and family services, of which 1,000 must be with couples or families or both.

Supervision is 200 hours, at least 100 rendered by a licensed marriage and family therapist, with no more than 100 hours acquired in group supervision of no more than six residents — one hour of group counts the same as one hour of individual.

For every 40 hours of supervised work experience you receive a minimum of one and a maximum of four hours of supervision.

The residency runs not less than 21 months, and its final stretch is dated: at least 1,000 face-to-face client-contact hours, 500 with couples or family, plus 100 supervision hours must fall within two years immediately preceding application.

The board also accepts residency hours approved by another United States jurisdiction's licensing board when they meet this section.

The rule requires every initial applicant to pass an examination prescribed by the board, at a passing score the board determines.

The rule text does not name the exam; the Board of Counseling's application page does — it sends licensure-by-examination applicants to the National MFT Examination, the AMFTRB national exam.

The waiver is narrow: only an applicant who holds a current and unrestricted professional counselor license issued by this board skips the examination.

Timing matters on the other side of it — a resident remains in the residency, practicing under supervision, until the exam is passed and the license is granted, so scheduling the exam late extends the supervised stage of your career.

The DHP page also offers a Pre-Review of Education application for graduates unsure whether their degree qualifies, which the board frames as informational.

A supervisor must hold an active, unrestricted marriage and family therapist or professional counselor license in the jurisdiction where the supervision is provided, document two years of post-licensure marriage and family therapy experience, and show supervision training — three credit hours or 4.0 quarter hours of graduate coursework, or at least 20 hours of continuing education from a provider the board approves.

The mix is the trap when you choose a supervisor: at least 100 of your 200 supervision hours must be rendered by an LMFT, so a resident whose supervisor is an LPC can bank no more than 100 hours before adding an LMFT supervisor.

Supervision delivered over technology counts as in-person when it maintains client confidentiality and provides real-time visual contact.

Supervisors evaluate residents every three months, report total residency hours and competency to the board, and a relationship the board finds compromises objectivity is prohibited.

The chapter defines its counting terms, and they are narrower than a busy reader might assume.

Face-to-face means the in-person delivery of clinical marriage and family services for a client — both the 2,000-hour and the 1,000-hour figures are face-to-face figures, so hours that are not delivered in person for a client do not fill them.

Clinical marriage and family services means activities such as assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning and treatment implementation for couples and families.

During the residency, practice must sit in the core areas set out in the coursework rule — the same areas your degree covered — and a resident may not practice under supervision in any area for which they lack appropriate education.

Supervision itself is defined as an ongoing process of regular, documented individual or group consultation on the clinical skills of the person supervised.

An applicant for licensure by endorsement must hold or have held a valid and unrestricted marriage and family license in another jurisdiction in the United States — the have held wording matters if your license lapsed after a move — and submit five things: the completed application, the fee, verification of every mental-health or health professional license or certificate ever held in any other jurisdiction, an affidavit of having read and understood Virginia's marriage and family therapy laws and regulations, and a current National Practitioner Data Bank report.

The rule sets no years-of-practice minimum, but the board's application shapes the route: you attest you hold or have held an active, independent, equivalent marriage and family therapy license in another jurisdiction and that you met your initial jurisdiction's education, supervised-experience and examination requirements.

Any unresolved action against a license disqualifies, and the board weighs past disciplinary action case by case.

There is no MFT compact; endorsement is the route.

Renewal is annual: the form and fee are due on or before June 30 of each year, and practicing on an expired license is prohibited and can ground discipline.

Each renewal requires a minimum of 20 hours of continuing competency, at least two of them in courses emphasizing ethics, standards of practice, or laws governing behavioral science professions in Virginia.

The rule builds in relief valves: therapists first licensed by examination skip continuing competency for the first renewal; up to two of the 20 hours can be earned by volunteering counseling through a local health department or free clinic, credited at one CE hour per three hours of service; the board may extend the deadline up to one year for good cause or exempt circumstances beyond the licensee's control; and dually licensed holders document the hours once.

Residents renew annually with attestations of a supervisory contract and three ethics hours.

Two amendment waves are recent enough to catch older guides out.

The endorsement rule was amended effective October 9, 2024 into its current full-endorsement form — hold or have held an unrestricted marriage and family license in another US jurisdiction and document it, with no practice-years minimum and no equivalency test.

Then the definitions, coursework, residency, examination and renewal sections were all amended effective December 18, 2025 (Virginia Register Volume 42, Issue 6), and that is the text stating the residency figures on this page.

Check any guide's Virginia residency numbers against that text: it contains no total-hours figure, so a page quoting a total for Virginia is out of date or invented.

The DHP application page's hour checklist — 2,000 face-to-face, 1,000 couples or families, 200 supervision — matches the 2025 text.

Virginia gives currently licensed professionals a reduced path into the LMFT, and the two halves of it have different reaches.

On coursework, if you hold a current, unrestricted license as a professional counselor, clinical psychologist, or clinical social worker, the board may accept 60 semester or 90 quarter hours of graduate study that includes six semester or nine quarter hours in marriage and family studies and the same in marriage and family therapy — instead of the full core-area sequence and the 600-hour internship.

On the examination, the waiver runs only to an applicant holding a current, unrestricted professional counselor license issued by this board.

A clinical psychologist or clinical social worker on the reduced-coursework route still passes the board-prescribed examination.

The sources read state no waiver of the residency requirements for any of these professions.