How long to 3,000 hours?
The 3,000 is almost never the requirement that decides your date.
There are four requirements and they close at different speeds. A caseload of adult individuals will finish the 3,000 and still not qualify you, because 500 of your direct hours have to be couples, families or children. This projects all four from the week you actually work, and names the one you are waiting on.
Your week, and what you have banked
Six numbers for the week you work now, and four for what is already signed off.
Couples, families and children go in one box because the BBS counts them together against the same 500 — it does not care which of the three a given hour was. Groups are counted as direct clinical but not as relational here, because whether a particular group qualifies depends on who is in it; ask your supervisor, and move the hours across if it does.
Practicum hours count if you were enrolled and had the coursework, within the pre-degree caps: 1,300 in total as a trainee, of which at most 750 may be counseling plus supervisor contact.
The four requirements
Each one projected from the week above. The one holding you up is marked — it is the only one worth changing your caseload for. The clocks around the hours — the registration’s life, the window before the application inside which every hour must fall (six years until 31 December 2026, seven from 1 January 2027), the 104-week floor — are dated on the associate clocks calculator.
What the Board requires
The requirements the four figures above are built on, in the Board’s own terms.
Both edges bind, in opposite directions. You cannot finish with fewer than 1,750 clinical hours, and hours 1,251 onward of notes, meetings and training simply stop counting. 500 of the 1,750 have to be with couples, families or children — the one an all-adult caseload never produces.
- 3,000 hours over at least 104 weeks. The weeks requirement is a floor no caseload can beat: 3,000 hours in a year is not 3,000 hours of experience as far as the Board is concerned.
- 1,750 direct clinical minimum, and 500 of them with couples, families or children. This is what strands people, because an all-adult caseload never produces it.
- 1,250 non-clinical maximum. Notes, meetings and training count, but only to a ceiling — past it they stop adding to your total.
- 40 hours credited in any week, and six hours of supervision. Working eighty does not bank eighty.
- One unit of supervision a week, and a second in any week you provide more than ten hours of direct clinical counseling. One unit is one hour of individual or triadic supervision, or two hours of group.[1][9]
What changes on 1 January 2027. AB 1598, signed on 27 September 2026 as Chapter 528 of the Statutes of 2026, moves three of the clocks around the hours. Anything the Board receives or you renew before then is still under the old rule.
- Hours stay good for seven years, not six. No hour may be older than six years when the Board receives your application until 31 December 2026, and seven years from 1 January 2027. Up to 500 practicum hours stay outside the window.
- Six renewals, not five. From 1 January 2027 a registration may be renewed a maximum of six times, and never beyond seven years from the end of the month it was issued.
- No Law and Ethics exam attempt at renewal. Until 31 December 2026 you attempt it every renewal cycle until you pass. From 1 January 2027 the law and ethics part of renewal is the three hours of CE alone. The pass itself must be no more than seven years old when you apply, but that limit does not apply to any application received on or before 1 January 2030.
- The 750-hour cap on pre-degree hours does not change. Nor do the 3,000 hours, the 104 weeks, the minimums or the ceilings above.
- A two-year hardship extension into private practice. On a subsequent registration number you may ask the Board, once, for two years at one named private practice or professional corporation, with good cause and the Board’s approval before you start.
The other half of the question
Hours are one currency. The other is money, and a placement can be good at one and bad at the other. The Job Advisor prices what an offer actually pays — flat rate, share of the fee or salary — once unpaid admin and supervision are counted.
What an AMFT job actually pays →take-home, real hourly rate, and what each hour toward your license is worthSources
Estimates, not advice. This projects the Board’s published requirements onto the week you described. It cannot know what your supervisor will sign, how a particular group is classified, or what your Experience Verification forms already say. Keep your own weekly log and confirm anything that matters with your supervisor. The log itself (37A-525), the Supervision Agreement due within 60 days, and the Experience Verification your supervisor signs at the end are read form by form on the Board’s forms guide.
Next, if you are still accruing hours
Associate Job Advisor
It takes two offers and gives you take-home, real hourly worth, and which one licenses you sooner. What you have typed here travels in the link — you will not enter it twice.
Open Associate Job Advisor →Browse all calculatorsWhere you are on the path
This page is written for two stages of the path.
- in a programUp to 1,300 pre-degree hours can bank toward the 3,000 - what your practicum pace is worth after you graduate. All 16 for this stage →
- counting hoursWhat date you finish, at the hours you are actually logging - and which of the four sub-totals is behind. All 31 for this stage →
Licensure
The route to LMFT, and how long it really takes.
Almost nobody is waiting on the 3,000. An all-adult caseload is waiting on 500 relational hours.
Four requirements, closing at different speeds. This projects all four from the week you actually work, and names the one you are waiting on. Not the total.
