Counselor Licensure in South Dakota: LPC Requirements, Hours and Exams

South Dakota issues exactly two counseling licenses, and the statute gates one on the other: before the board issues an LPC-MH license, the applicant has obtained licensure as a professional counselor first.

The letters are close but the licenses are not interchangeable — SDCL 36-32-59 protects the titles licensed professional counselor and licensed professional counselor--mental health (among others) for licensees, and the LPC-MH carries the extra degree emphasis, exam and direct-contact hours described below.

Before either license, nothing is issued at all: the pre-licensure stage is a board approved post graduate plan of supervision, an approval the supervisee works under rather than a credential held, which is why the board's verification portal verifies a license or a plan of supervision.

For a new graduate the practical reading is that your first verifiable status in South Dakota is a supervision plan on file with the board, not a license number.

The degree rule keys to a start date, not a graduation date.

A master's or doctoral degree of at least 48 credit hours in counseling from an accredited counseling program recognized by the board qualifies if the applicant began the program before July 1, 2024; programs begun on or after that date need 60 credit hours.

The same split sits in the LPC-MH statute, and the LPC-MH adds an accreditation gate of its own: a CACREP-approved degree, or an equivalent program, with an emphasis on mental health counseling shown through eight listed study areas — among them etiology, diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders, mental status assessment, and psychopharmacology.

For programs begun on or after July 1, 2024, the board may still license a graduate with 48 to 59 credit hours under SDCL 36-32-64.1 or 36-32-65.1 — but that license is not eligible to participate in the Counseling Compact, so the credit count follows the license into portability.

Both licenses require 2,000 hours within the four years preceding the application, but the statutes count different things.

The LPC's 2,000 hours of postgraduate supervision break down, in ARSD 20:68:04:10, into at least 1,000 hours of direct client contact, at least 100 hours of supervision with a board approved supervisor, and at least 900 hours of counseling related activities, for which the rule credits 55 minutes per hour of direct client contact performed.

Supervision runs at one hour per 20 hours of direct contact; no more than 50 of the 100 may be group.

The LPC-MH's 2,000 hours are all direct client contact plus 100 supervision hours on the same ratio; up to 1,000 direct and 50 supervision hours from the LPC plan may carry over, but only if the supervisor met the LPC-MH qualifications when the hours accrued.

Neither rule states a minimum number of months; both statutes let the board grant a license on good cause when the four-year window is exceeded; and only hours with a board approved supervisor, recorded on the board's form, count.

The statute requires each LPC applicant to have passed the National Counselor Examination administered by the National Board for Certified Counselors, and the examination rule adds a second route: the Counselor Rehabilitation Certification Examination, with the applicant applying directly to the National Board for Certified Counselors or the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification.

The LPC-MH requires the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination.

The two-license structure means the exams do not substitute for each other: an LPC who qualified on the NCE also sits the NCMHCE for the LPC-MH, so candidates planning the full ladder can expect two national exams.

No jurisprudence exam appears for South Dakota on the Counseling Compact Commission's fees and jurisprudence table as of September 2026.

There is no supervisor license in South Dakota — approval attaches to a licensee who holds an LPC, LPC-MH, marriage and family therapist, CSW-PIP, psychologist or psychiatrist license and qualifies through the CCE Approved Clinical Supervisor credential, two years licensed with at least 4 CE hours in supervision, one year licensed with at least 15 such CE hours, or AAMFT approved supervisor status.

The decisive list is the LPC-MH one: supervision toward the LPC-MH hours must come from an LPC-MH, marriage and family therapist, CSW-PIP, psychologist or psychiatrist — a plain LPC is not on it, and the carryover of LPC hours is only safe if the supervisor met that standard when the hours accrued.

A supervisee aiming at the LPC-MH should pick a supervisor from that list on day one.

Individual supervision means a supervisor and up to two supervisees; group means three or more, and no more than 50 of the 100 hours may be group.

Approval lapses automatically if the supervisor ceases to meet the qualification it was granted on or comes under discipline.

