Arkansas LPC Requirements: Hours, Exams & Step-by-Step Guide

Becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Arkansas is essentially a two-stage process: you first become a Licensed Associate Counselor (LAC), then complete a defined set of supervised client contact hours and supervision to qualify for the LPC. The Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling and Marriage & Family Therapy sets these requirements in its rules, 17 CAR Part 75.

Below is a structured explanation with the Board's own terminology ("client contact hours," "direct client contact," "indirect client contact," etc.) and the current rule revision (July 2026).

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1. Licensure Structure in Arkansas

The Board regulates four counseling licenses: LAC, LPC, LAMFT, and LMFT. For professional counseling, you must move from LAC → LPC.

• A Licensed Associate Counselor (LAC) is defined as a person who meets the requirements in 17 CAR § 75-302 and "holds a current, valid license to practice counseling under the supervision of a licensed professional counselor." (17 CAR § 75-103)
• A Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) is a person who meets the 17 CAR § 75-303 requirements and "holds a current valid license to practice counseling/psychotherapy." (17 CAR § 75-103)

The LAC license "is not intended to be a permanent license." (17 CAR § 75-302) The supervised experience you complete as an LAC is meant to train you toward the LPC.

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2. Educational Foundation

2.1 Graduate degree and credit-hour requirement

To even be eligible for LAC (and ultimately LPC), the Board requires:

• A graduate degree primarily in professional counseling (or therapy) from a regionally accredited institution. (17 CAR § 75-306)
• Completion of a minimum of 60 graduate semester hours in counseling/therapy-content coursework that meets academic and training standards established by the Board and aligned with CACREP (or COAMFTE for MFT). (17 CAR § 75-306)

Arkansas programs (for example, UA Little Rock) explicitly tell prospective LPCs that "Applicants need a minimum of 60 hours" to meet Board requirements. (ualr.edu)

The Board's "Core Curriculum for LAC or LPC" includes required graduate hours in Professional Identity and Ethics, Social and Cultural Diversity, Human Growth and Development, Career Development, Helping Relations, Group Work, Assessment, Research and Program Evaluation, Practicum/Internship, Psychopathology (including DSM and ICD training), Family and Relationship, and Technology-Assisted Counseling. (17 CAR § 75-306(e))

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3. Step One: Licensure as a Licensed Associate Counselor (LAC)

3.1 LAC eligibility

Under the current rules, to be eligible as an LAC an applicant: (17 CAR § 75-302)

1. Education

   • Must have a graduate degree primarily in professional counseling from a regionally accredited institution, with graduate semester hours meeting or exceeding CACREP-based standards.

2. Examinations

   • Must "demonstrate professional competencies by passing written examinations and/or oral interviews as prescribed by the board." (17 CAR § 75-302)
     In practice, counselor applicants must:
   • Pass the National Counselor Examination (NCE) or the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination (NCMHCE), and
   • Complete an oral interview if the Board requires one. (ualr.edu; 17 CAR §§ 75-602, 75-603)
     All applicants must also pass the Arkansas Jurisprudence Examination, which the Board contracts with NBCC to administer. (codeofarrules.arkansas.gov)
     If you meet every other requirement but have not passed the national exam yet, you can apply for a one-time provisional LAC (Act 231 of 2025): valid for 1 year, with up to 3 attempts to pass the national exam, and not renewable. (17 CAR § 75-906)

3. Supervision arrangement

   • Must "arrange supervision with a board-approved LAC supervisor and have the agreement for the supervision approved by the board prior to license issue." (17 CAR § 75-302)

4. Background check and legal status

   • Must pass a criminal background check mandated by Ark. Code Ann. § 17-27-313 and be a U.S. citizen or have current documentation of legal work status. (17 CAR § 75-302)

Once these are met and the Board approves the application and exams, the applicant is issued an LAC license. UA Little Rock summarizes this as: pass the NCE, pass the Board's oral exam, then you "become a licensed associate counselor (LAC)." (ualr.edu) Under the current rules, the oral interview is required only when the Board asks for one. (17 CAR § 75-603)

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4. Step Two: Supervised Experience Required for LPC

The heart of the LPC requirement in Arkansas is the supervised client contact hour system.

