Substance Abuse Counselor Requirements in Oregon: Credentials, Hours and Exams

There is no state license here — MHACBO, a private board, issues four sequential certifications: CADC-R (candidate/registrant), then CADC I, II and III as education and experience add up.

Registration is due within 30 days of beginning employment performing addiction treatment services at an OHA-certified SUD treatment program, and a registrant can hold candidate status for up to 2 years while finishing full certification — unless the person already holds a license or registration from a qualifying Oregon health-provider board (Oregon Medical Board, Board of Psychologist Examiners, Board of Licensed Social Workers, Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists, or Oregon State Board of Nursing) plus at least 60 contact hours of SUD education, in which case the 2-year full-certification deadline does not apply.

That 2-year clock otherwise cannot be extended by MHACBO itself — only Oregon Health Authority can grant a variance — so someone counting hours toward CADC I should track it as a hard deadline, not a target.

CADC I sets no degree floor at all — 150 education hours, of which six named core courses (basic counseling skills, group counseling, pharmacology, infectious disease risk, ethics and ASAM clinical evaluation) are only part of the total.

CADC II raises the floor to a bachelor's degree — or an AA degree/90 college credits combined with coursework and specialized training and experience in the Addiction Counseling Competencies equivalent to a bachelor's — plus 300 education hours that add Counseling Diverse Populations and a Coexisting/Multiple/Dual Diagnosis course to CADC I's list.

CADC III raises the floor again to a master's degree in Substance Use Disorders/Addiction or a related counseling subject from a regionally accredited institution, also with 300 education hours that add one more topic (Theories of Addiction Treatment) beyond CADC II's list.

For a graduate deciding which tier to pursue, the degree and its field — not the topic list, which adds rather than repeats — is what actually gates CADC II versus CADC III.

The hours climb directly with the tier: CADC I requires 1,000 supervised experience hours, CADC II requires 4,000, and CADC III requires 6,000 — a bachelor's-level candidate logs four times the entry-tier total.

All three tiers count hours against the same addiction counselor competencies MHACBO defines, so CADC II and III hours build on the same skill areas rather than a separate list.

A supervisor must hold an advanced credential — CADC II, CADC III, MAC, NCAC II, CDS II, CDS III, C-CATODSW, CDP or another state's equivalent advanced addiction-counselor certification — and separately meet Oregon's OAR 415/ISSR clinical-supervisor standards, and that same accepted-credential list applies whether the candidate is working toward CADC I, II or III.

CADC I uses the IC&RC ADC exam, while CADC II and CADC III both use NAADAC exams instead — NCAC II for CADC II, MAC for CADC III — plus a written jurisprudence ethics exam at each of those two tiers.

In practice, passing the NCAC II or MAC exam first grants CADC I certification, and only passing the jurisprudence exam afterward converts that into the full CADC II or CADC III certification, so a bachelor's- or master's-level candidate briefly holds the entry title along the way.

Anyone relocating to Oregon with an existing IC&RC or NAADAC credential should note the exam body changes between CADC I and the two higher tiers, since that affects what an out-of-state exam result can be applied toward.

MHACBO uses the same accepted-credential list at every tier: whether the hours are toward CADC I, II or III, the supervisor must hold CADC II, CADC III, MAC, NCAC II, CDS II, CDS III, C-CATODSW, CDP, or another state's equivalent advanced addiction-counselor certification, and must separately meet Oregon's OAR 415/ISSR clinical-supervisor standard.

That second condition means the credential alone is not enough — an associate should ask a prospective supervisor to confirm they meet the OAR 415/ISSR standard directly, not assume it from an advanced-sounding title.

Because the list does not scale up with the candidate's own target tier, a CADC III candidate does not need a supervisor who is specifically a CADC III; any name on that same list, plus OAR 415/ISSR compliance, qualifies.

What a CADC I, II or III certification lets a counselor diagnose, bill independently, or supervise on its own is not stated in the sources read for this page — that scope is set by Oregon Health Authority program rules that MHACBO's certification pages cite but do not reproduce.

In practice, an OHA-certified treatment program's own compliance staff, not MHACBO's website, is where a counselor should confirm exactly what a given tier authorizes them to do clinically.

Anyone weighing whether their certification lets them diagnose a substance use disorder or bill a payer on their own should raise that question directly with OHA or their employer rather than inferring it from the tier name.

MHACBO's own listing on the IC&RC member-board directory covers only the Certified Prevention Specialist (CPS) and Certified Recovery Mentor II (CRM II) credentials — not the CADC — so an out-of-state IC&RC ADC or AADC certification does not reciprocate directly into an Oregon CADC.

MHACBO maintains its own reciprocity page for counselors moving into Oregon, but its terms were not substantively reviewed for this page, so anyone relocating should contact MHACBO directly to confirm what documentation an out-of-state credential requires.

Nationally, IC&RC and NAADAC credentials do not reciprocate with each other at all, per the IC&RC Reciprocity FAQ; whether an out-of-state NAADAC NCAC II or MAC has any separate path into an Oregon CADC is not addressed in the sources read for this page.

Certification renews every 2 years on 40 total continuing-education hours, split into at least 20 SUD-specific hours and up to 20 general behavioral-health hours, with 6 of the 40 hours dedicated to ethics and 2 to suicide prevention.

Because the general-behavioral-health hours are capped at 20, a counselor cannot renew on general coursework alone — at least half of the 40-hour total has to be substance-use-specific.

A renewal fee of $195 to $205 applies on top of the CE requirement.

The one documented change in this window is the CADC-R registration fee, set at $100 for all new applicants beginning February 1, 2026 (the sources read do not state what the fee was before that date).

The sources read did not identify any other change to Oregon's CADC-R/I/II/III education, hour or exam requirements in this period.