Counselor Licensure in Nebraska: LPC Requirements, Hours and Exams

Nebraska's counselor credential is issued under an umbrella.

The Mental Health Practice Act licenses one mental health practitioner across disciplines, and 38-2116 builds the familiar titles by combination: the mental health practitioner license plus the certified professional counselor certificate makes the title licensed professional counselor, and the independent license plus that certificate or a Counseling Compact privilege makes licensed independent professional counselor.

So the letters a Nebraska counselor carries are PLMHP, LMHP, LIMHP and CPC — never LPC as a license of its own.

The entry rung is a license, not a registration or permit, and it carries a client-disclosure duty:

The qualifying degree is a master's or doctoral degree (or a board-determined equivalent) primarily therapeutic mental health in content, and the program must include a practicum or internship of a minimum of 300 clock hours of direct client contact.

CACREP accreditation is not required for the LMHP license itself; it matters later, on the accredited-program route to the LIMHP, where the program must be accredited by CACREP, COAMFTE, or CSWE at graduation or within four years after, or be board-equivalent (38-2124(1)(a)(i)).

What the board's application note adds is a program-size floor, effective 7.12.2023:

The LMHP's 3,000 hours must be accumulated after completion of the master's degree, doctoral degree, or equivalent of the master's degree, under supervision that includes evaluative face-to-face contact of at least one hour per week — so graduate-school practicum hours do not carry over, which is why the PLMHP exists.

The LIMHP requires 3,000 hours supervised by a licensed physician, a licensed psychologist, or a licensed independent mental health practitioner, one-half comprised of experience with clients diagnosed under the major mental illness or disorder category; graduates of non-accredited programs instead need 7,000 hours of experience obtained in a period of not less than 10 years (38-2124(1)(b)(iii)).

The sources read do not state whether the LIMHP's hours may overlap the LMHP's 3,000 — 38-2124(1)(a)(ii)(B) lets a provisional licensee who has passed the exam qualify for the LIMHP directly, without holding the LMHP first.

No minimum months are stated for the 3,000-hour routes.

The statute splits the LMHP hours precisely:

Nebraska routes the national exam by degree: marriage and family therapy degrees sit for the AMFTRB examination, social work degrees must pass the Association of Social Work Boards Clinical examination, and counseling degrees take the NCE or the NCMHCE.

Approval to test runs through transcript review, with an authorization letter in approximately 30 business days; the application notes most testing services require a 90-day wait before retesting, and there is no limit on the number of attempts.

The Nebraska jurisprudence exam is not part of initial licensure — it appears on the five-year endorsement route (38-2125(1)(b)).

The rule for counseling degrees:

The two tiers supervise differently.

For LMHP hours the supervisor must be a qualified physician, a psychologist licensed to engage in the practice of psychology, or a licensed mental health practitioner, under evaluative face-to-face contact of at least one hour per week; the sources read state no telesupervision provision for those LMHP hours (172 NAC 94 was not retrieved), so confirm any video arrangement with the board in writing.

LIMHP hours are governed by the board's Affidavit of Supervised Experience, effective 7.12.2021, which also requires supervision of all direct client contact with clients with major mental disorders until the LIMHP issues — not just until the hours are met — plus a review of the diagnostic criteria for those clients.

One flexibility at the start survives: rules may not require that you have a supervisor in place at the time of application for the provisional license (38-2123).

Its face-to-face floor, which expressly permits secure video contact, reads:

For the non-independent LMHP, mental health practice excludes diagnosing major mental illness or disorder except in consultation with a qualified physician, a psychologist, a licensed independent mental health practitioner, or a professional counselor holding a Counseling Compact privilege in Nebraska (38-2115(2)(d)).

A consultation is not a formality — the consultant makes the diagnosis based on information the LMHP supplies and any additional assessment the consultant deems necessary, and the two jointly develop a treatment plan that allocates responsibility for each element (38-2112).

The independent tier works without that loop:

Endorsement offers two doors.

The first is for applicants whose education and experience already meet the Act's requirements or substantially equivalent requirements as determined by the department with the board's recommendation.

The second is the experience route:

Nebraska enacted the Counseling Compact in 2022 at Neb. Rev. Stat.

38-4201 (Laws 2022, LB752) and is a member state, but as of September 2026 the Compact is not live: it is not among the states issuing and accepting privileges on the commission's site.

The eligibility gate the statute writes for counselors is unusually narrow:

The total continuing-education hours required for each renewal sit in the board's rule chapter, 172 NAC 94, which was not retrieved — the current CE total is not stated in the sources read.

What the statute does show is prospective: LB912 (2026), operative January 1, 2027, adds the domestic abuse CE minimum — its every-two-years cycle belongs to that 2027 provision, not to current law:

Effective 7.12.2023, the board's application note set the minimum of 60 semester hours for the qualifying degree, with graduate make-up hours allowed outside a shorter program.

LB605 (2024) amended the experience sections, 38-2122 and 38-2124; LB257 (2025) amended the endorsement section, 38-2125.

LB912 (2026) is operative January 1, 2027: it adds 38-2122.01, the domestic abuse CE minimum of two hours every two years for LMHPs and LIMHPs, and from September 1, 2027 it requires provisional applicants to obtain three hours of training relating to domestic abuse (38-2123(1)(d)).

Because LB912 inserts (1)(d) and a new subsection (2) into 38-2123, that section's subsection numbers shift on January 1, 2027; this page cites 38-2123 without subsection pins so the citations hold under both versions.

The hour totals and exam rules quoted on this page come from the DHHS 2026 compilation of the Act, which includes those LB912 amendments.

Since 7.21.2022 the LIMHP application has required a criminal background check based on fingerprints submitted to the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI — the application notes it does not apply to LMHP applicants.

Your supervised experience is documented in a form and manner prescribed by the board, which may consist of sworn statements from the applicant and their employers and supervisors, and the statute bars the board from requiring individual case records (38-2124(2)).

Expect approximately 30 business days of processing once your file is complete, with 90 days allowed to complete an incomplete application.