4.1 Board's core LPC requirement

Under 17 CAR § 75-303:

To be eligible as an LPC, an applicant must "provide evidence of three thousand (3,000) client contact hours and one hundred seventy-five (175) supervision hours of experience in professional counseling acceptable to the Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling." (17 CAR § 75-303)

You accrue these hours while licensed as an LAC (or LAMFT for the MFT route), under a Board-approved supervisor. There is no minimum time period: Act 78 of 2023 removed the requirement that the experience be "full-time."

4.2 How the 3,000 Client Contact Hours (CCH) are structured

The supervision section breaks the 3,000 hours down as follows: (17 CAR § 75-401)

1. Total required Client Contact Hours (CCH)

   • "Counselors or marriage and family therapists licensed at the associate level must complete three thousand (3,000) client contact hours (CCH) with one hundred seventy-five (175) supervision hours."

2. Direct vs. indirect client contact

   • You must have at least 2,000 hours of direct client contact:
     • "The LAC and LAMFT are required to have a minimum of three thousand (3,000) hours of client contact, two thousand (2,000) hours defined as direct client contact."
   • You may count no more than 1,000 hours of indirect client contact:
     • "No more than one thousand (1,000) hours of indirect client contact may be counted in Level 2."

   The Board defines these terms:

   • Direct client contact hour
     • "A direct client contact hour is defined as contact with a client or clients in a therapeutic interaction with individuals or groups." (17 CAR § 75-401(d)(3))
   • Indirect Client Contact
     • "'Indirect client contact' means consultation, case management, paperwork, staffing, billing, and test administration when the clinician is not working directly with the individuals or groups, but the services are related to the direct care of the individual or groups." (17 CAR § 75-401(e)(2)(B))

3. Level 1 vs. Level 2 hours

   The 3,000 CCH are split into two levels with different supervision ratios: (17 CAR § 75-401)

   • Level 1 (first 500 direct hours)
     • First 500 hours must be direct client contact ("first five hundred (500) direct CCH").
     • During Level 1, no indirect hours can be counted: "During the first five hundred (500) direct client hours (Level 1), no indirect hours can be counted."
   • Level 2 (remaining 2,500 hours)
     • The remaining 2,500 hours may include both direct and indirect CCH, subject to the minimum 2,000 direct and maximum 1,000 indirect totals above.

4. Supervision hour requirement and ratios

   Supervision is tracked separately as clock hours of supervision, not CCH. The Board states:

   • "The total hours of supervised practice are one hundred seventy-five (175) clock hours of supervision conducted face to face or through telemedicine." (17 CAR § 75-401(f))

   These 175 hours arise from mandatory supervision ratios:

   • For Level 1 (first 500 direct CCH):
     • "One (1) hour of supervision for every ten (10) hours of client contact" → 500 ÷ 10 = 50 hours of supervision. (17 CAR § 75-401(d)(2))
   • For Level 2 (remaining 2,500 CCH):
     • "One (1) hour of supervision for every twenty (20) CCH" → 2,500 ÷ 20 = 125 hours of supervision.

   Total = 50 + 125 = 175 supervision hours.