The statute's own definitions are broad: counseling is defined to include the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness or mental and emotional disorders, and the practice of professional counseling includes conducting assessments and diagnoses to establish treatment goals.

The only scope limit in the chapters read is a general one for every licensee: no counseling services outside the scope of the licensee's relevant education, training, and experience.

Whether a plain LPC — as opposed to an LPC-MH — may diagnose or practise independently is not settled by the sources read, and neither a restriction nor a blanket clearance should be assumed; how employers, payers and facilities divide clinical work between the two licenses was likewise not stated, so ask the board before relying on either reading.

One provision is unambiguous and matters for telehealth: counseling provided through electronic means to a patient located in South Dakota is engaged in the practice of counseling in this state, regardless of the provider's physical location.

A counselor licensed elsewhere can be licensed in South Dakota — as either an LPC or an LPC-MH — on endorsement, but the doorway is time-gated: the applicant must currently be licensed and must have been under the other jurisdiction's licensing authority for at least three continuous years before applying.

Active practice during that three-year period is defined as at least 1,500 hours of clinical experience, the applicant must have passed the standard national examination approved by the board for the specific license sought (the NCE or CRC route for the LPC, the NCMHCE for the LPC-MH), and the record must be clean of unprofessional conduct and pending complaints.

A clinician licensed in another state for less than three continuous years does not fit this section; the standard application routes in SDCL 36-32-64 and 36-32-65 are what the sources read leave them.

The rule chapter also carries an application for a temporary license for an applicant licensed in another state (ARSD 20:68:01:12); its terms were not in the sources read.

South Dakota enacted the Counseling Compact through SL 2024, ch 164, § 7, codified at SDCL 36-32A-2, and the commission's fees and jurisdiction table lists it as a member state with Compact Live = No as of September 2026.

Not live means no privileges: a South Dakota counselor cannot use the Compact to practise elsewhere, and a counselor licensed in a live state cannot use it to practise here — the route in either direction is a South Dakota license, by application under SDCL 36-32-64 or 36-32-65 or by endorsement under 36-32-67.

Two South Dakota wrinkles are written into the enactment itself.

The 48–59-credit exception licenses are barred from Compact participation by the same sections that create them, so for anyone licensed under that route the degree credit count decides portability, not just licensure.

And the board must implement a state and federal fingerprint-based criminal background check for licensees seeking to participate in the Compact, with the licensee paying the cost.

The effective date of SL 2024, ch 164 was not stated in the sources read.

Every license under the chapter runs to November 30 of the next even-numbered year after issuance and expires automatically unless renewed; a licensee who fails to renew by November 30 of an even-numbered year is automatically suspended; a person who submits the renewal application and proof of CE compliance within thirty days after the expiration date may be granted a license renewal.

The education floor is at least 40 hours of continuing education every two years, in a manner and with an instructor approved by the board, and the hours may be obtained through electronic means.

Two practical provisions sit in the same section: an initial license granted for less than two years carries a prorated CE requirement for that first period, and the board may extend or waive the requirement on a showing of good cause before the license expires.

The administrative rule chapter 20:68:07 carries the detailed CE rules on records, qualified programs and credit restrictions; its text was not in the sources read, so confirm topic requirements with the board rather than assuming any ethics minimum.

Among the changes SL 2024, ch 164 made to this chapter, four reach this page.

It rewrote the degree requirement as a split: 48 credit hours for programs begun before July 1, 2024, 60 for programs begun on or after that date, in both the LPC and LPC-MH statutes.

It created the exception routes in SDCL 36-32-64.1 and 36-32-65.1 under which the board may still license a 48–59-credit graduate — expressly without Compact eligibility.

It enacted the Counseling Compact at SDCL 36-32A-2.

And it directed the board to set up the fingerprint-based background check for Compact participants at the licensee's cost (SDCL 36-32-95).

The supervised-experience rule itself is older: ARSD 20:68:04:10 was last amended effective November 24, 2022 (49 SDR 51).

The dating rule of thumb for older guides is therefore: a page showing a flat 48-credit requirement, or no Compact at all, predates the split; check the credit rule against the program start date, not the graduation date.