Counselor Licensure in Louisiana: LPC Requirements, Hours and Exams

Louisiana's entry credential is a provisional license, not a registration or a permit: Act 484 of the 2014 Regular Legislative Session converted the old counselor-intern registration into the PLPC effective May 1, 2015.

A PLPC renders mental health counseling and psychotherapy services under the active supervision of a board-approved supervisor and may not practice independently or receive direct payment for services rendered.

The title is policed: while accruing hours, PLPC is the only identification title allowed, and the rule bars representing yourself as licensed, fully licensed, an LPC, or simply a counselor.

The LPC above it is the independent license, defined by the board as one who may practice independently as specified in R.S.

37:1107(A).

Section 603(A)(4) requires a graduate degree, the substance of which is professional mental health counseling, from a regionally accredited institution offering a master's or doctoral program in counseling that is approved by the board, and at least 60 graduate credit hours as part of the graduate degree plan.

The plan must contain at least one three-credit course in each of eight content areas, from counseling and psychotherapy theories through ethics and professional orientation, plus a supervised practicum of 100 clock hours with at least 40 hours of direct counseling and a supervised internship of 600 clock hours with at least 240 direct.

All graduate and post-master's counseling courses need a grade no lower than C, and field experience courses a grade of A, B or P. An applicant whose degree carried fewer than 60 hours may apply post-master's counseling courses toward licensure.

CACREP accreditation does not appear in the rule text read; the operative requirement is board approval of the program.

The 3,000 hours are post-master's, under the clinical supervision of a board-approved supervisor, and the supervision period must run no less than two years and not more than six from the date the board originally approved it.

The breakdown in §605(A)(2)(a)(i) is a minimum of 1,900 direct hours in counseling and psychotherapeutic services, 1,000 indirect hours in counseling-related activities, and 100 hours of face-to-face supervision by an LPC Supervisor, at least 50 of them individual.

Nothing is retroactive: hours may not accrue until you are approved as a PLPC, your supervision arrangement is approved and your practice setting is approved — and direct hours from graduate practicum or internship courses count only if they occurred after PLPC approval, under your board-approved supervisor.

Graduate credit can help: each 30 graduate semester hours earned beyond the master's may substitute for 500 indirect hours, but §703(A)(4) provides that in no case does the applicant have less than 2,000 hours of board-approved supervised experience.

For the LPC, §703(A)(5) requires demonstrated professional competence shown by passing a written exam, the NCE or the NCMHCE, and the board may add an oral examination at its discretion.

There is no Louisiana jurisprudence exam for counselors.

The exam clock starts early: a PLPC must attempt the NCE or the NCMHCE once every renewal period until a passing score is received, and the board's PLPC renewal page asks for an official score report of passage or attempted passage issued directly from NBCC.

The board also warns licensees to plan for the processing time NBCC needs before an official score report arrives, and it does not administer or regulate the national examinations itself.

Supervision is a credentialed specialty in Louisiana: §801(A)(1) makes supervision of PLPCs a specialty area requiring privileging review, and the Board-Approved LPC Supervisor designation requires a Louisiana LPC license, a minimum of three years of post-licensure practice, and supervision training — a graduate course of at least 45 clock hours or a professional training program of a minimum of 25 clock hours of face-to-face interaction with the instructor — completed within five years of application.

A supervisor may not be a relative of the PLPC, and §803(A)(2) caps the caseload at 10 provisional counselors at any given time.

The pacing rule is the board's active supervision definition: one hour of face-to-face supervision for every 20 hours of direct client contact, or at least once every three-month period.

The medium is flexible — up to 100 percent of the 100 supervision hours may be conducted by synchronous videoconferencing on a HIPAA compliant platform, though never by mail, email, or telephone.

The board defines mental health counseling and psychotherapy services to include prevention, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment, including psychotherapy of mental, emotional, behavioral, and addiction disorders — and it defines those services for licensed and provisionally licensed counselors alike, so diagnosis is part of what a PLPC does under supervision, not a privilege added later.

The same definition draws two fences: nothing in the chapter authorizes a licensee or provisional licensee to administer or interpret tests in accordance with R.S.

37:2352(5), except as provided by LAC 46:LXIII.1702.E, or to engage in the practice of psychology or prescribe any medications.

