Counselor Licensure in New Hampshire: LPC Requirements, Hours and Exams

New Hampshire's pre-licensure rung is a conditional license — the statute's own term — and it is a licence, not a registration: RSA 330-A:19, IV directs the board to issue it once the applicant holds the qualifying degree and a board-approved supervisory agreement with documented intent to pursue licensure.

RSA 330-A:19, V caps it at 2 years from issuance, with a one-time renewal for applicants in good standing.

The person working under it is a candidate for licensure (Mhp 301.01(b)), the agreement must be on record with the board, and the supervisor assumes professional, ethical and legal responsibility for the candidate's services in writing (RSA 330-A:22, II).

For a new graduate the practical reading is simple: your first New Hampshire job has to come with an approvable supervision agreement attached, because without it there is no status under which hours count.

RSA 330-A:19, I sets a 60 credit master's or doctoral degree in clinical mental health counseling from a CACREP accredited institution or its equivalent, with regional accreditation — the phrase "or its equivalent" is why CACREP is not strictly mandatory here.

Mhp 305.01(b) builds the non-CACREP route: a 60-credit master's or doctorate in clinical mental health counseling from a regionally accredited school, a course of study of at least 2 academic years (4 semesters) of full-time graduate study, and a program that describes itself as a complete 60-or-more-credit program in clinical mental health counseling and includes at least 700 hours of supervised practicum or internship appropriate to mental health counseling.

Mhp 305.02 then requires the 60 semester hours to include at least 33 semester hours, 3 in each of 11 named areas, from human growth and development through testing and assessment, research and program evaluation, and addictive behaviors.

Before enrolling anywhere, put your program against that checklist or ask OPLC whether it qualifies as an equivalent.

The statute requires a minimum of 2 years of post-master's experience including a minimum of 3,000 hours of post-master's supervised clinical experience under a board-approved supervisor — RSA 330-A:19, III names a licensed independent clinical social worker or a licensed clinical mental health counselor supervisor, or any other supervisor meeting criteria established in rules.

Mhp 305.03(a) restates this as at least 2 years of post-master's or doctoral supervised clinical work experience in a mental health setting.

Mhp 305.03(b) defines a year of supervised clinical work experience as not less than 1,500 hours, completed within not less than 12 and not more than 24 consecutive months.

Supervision must run at least one hour per week of individual face-to-face supervision for a total of 100 hours (Mhp 305.03(d)).

Class work, practicum and internship do not count (Mhp 305.03(i)), and the sources read state no separate direct-client-contact minimum.

A current MLADC licence may be substituted for up to 1,500 of the 3,000 hours (RSA 330-A:19, III), with up to 50 face-to-face supervision hours on top (Mhp 305.03(c)).

RSA 330-A:19, II requires the clinical mental health counselor's proctored examination of the National Board for Certified Counselors, and Mhp 305.04 names it: register for the National Clinical Mental Health Counselor Exam and have the testing organization transmit the results directly to the licensing bureau.

In the table's shorthand that is the NCMHCE; the NCE is not accepted for this licence, so a candidate holding only the NCE should resolve that with the board before applying.

There is no New Hampshire jurisprudence exam.

There is no separate supervisor licence.

RSA 330-A:19, III names a board-approved licensed independent clinical social worker or licensed clinical mental health counselor supervisor, or any other supervisor meeting rule criteria, and RSA 330-A:22, IV requires each supervisor's agreement to be approved by the board before it becomes effective.

The supervisor assumes professional, ethical and legal responsibility for your services in a written agreement on record with the board (RSA 330-A:22, II(b)) and must be licensed in the state where the supervision takes place (Mhp 305.03(g)) — a rule that matters if you live near a border.

Supervisors may not have a dual relationship with the supervisee, such as a spouse, close relative or therapist (Mhp 305.03(j)), and board-approved supervisors must complete at least 6 of their 40 CE hours in clinical supervision (Mhp 402.01(a)).

Video supervision is written into the rule, not a policy gap: face-to-face includes synchronous HIPAA-compliant virtual presence (Mhp 301.01(c)).

The chapter defines mental health practice to include the observation, description, evaluation, interpretation, diagnosis, and modification of human behavior, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of the psychological and social aspects of physical illness, accident, injury, or disability (RSA 330-A:2, VI).

A further clause says mental health practice may include services based on the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders, and psycho-educational or consultative techniques integral to their treatment, when diagnosis is specified in the most current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, or an equivalent the board determines — so diagnosis sits inside what the licence covers.

The same definition closes the medical lane.

Rulemaking authority also ties each discipline to professional ethical standards; for clinical mental health counselors that includes standards promulgated by the American Clinical Mental Health Counselors Association (RSA 330-A:10, VI).

New Hampshire enacted the Mental Health Counseling Compact, RSA 330-D, effective June 24, 2022 (2022, 277:2), and the commission counts New Hampshire among its enacted member states.

Enactment is not operation.

As of September 2026 the commission's homepage lists nine states live for issuing and accepting privileges, and New Hampshire is not among them: an LCMHC cannot use the Compact to practise in another member state, and a counselor licensed elsewhere cannot use it to practise in New Hampshire — the route in is a New Hampshire licence.

The compact's own definition confirms what travels once it goes live: it reaches a counselor licensed by a member state, regardless of the title used by that state, to independently assess, diagnose, and treat behavioral health conditions.

The licence renews biennially, and RSA 330-A:10, XI directs that at least 3 of the required continuing education units for biennial renewal come from a nationally recognized, evidence-based or best-practices training organization in suicide prevention, intervention, or post-vention and how mental illness, substance use disorders, trauma, or interpersonal violence directly impacts risk for suicide.

Mhp 402.01(a) sets the total: each licensee completes 40 hours of approved continuing education every 2 years.

At least 30 of the 40 must be Category A, at least 6 must be ethics from Category A, and at least 3 must be suicide prevention from Category A; no more than 10 may be Category B (Mhp 402.01(e)).

Board-approved supervisors complete at least 6 of those hours in clinical supervision from Category A.

Four changes fall in the window.

RSA 330-A:19 was amended in 2023 (eff.

October 3, 2023) and again in 2025 (eff.

September 13, 2025), and the 2025 chapter also repealed eight other sections of chapter 330-A — 330-A:4, :12, :15-b, :23, :24, :26, :27, :31 — effective September 13, 2025.

RSA 330-A:22 was amended effective September 17, 2024.

The board's Mhp 300 rules were readopted by document #14464 effective February 17, 2026 (expiring February 17, 2036), which is why the current supervised-experience and exam rules carry their new numbers, and the continuing-education rule Mhp 402.01 was readopted by #14273 effective August 19, 2025.

This is the rule most likely to cost a New Hampshire candidate real months.

Mhp 305.03(k) excludes an independent private mental health practice from acceptable supervised professional experience outright.

Mhp 305.03(l) then reopens private practice on a single condition: the supervisee must have a W-2 relationship with the site — a 1099 independent contractor relationship does not meet the requirement.

The rule's own definition of "independent solo" practice keys on employment by an employer who assumes full financial responsibility and furnishes a W-2 form (Mhp 301.01(e)).

For a candidate weighing two job offers, the one that pays more as a 1099 contract produces hours the board will not count; the W-2 role does.

If an arrangement sits anywhere near the line, get the board's answer in writing before the hours accrue.