Counselor Licensure in Arkansas: LPC Requirements, Hours and Exams

Arkansas licenses counselors at two rungs, and both are licenses.

The Licensed Associate Counselor (LAC) is the entry license, and it does not exist without supervision: the applicant must arrange supervision with a board-approved LAC supervisor and have the agreement approved by the board before the license is issued.

Approval must be in place again before any therapy services are provided, and letting an approved agreement lapse risks suspension or revocation.

The Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) is the independent rung: it requires everything the LAC requires except the supervision arrangement, plus evidence of 3,000 client contact hours and 175 supervision hours acceptable to the board.

For a new graduate, the practical reading is that the employment search and the supervisor search are the same search.

The degree is a graduate degree primarily professional counseling in content from a regionally accredited institution, with a minimum of sixty (60) graduate semester hours in coursework that is counseling or therapy in content.

The standards the board adopts for the LAC and LPC are the current CACREP standards, but CACREP accreditation is not required: a program that is not CACREP-accredited can qualify if the institution is regionally accredited and the board approves the coursework, for which applicants submit two graduate catalogs, the core curriculum and, if requested, each syllabus.

The Arkansas core curriculum for counselors runs twelve areas, including nine graduate credit hours of practicum or internship in three graduate courses over a minimum of six months, three hours of abnormal psychology or psychopathology including DSM and ICD training, and one hour of technology-assisted counseling.

Grades gate the application: every graduate course hour used must carry a B- or above, and grades of C+ or below are not accepted for licensure.

Associate-level counselors must complete three thousand (3,000) client contact hours (CCH) with one hundred seventy-five (175) supervision hours.

The ratio is front-loaded: one supervision hour per ten client-contact hours across the first five hundred (500) direct CCH (Level 1), then one per twenty across the remaining two thousand five hundred (2,500) hours.

At least 2,000 of the 3,000 hours must be direct client contact; up to 1,000 indirect hours — consultation, case management, paperwork, billing — may count, only in Level 2, and none count in the first 500.

Group supervision of three to six supervisees may not exceed half of the 175 supervision hours, and the rule states no minimum months.

Two reductions are built in: 100 CCH plus 5 supervision hours for each three graduate semester hours beyond the master's clearly related to counseling, and, for an LAC who petitions after completing Level 1 (the first 500 direct CCH) with the supervisor's recommendation, a passing NCMHCE score cuts 500 CCH and 25 supervision hours.

Post-master's coursework for the application cannot be applied to the supervised work experience.

Counselor applicants must satisfactorily complete the National Counselor Examination or the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination — unless they qualify under the endorsement section — and must also pass the Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling Jurisprudence Exam; the rule's stated exception is for applicants licensed under its uniformed service member, veteran and spouse provisions.

The board sets the pass score for each examination.

Registration runs in two steps: test application and fees go to the national examining organization, and the licensure application, unofficial transcripts, core curriculum and fees must reach the board office before the applicant is approved to sit for the national exam.

An oral interview may also be required of any applicant before a license is granted, scheduled once the written exam, final transcripts and background checks are in.

Students enrolled in their final semester may already be admitted to the written exam.

An LAC's supervision must come from an Arkansas LPC who holds board-approved supervisor status and a license in good standing — so when you choose a job, you are choosing a supervisor who carries a credential on top of the license.

Supervisor status requires three years fully licensed in Arkansas, a three-hour post-master's graduate course in clinical supervision that included eighteen hours of supervised experience in supervision, the Arkansas jurisprudence exam and an oral interview, and a supervisor may hold no more than twelve supervision agreements at any given time.

Telesupervision is written into the rule rather than left to policy: the 175 supervision hours may be conducted face to face or through telemedicine, and technology-assisted supervision may be counted in both levels.

The LAC is the responsible party for keeping the approved agreement current, must notify the board in writing of any proposed change in supervisors and obtain approval, and files a client contact hours report and evaluation with the supervisor every six months.

Applicants who have continually maintained full licensure status as an LPC, LMFT, or the equivalency may be eligible for licensure by endorsement, documented with a license verification form from each state, evidence that the license is in good standing, and review of any disciplinary history.

The condition most likely to catch a relocator sits in the supervision rule: supervision hours for applicants moving into the state must be approved by the board unless the applicant has held a current full license in good standing for three years from their state of origin.

Counselors who hold an associate, provisional, or intern license from another state may also apply, and the board reviews their documented client contact and supervision hours to determine what remains.

The NCE, NCMHCE, or AMFTRB may be waived when the board finds another examination equivalent or the applicant meets the licensure-by-endorsement rules.

As of September 2026 the Counseling Compact is live in Arkansas: the board's Go-Live FAQ says Arkansas became an active member on July 30, 2026, and only licensed professional counselors are eligible to participate, so an LAC holds no Compact route.

An LPC licensed by Arkansas who lives in Arkansas can apply for the privilege to practice in the live member states, and counselors licensed in live states can apply for an Arkansas privilege; the rule defines a compact privilege to practice as a legal authorization equivalent to a license, permitting the practice of professional counseling in Arkansas.

Arkansas charges $50.00 plus a $30.00 administrative fee, paid through CompactConnect, and the Compact requires a federal background check conducted by the state licensing board — results obtained for employment cannot be substituted.

The enacting act citation was not located in the sources read.

All licenses expire biennially on May 31 of the renewal year, and a fee submitted after that date draws a late fee on June 1; a license lapsed more than twelve months must be applied for anew under the requirements then in effect.

Renewal requires a minimum of 24 clock hours of continuing education or training in the 24 months before renewal, including at least three clock hours of ethics relevant to the license being renewed, and the remaining hours must be counseling in nature and support the licensee's statement of intent.

A national pass score on the NCE, NCMHCE or the AMFTRB examination may be substituted for continuing education clock hours.

Board-approved supervisors add six hours in supervision content each renewal period, three of them from board-recognized state associations or an Arkansas university-associated workshop or program.

One-third of file numbers may be selected for audit each year, so keep documentation.

Three documents dated 2026 anchor this page.

The board's 2026 Rule Revision — the document whose page footers are dated 06/29/26 — is codified as 17 CAR chapter 75, where every citation on this page sits.

Arkansas became an active Counseling Compact state on July 30, 2026.

And the board's current combined form, updated 07/08/2026, carries the LAC-to-LPC license change, the petition to take the NCMHCE and the supervisor termination notice on a single document.

Because all three are dated within the same summer, check the board's site for anything issued after this page's sources were retrieved on September 24, 2026.

Every applicant files a Statement of Intent, and it does real work: it must be consistent with the credentials and specializations the applicant documents, at least one theoretical approach to counseling must be checked on it with techniques used in conjunction with that approach, and any specialization claimed on it must be supported by appropriate training or certification.

The oral interview may include a review of it, and the board may demand clarification of it when it has unresolved questions about competence.

The approved statement stays in force for the license renewal period unless amended, a revised version goes back to the board whenever the scope of practice changes, and at renewal the continuing education hours must support it.

Treat it as your scope-of-practice record with the board, not a formality.