For a counselor deciding what to accept, test administration is a statutory boundary with a rule-based exception, not a matter of employer policy.

Guides that describe a separate Louisiana privileging to diagnose serious mental illness describe superseded text — §505 is now the Teletherapy Guidelines rule — so verify any such claim with the board before relying on it.

Section 1101(A) directs the board to issue a license to any person licensed as an LPC who has actively practiced mental health counseling for at least one year in another jurisdiction, with proof of passing the NCE or the NCMHCE (or completion of a board oral exam), documentation of at least 40 CEHs within two years of the endorsement application, and good standing in every jurisdiction where licensed.

A licensee with less than one year can still come in under §1101(B) if the other jurisdiction's license requirements are substantially equivalent to or exceed Louisiana's, with proof of the NCE or the NCMHCE.

The trade-off for the short practice year is that Louisiana does not issue temporary practice permits; §1103(A) offers expedited application processing instead, with a board staff response within five business days, and a 30-day update track for military applicants, honorably discharged veterans within five years, and their spouses.

Which route applies depends on how long you have practiced and whether your home state is live in the Counseling Compact.

Louisiana is live in the Counseling Compact as of September 2026: the commission's home page lists Louisiana among the states issuing and accepting privileges, and a Louisiana LPC who lives in Louisiana may apply for a privilege to practice in the other live member states.

The commission's fee table prices the privilege-eligible credential as the LPC, at $130 to the state plus a $30 administrative fee, $160 in all.

Louisiana's enacting statute section and enactment date were not located in the sources read, so this page records the commission's live status rather than a citation to Louisiana law.

The reverse direction is conditional: a counselor licensed elsewhere can practice in Louisiana under a Compact privilege only if their home state is also among the states issuing privileges; otherwise the route in is the endorsement rule above.

An LPC renews the license and any privileging designations every two years in the month of June, with 40 clock hours of continuing education.

Of those 40, §707(A)(1) requires three hours in ethics, three in social and cultural foundations, and six in diagnosis and treatment under the DSM-5; a board-approved supervisor adds three hours in supervision and completes the bi-annual supervisor orientation provided on the website.

The board's CE page separately frames 3 CEHs in social and cultural competence as beginning 2027; the rule text read already carries the social and cultural foundations line, so confirm the current split with the board when planning CE.

A PLPC runs on a different clock: renewal every two years in October with 20 clock hours — one and a half each in ethics, diagnosis and social and cultural foundations — plus the exam attempt required until a pass.

Let a license lapse and an LPC has two years to renew before it expires; a lapsed PLPC has 90 days before that period's supervised experience hours are forfeited.

Four rulemaking rounds fall in the window: LR 50:1848-1850 in December 2024, which included the rewritten endorsement rule in §1101; LR 51:1862-1863 in November 2025; LR 51:2098 in December 2025; and LR 52:1349-1351 in August 2026, the round behind the board-hosted rule compilation this page is built on.

The Counseling Compact went live in Louisiana, which is why the commission's home page now lists Louisiana among the states issuing and accepting privileges.

The board's CE page carries one forward-looking line — 3 CEHs in social and cultural competence per renewal beginning 2027 — while the rule text read already requires three hours in social and cultural foundations of each 40-hour cycle, so treat that line as the page's framing and confirm with the board rather than reading it as a confirmed new mandate.

One apparent change is a rename, not a policy shift: §505, once the rule on diagnosing serious mental illnesses, is now titled Teletherapy Guidelines for Registrants and Licensees, so older guides describing a separate SMI-diagnosis privilege are describing superseded text.

Louisiana approves the setting as well as the counselor.

Before a PLPC accrues anything at a job, the board must approve the practice setting, and the enforcement is severe: a PLPC who fails to inform the board of a setting within 30 days of the date of hire forfeits all supervised experience hours accrued and faces a fine, whether or not the setting is approved.

The setting cannot be one the PLPC operates, manages, or has an ownership interest in; the employer or agency may bill for a PLPC's services but the PLPC may not accept direct payments from the client; and a licensed mental health professional such as an LPC, LMFT or LCSW must be employed in the setting and available for case consultation.

For an associate weighing a job offer, the setting's approval status is the first question to ask.