Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Therapists and Behavioral Health Staff in Maine?

Maine answers this by statute — and since July 29, 2026, the statute sorts your staff into three groups.

• Health care practitioners with no ownership stake: no. LD 2200 (Public Law 2025, chapter 718), approved April 15, 2026, bars a Maine employer from requiring or permitting a non-compete with a health care practitioner who has no ownership interest in the employer.
• Practitioner-owners: not banned. The new subsection doesn’t reach them, though any remaining practitioner non-compete must recognize each individual’s right to choose their own practitioner.
• Everyone else: conditional. Outside the ban, 26 M.R.S. §599-A forbids non-competes at or below 400% of the federal poverty level and conditions the rest on notice, timing and reasonableness; since 2026, practitioners are excepted from the waiting period.

Maine’s rules are statutory, not judge-made: 26 M.R.S. §599-A declares noncompete agreements contrary to public policy, enforceable only to the extent they are reasonable and no broader than necessary to protect the employer’s trade secrets, confidential information or goodwill.

§599-A defines a noncompete agreement as a provision barring an employee or prospective employee from working in the same or a similar profession or a specified geographic area for a period after employment ends; client non-solicitation and confidentiality agreements sit outside it, treated as alternatives.

Four mechanical rules apply before reasonableness is even weighed:

• Income floor. A Maine employer may not require or permit a non-compete with an employee earning wages at or below 400% of the federal poverty level.
• Notice. You must disclose before making an offer that a non-compete will be required, and provide a copy at least 3 business days before requiring signature.
• Waiting period. As originally enacted, terms take effect only after one year of employment or 6 months from signing, whichever is later; the 2026 law changed only the exception.
• Penalty. Violating the low-wage ban or the notice rule is a civil violation with a fine of not less than $5,000; the Maine Department of Labor enforces the section.

This page is Maine only; the wider picture is in our guide to non-competes nationally.

Maine now has a healthcare-specific ban: LD 2200 adds a ground to §599-A(3) — an employer may not require or permit a non-compete with a health care practitioner who has no ownership interest in the employer.

The definition does the work: a “health care practitioner” is an individual qualified or licensed under state law to perform or provide health care services to persons in Maine.

The text names no professions.

• Plainly covered: physicians and nurses — an employee psychiatrist or psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner with no ownership stake cannot be asked to sign one.
• Not spelled out: whether licensed counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists and behavior analysts qualify — the text doesn’t say, and no guidance from the Maine Department of Labor has surfaced. Don’t assume either way; ask Maine employment counsel. Unlicensed behavioral health technicians and peer support staff raise the same question with less to lean on.

Two timing rules bound the ban.

It applies to agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 29, 2026 — the Legislative Digest’s date for non-emergency laws — so agreements signed before then are judged under the prior rules, and a renewal pulls one under the new ban.

And it replaced the physician exception to the one-year/six-month waiting period with one for all health care practitioners, so an owner-practitioner’s still-allowed non-compete takes effect without it.

When checked in October 2026, the Revisor’s online §599-A text still showed the pre-2026 wording — rely on the enacted LD 2200 text instead.

For the employees a non-compete can still cover, §599-A supplies the test a Maine court applies: reasonable, and no broader than necessary.

• Legitimate business interest. The statute names three — trade secrets, confidential information and goodwill. Tie the covenant to one, and to evidence you could show: a referral network, a program, goodwill in a caseload.
• The narrower tool comes first. A non-compete may be presumed necessary if the interest cannot be adequately protected by a nonsolicitation, nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement — draft and document those first.
• Time. Terms stay dormant until after one year of employment or 6 months from signing, whichever is later (practitioners excepted since 2026); no maximum duration surfaced in this research, so size the term to a provable interest.
• Area. The definition speaks of a specified geographic area; no statutory mileage rule surfaced in this research, so draw the radius from where your clients actually live and attend.

Maine’s non-compete statute does not swallow non-solicitation clauses: the definition reaches covenants barring work in the same or a similar profession or a specified geographic area, and the statute treats non-solicitation, nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements as alternatives, not noncompetes.

Two distinctions keep you out of trouble:

• Your agreement with your own employee is not a pact with another employer. 26 M.R.S. §599-B bars Maine employers from entering into or enforcing no-poach agreements with other employers that restrict soliciting or hiring each other’s employees or former employees.
• No behavioral-health-specific non-solicit rule surfaced. This research found no Maine rule specifically addressing client non-solicitation clauses for behavioral health licenses, and it did not research how a Maine court would weigh a given clause; confirm with Maine employment counsel.

For drafting detail and the ethics-code duties behind these clauses, see our guide to non-solicitation clauses.

The 2026 law makes the statute’s own preferences your default.

• Draft the narrower covenants first. §599-A may presume a non-compete necessary where a non-solicitation, nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement cannot adequately protect the interest — build the agreement around those and document why they fall short.
• Audit before you renew. The ban reaches agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 29, 2026 — a renewal that rolls an old clause forward falls under it.
• Rebuild the offer workflow around notice. For staff you may still covenant — above the 400% floor, outside the practitioner ban — disclose before the offer and deliver the agreement at least 3 business days before signature.
• Match each risk to its tool. Recouping supervision or training spend points to training repayment agreements instead; keeping clinicians at all points to clinician retention work that needs no enforcement.

Whatever the package, have Maine employment counsel read the final wording before an offer goes out — especially on whether your licenses count as “health care practitioners.”