Counselor Licensure in Georgia: LPC Requirements, Hours and Exams

Georgia's counseling chapter issues two licenses: the Associate Professional Counselor (APC) and the Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC).

The APC is a license, not a registration or permit, and it carries three standing restrictions: an APC may use only the title Associate Professional Counselor, may practice only under direction and supervision, and may do so only for a period not to exceed five years while obtaining the post-master's experience and supervision required for the LPC.

What the rule does not describe is any way to keep practicing at the APC level once the five years run out, so plan the route to the LPC against that clock and confirm your timeline with the board.

The LPC is the only independent rung; there is no clinical or supervisor tier above it.

The credit floor now sits in statute: since July 1, 2024, O.C.G.A.

43-10A-11, as rewritten by SB 373, requires an earned master's or higher from a regionally accredited program in clinical counseling or counseling psychology of at least 60 semester hours or 90 quarter hours — the quarter figure rose from 80 — including an approved supervised practicum or internship, primarily counseling in content, as part of the degree.

The 2024 act also struck the LPC statute's separate doctoral-only route.

The board's rules layer their own gate on top: a program primarily counseling in content or in applied psychology, whose practicum or internship needed at least 300 hours before September 30, 2018 and 600 after; accreditation by CACREP or CORE, or a CHEA-recognized regionally accredited program substantially similar in coursework and content; and all nine defined content areas after September 30, 2018, from human growth and development to psychopathology, where six of nine sufficed before.

The master's route asks for four years of post-master's directed experience under supervision, or three years plus the supervised counseling practicum or internship that was part of the graduate degree program.

The rules never state a total-hours figure; the quantity comes from the definition of a year.

After September 30, 2018, one year of directed experience means a minimum of 1,000 hours acquired in not less than a twelve-month period, and one year of supervision means a minimum of 35 hours obtained during that twelve-month period of directed experience.

Two pacing rules do real work: each year needs its own twelve months, and all directed experience and supervision must be obtained within the sixty months before the date of application, so hours age out.

At least two years of the supervision must be provided by a supervisor who is a licensed Professional Counselor.

The rules state no direct-client minimum; on the specialist, doctoral and CRC tracks the required number of years drops, keyed to the degree.

Both licenses gate on what the rule calls the required competency examination for licensure prescribed by the Board — and that is all the rule says.

Neither the NCE nor the NCMHCE is named anywhere in the rules read, so ask the board in writing which examination it currently requires before you register for one.

The process runs through the board: you file the application for licensure by examination, the board approves you to sit for it, and you instruct the testing authority to report your score.

The APC applicant takes the examination for the associate license.

After that the route has a built-in economy: a current APC does not re-take the examination when applying for the LPC.

The commission's fees table lists no Georgia jurisprudence exam.

A qualified supervisor is a licensed Professional Counselor, Clinical Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapist, Psychologist, or Psychiatrist with post-licensure experience set by degree: 3 years for a supervisor holding a master's, 2 for a specialist, 1 for a doctorate.

Since September 30, 2018 an LPC supervisor must also hold either the NBCC Approved Clinical Supervisor credential or the LPCAGA Certified Professional Counselor Supervisor credential for supervision entered into after that date — check the letters before signing a job offer.

The board may also approve, at its discretion, a supervisor whose experience is substantially similar.

The format is defined narrowly: individual supervision means one supervisor with no more than two supervisees, group supervision no more than six.

The rule is relaxed about location — supervision may include reviewing case presentations, audiotapes, videotapes and direct observation, and the supervisor need not be present at the work site — but no explicit video-supervision provision was located in the rules read, so confirm any distance arrangement with the board first.

Both supervisor and supervisee must keep contemporaneous records of every session.

Georgia's rules put two people over an APC's work, and they are different by definition.

A director provides ongoing administrative oversight — the employer or the superior in the chain of command, responsible for the quality of services and for ensuring qualified supervision or intervention when a case exceeds the practitioner's expertise — while the supervisor provides the direct clinical review.

Practice without direction is not a work setting acceptable to the Board.

Acceptable sites carry measurable documentation for every candidate, including a signed contractual agreement outlining the job description, office hours, performance review procedures and dismissal policies, and the arrangement should be akin to employment; non-compensated experience is reviewed case by case.

The practical consequence for a new graduate: a solo private practice with no organizational director fails the direction test no matter who supervises clinically.

Before accepting an APC-level job, confirm the site can support the Directed Experience Under Supervision Contract registered with the Board, and that it will re-file within fourteen days if the arrangement changes.

A counselor licensed in another state can be licensed without examination so long as the other jurisdiction's requirements for the license are substantially equal to or greater than those in Georgia.

The mechanics sit on the board's forms: a written application with the non-refundable fee, and Form N completed by the licensing entity of the state where you hold the license, showing it is in effect and in good standing.

What the board compares is the two jurisdictions' requirements — the rule does not restate Georgia's hour equivalence for endorsement applicants.

One dated wrinkle cuts in your favor if your hours are old: the sixty-month lookback on directed experience and supervision is relaxed for endorsement applications, which are considered case by case at the discretion of the Board.

And because the Counseling Compact is live in Georgia, an LPC from another live member state has a second route — a Compact privilege to practice, which is a different instrument from a Georgia license.

Georgia is not merely a member of the Counseling Compact — it is one of the nine states where the Compact is live, issuing and accepting privileges, as of September 2026.

A Georgia LPC who lives in Georgia can apply for a privilege to practice in the other eight live states, and a counselor licensed in any of them can apply for a privilege to practice in Georgia.

The privilege-eligible license is the LPC: the commission's fees table lists no associate tier, so an APC has no Compact route.

The table prices the Georgia privilege at a $100 state fee plus a $30 administrative fee, and lists no jurisprudence exam.

The O.C.G.A. enacting citation and date were not located in the sources read; Georgia's status here is recorded from the commission's own pages.

Every license, including associate level licenses, renews on a two-year biennial cycle running from October 1 of an even-numbered year to September 30 of the next even-numbered year, and each renewal requires 35 hours of continuing education.

At least 5 of the 35 must be professional ethics, obtained through synchronous activities only; of the remaining 30, at least 15 must be core hours in the specialty and no more than 15 related.

A maximum of 10 hours may be asynchronous each cycle, independent study is capped at 5, and no more than 20 hours may come from any single course, workshop or presentation — conferences excepted.

There is a first-renewal grace: a license initially issued on or after October 1 of an odd-numbered year, the second year of the cycle, owes no CE at its first renewal.

That grace disappears when an APC license is superseded by the LPC — the licensee then owes the full requirement.

Keep certificates for four years; the board audits a fixed percentage of renewals each cycle.

The 2024 change is statutory: SB 373, effective July 1, 2024, rewrote O.C.G.A.

43-10A-11, the requirements statute for both the APC and the LPC.

It set a credit floor — at least 60 semester hours or 90 quarter hours, the quarter figure up from 80 — for a regionally accredited master's or higher in clinical counseling or counseling psychology, and it struck the LPC statute's separate doctoral-only route.

Its Section 1 also rewrote the definition of "Supervisor" in 43-10A-3(20).

The board's own rules, by contrast, did not move in the window: the research found no amendment to 135-5-.01 or 135-5-.02 dated in 2023–2026, and both were last amended effective February 28, 2016.

The other change that matters is the Counseling Compact going live in Georgia — the commission lists Georgia among the live states as of September 2026.

Re-check the board's rules page before relying on any date-sensitive item.