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

One statute anchors the answer, and the date on the agreement does the sorting.

Contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2025: the covenant is void.

Wyoming Statutes § 1-23-108(a) — the 2025 act, Senate File 0107 — voids any covenant not to compete that restricts the right of any person to receive compensation for performance of skilled or unskilled labor, subject to the exceptions listed in the statute.

The statute has no license-specific carve-out for counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists or behavior analysts, so it reaches therapists, BCBAs, technicians and the other behavioral health employees on a practice's roster.

Contracts entered into before July 1, 2025: not voided.

The 2025 act applies to contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2025, and it does not alter or impair contracts entered into before that date.

A covenant your Wyoming practice already holds is judged under the Wyoming Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, covered below.

A short list of exceptions survives.

Sale-of-business covenants, covenants to the extent they protect trade secrets, limited relocation, education and training repayment provisions, and covenants with executive and management personnel and their professional staff sit outside the ban.

This page is Wyoming only.

If you hire across state lines, the analysis changes with the state — the wider picture is in our guide to non-competes nationally.

Wyoming's rule is statutory, and it is recent.

The general ban.

Under § 1-23-108(a) (2025 SF0107), any covenant not to compete that restricts the right of any person to receive compensation for performance of skilled or unskilled labor is void, subject to the statute's listed exceptions.

The wording is general — any person, skilled or unskilled labor — so it is not a healthcare statute; it applies to Wyoming employers across the board, behavioral health practices included.

The physician subsection.

Section 1-23-108(b) separately voids any covenant not to compete in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians that restricts a physician's practice of medicine after the relationship ends, while keeping the rest of the agreement enforceable.

That covers psychiatrists.

The wording is "agreement between physicians," so whether the subsection reaches a psychiatrist employed by a non-physician-owned group is unclear — but the general ban in subsection (a) applies to such a psychiatrist anyway unless an exception fits.

The case law for older contracts.

For contracts entered into before July 1, 2025, the governing authority is the Wyoming Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, 861 P.2d 531 — its framework for testing a covenant, and a willingness to narrow an overbroad one rather than strike it.

The next section sets out what it requires.

Because the 2025 ban is general, it covers your clinical staff without naming them.

No behavioral-health carve-out.

Section 1-23-108(a) names no licensed profession.

There is no carve-out for counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists or behavior analysts — therapists, BCBAs, technicians and other behavioral health employees all fall under the general void rule for covenants that restrict compensation for skilled or unskilled labor.

The one profession-specific provision is for physicians.

For a behavioral health practice, that subsection matters for one hire in particular: the psychiatrist.

A covenant not to compete in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians that restricts a psychiatrist's practice of medicine after the relationship ends is void, and the rest of the agreement stays enforceable.

Whether the subsection reaches a psychiatrist employed by a non-physician entity is unclear on its wording — for that psychiatrist, the general ban in subsection (a) is the rule that applies unless an exception fits.

What this means for a mixed roster.

Counselors, social workers, psychologists, BCBAs and technicians are covered by the same general ban as everyone else; apart from the physician subsection, no license buys a different rule under Wyoming's statute.

Whether the statute reaches client non-solicits is a separate, unresolved question, taken up below.

For a covenant in a contract entered into on or after July 1, 2025, a court does not start with reasonableness — the covenant is void unless a statutory exception applies.

The reasonableness framework still decides everything signed before that date.

The Hopper requirements.

Under Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, 861 P.2d 531, the Wyoming Supreme Court's 1993 decision, a non-compete must be: (1) in writing; (2) part of a contract of employment; (3) based on reasonable consideration; (4) reasonable in durational and geographical limitations; and (5) not against public policy.

Time and area, in practice.

Hopper involved a three-year covenant protecting a veterinary clinic's client relationships; the Wyoming Supreme Court held a one-year limit sufficient and enforced the covenant as narrowed.

The lesson on duration is that a court can cut what an employer overreaches on — but that trimming is not a drafting plan, because Hopper is a veterinary case and it governs only the pre-July 2025 layer.

Consideration.

Hopper also said strong public policy favors requiring separate consideration for a covenant signed during an at-will employment relationship.

In the pre-July 2025 layer, that matters if you ask an at-will employee to sign a covenant mid-employment — have counsel paper the separate consideration rather than assume continued employment covers it.

This is the open question in Wyoming's new law, and it is the one your client relationships turn on.

Whether Wyoming's 2025 statute voids client or patient non-solicitation clauses is unresolved.

Section 1-23-108 does not define "covenant not to compete," and no Wyoming case construing the new act was located in the research behind this page.

Neither reading is safe to assume on the research behind this page: it gives no basis to place these clauses inside or outside the statute.

Until Wyoming courts or the legislature settle it, treat a client non-solicit in Wyoming as a clause of uncertain statutory footing.

Have employment counsel read your wording against the statute, and do not treat the clause as your only protection for the client relationship.

Employee non-solicits.

The unresolved question in the research is the client-facing clause.

For employee non-solicits, no Wyoming case construing the new act was located in the research behind this page either, so the research does not settle how the statute treats either clause type — have counsel read both against § 1-23-108.

How non-solicitation clauses work generally — what other states allow, and how the ethics codes your clinicians answer to handle client transitions when they leave — is its own topic: see our guide to non-solicitation clauses.

The statute leaves a practice less room than a covenant used to, but not none.

Spend the drafting effort where the law still allows something.

• Anchor on the listed exceptions. Wyoming's exceptions to the 2025 ban are covenants in the purchase and sale of a business or its assets; covenants to the extent they protect trade secrets; limited relocation, education and training repayment provisions; and executive and management personnel, officers, and employees who are professional staff to executive and management personnel.
• Do not assume a clinical director fits the management exception. Whether a clinical director, program director or supervising BCBA counts as "executive and management personnel" is untested. Treat it as a question for employment counsel, not a drafting assumption.
• Use the repayment lane for training and relocation spend. Wyoming allows contract clauses recovering relocation, education and training costs on a sliding scale: up to 100% of the expense for an employee who has served the employer under 2 years, up to 66% at 2 to under 3 years, and up to 33% at 3 to under 4 years. If you fund licensure supervision hours, BCBA coursework or a move, this is the statutory instrument for it. The mechanics of papering one are in our guide to training repayment agreements.
• Reserve the trade-secret exception for genuinely confidential material. The statute preserves covenants to the extent they protect trade secrets. It is a narrow lane, and what qualifies as a protectable trade secret is a question for counsel.
• Audit the pre-July 2025 agreements in your files. The 2025 act does not alter or impair contracts entered into before July 1, 2025. Check each against the Hopper requirements — writing, employment contract, consideration, duration and geography, public policy — and against Hopper's separate-consideration point before you rely on any of it.

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