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

Yes — a Vermont court can enforce a non-compete against a therapist, BCBA, counselor or any other employee, but only to the extent the covenant is reasonable.

Vermont decides that by case law, not by statute: there is no checklist of statutory conditions, no salary threshold and no fixed maximum term to draft against.

Two things shape the outcome.

First, Vermont courts treat non-competes warily — they proceed with caution with these restraints because they run counter to public policy favoring free commercial activity, as a January 2026 legislative working-group report summarizes the case law.

Second, a bill that would have regulated non-competes by statute, H.205, was recommitted to committee on March 13, 2026, with no later action recorded as of October 7, 2026 — it is not law.

So the covenant you write is the rule.

This page is Vermont only — if you hire across state lines, non-compete rules are state law, and the wider picture is in our guide to non-competes nationally.

Vermont regulates employee non-competes through case law.

The decision the rule comes from is Summits 7 (2005 VT 97), where the Vermont Supreme Court set the default rule: a restrictive covenant in employment is enforced unless it is found to be contrary to public policy, unnecessary for protection of the employer, or unnecessarily restrictive of the rights of the employee.

Caution is the backdrop.

Vermont courts proceed with caution with non-competes because such restraints run counter to the public policy favoring free commercial activity — the framing a January 8, 2026 House Commerce working-group report used when it summarized Vermont law for legislators.

Legislation was in play in the same biennium, too.

H.205, "An act relating to agreements not to compete," was reported favorably with amendment by the House Commerce committee in February 2026, then recommitted to the committee on March 13, 2026.

No later action is recorded as of October 7, 2026, so Vermont's non-compete law remains common law.

Whether a future session revives the approach is not known — check the bill's status before you build a hiring cycle around the current rules.

None that is specific.

This page's research found no Vermont statute specific to healthcare or mental-health non-competes — nothing naming counselors, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists or behavior analysts, and nothing naming physicians or APRNs either.

For your practice that cuts both ways.

Within that research, no statute voids a therapist's non-compete outright, and none makes enforcement easier either.

Your psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners sit under the same case-law reasonableness test as your RBTs — the agreement's wording decides, not the license.

The Legislature has noticed the issue.

The January 8, 2026 working-group report noted healthcare workers who are subject to non-competes, raising staffing-shortage and patient-continuity questions.

That is a signal lawmakers are examining healthcare covenants, not a rule you can draft to.

With no statute supplying the numbers, the case law supplies the test.

Vermont courts examine whether a non-compete is narrowly tailored in geographic, temporal and subject-matter terms to protect the employer's legitimate interests.

Time.

The regime is case law, so there is no statutory term cap to draft against, and nothing in this page's sources gives a month figure a Vermont court has endorsed as a benchmark.

What the case law asks is whether the length is narrowly tailored to the interest you are protecting — so the defensible term is the shortest one that covers your real interest, read by counsel.

Area.

Same structure: there is no statutory radius.

The tailoring inquiry asks for no more geography than your legitimate interest needs.

Legitimate business interest.

The tailoring has to protect the employer's legitimate interests — so name the real interest behind your covenant before you draft, rather than simply aiming to slow a departing clinician down.

Partial enforcement cuts both ways.

In Summits 7 the court said it may enforce the agreement to the extent that it is reasonable, so an overbroad Vermont covenant is not automatically void — a court can enforce it in part.

That argues against drafting loose and counting on a judge to fix it, and against treating a clause as worthless because one provision stretches too far.

Consideration.

Adding a covenant to a current team member's terms is not blocked by consideration in Vermont: continued at-will employment is sufficient consideration for a non-compete signed during employment.

A non-solicit is a different restraint, and this page's research did not cover how Vermont courts treat client non-solicitation clauses for clinicians — so treat the outcome as a question for employment counsel rather than a settled rule.

What can be said is the frame.

Summits 7 involved a restrictive covenant in employment, and the narrow-tailoring test Vermont courts apply comes from it; Vermont courts also proceed with caution with non-competes, per the working-group report's summary of the case law.

Whether either reaches a client non-solicit the same way was not researched for this page.

If you use a client or employee non-solicit, keep it narrow — the clients the clinician actually served, for a limited period — and have counsel read it against current Vermont case law.

The ethics side of client transitions is its own topic; see our guide to non-solicitation clauses for clients, staff and the ethics codes involved.

Vermont's case-law regime leaves the tailoring judgment largely to you and your counsel, and the discipline is to spend that room narrowly.

• Draft to the interest, not the fear. Name what you are protecting, then tailor geography, time and subject matter to it. A covenant that reaches every clinician for as long as you can imagine is the kind the caution doctrine invites courts to trim.
• Assume partial enforcement. Because a Vermont court may enforce a covenant to the extent that it is reasonable, overreach does not necessarily void the whole clause — it can shrink it. Write the version you would be content to have enforced.
• Roll covenants out mid-employment cleanly. Continued at-will employment is enough consideration in Vermont, so extending a non-compete to current staff is not blocked by consideration — the tailoring test still decides whether it holds.
• Watch Montpelier. H.205 was recommitted on March 13, 2026, with no later action as of October 7, 2026. Check its status before each hiring cycle; if a successor bill moves, your templates may need to move with it.
• Use the right tool for training spend. Training repayment agreements are a separate tool with rules of their own that this page does not cover — see our guide to training repayment agreements.
• Compete on what a covenant cannot hold. Pay, supervision quality and schedule are terms you control; a clause a court will not enforce controls no one.

Whatever the package, have employment counsel who practices in Vermont read the final wording before an offer goes out.