   Additional supervision rules:

   • Supervision for an LAC must be provided by an Arkansas LPC with Board-approved supervisor status; similarly an LMFT supervises LAMFT. Approved supervisors must be fully licensed in Arkansas for 3 years and may hold no more than 12 supervision agreements at a time. (17 CAR §§ 75-401, 75-403)
   • Dyadic (1 supervisor + 2 supervisees) counts as individual supervision;
   • Group supervision (3 to 6 supervisees) "may not exceed half of the one hundred seventy-five (175) hours of supervision," and may be counted in both levels.
   • Technology-assisted supervision may be counted in both levels. The earlier 50% cap on technology-assisted supervision in Level 1 has been removed. (17 CAR § 75-401(i))

5. What counts as the 3,000 CCH?

   • CCH must align with your Board-approved Statement of Intent (population, settings, and modalities you claimed you would practice). (17 CAR §§ 75-402, 75-501)
   • You must have a current Board-approved supervision agreement on file before seeing any clients; no client may be seen before that date, and failure to maintain an approved agreement can lead to suspension or revocation. Any change of supervisor needs Board approval. (17 CAR § 75-402)
   • Supervision evaluations and Client Contact Hours reports are submitted every six months (even with zero hours), with a 30-day grace period; reports more than 30 days late are reviewed case by case and the hours may not be accepted. (17 CAR § 75-404)

4.3 Summary of the Arkansas hour structure for LPC

Putting the Board's numbers together:

• Client work (CCH, under supervision)

  • Total: 3,000 Client Contact Hours (CCH)
  • Minimum 2,000 direct client contact hours
  • Maximum 1,000 indirect client contact hours, counted only in Level 2
  • First 500 hours must be direct; no indirect credit during this phase

• Clinical supervision

  • Total: 175 clock hours of supervision
  • Supervision ratios:
    • 1 hour supervision / 10 CCH for first 500 direct hours
    • 1 hour supervision / 20 CCH for remaining 2,500 hours

All of these CCH are, by definition, "supervised experience" leading to full LPC licensure; you do not have one bucket of "direct experience" plus a separate, unrelated bucket of "supervised experience." The entire 3,000 CCH are under supervision, with direct vs. indirect categories and minimum/maximums.

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5. Limited Ways to Reduce Required CCH

The rules allow limited reductions in the number of CCH you must accrue, but they do not change the requirement that your education meet the 60-hour standard, and coursework you needed to qualify for the license does not count toward the supervised practice requirement:

• "Post-master's coursework necessary for application for an Arkansas license may not be applied to the required supervised work experience." (17 CAR § 75-401(l))

However, additional acceptable post-master's coursework and exams can reduce CCH:

1. Extra graduate coursework beyond the master's degree

   • "One hundred (100) CCH and five (5) supervision hours may be gained for each three (3) graduate semester hours or four (4) quarter credits earned beyond the master's degree, provided that the hours are clearly related to the field of counseling or marriage and family therapy and acceptable to the Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling." (17 CAR § 75-401(m)(1))

2. Passing the NCMHCE after Level 1

   • The LAC/LAMFT may petition, with the contracted supervisor's recommendation, to take the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination (NCMHCE) after completing Level 1; a passing score "will reduce the number of CCH required by five hundred (500) and supervision hours by twenty-five (25)." (17 CAR § 75-401(m)(2))

In total, "no more than two thousand (2,000) CCHs and one hundred (100) supervision hours may be applied to level II supervision experience," and no substitutions may be made for Level 1. You must document everything as required. (17 CAR § 75-401(m); LAC/LAMFT Supervision Agreement, revised 7/2026)

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6. Step Three: Upgrading from LAC to LPC

Once you have:

• Completed the 3,000 CCH (with at least 2,000 direct and no more than 1,000 indirect),
• Met the 175 hours of Board-compliant supervision with required ratios,
• Submitted timely supervision reports and evaluations every six months, and
• Met all exam and ethics requirements,

you and your supervisor may petition the Board to change your license from LAC to LPC (the Board's combined License Change form). The Board verifies your CCH, supervision hours, and compliance with all rules before issuing the full LPC license, and may schedule an oral examination. (17 CAR § 75-303; License Change form, updated 7/2026)

At that point, you are a Licensed Professional Counselor and may practice independently within the scope defined in your current Board-approved Statement of Intent, under the ACA Code of Ethics as adopted by the Arkansas Board. (codeofarrules.arkansas.gov)

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In Plain Numbers (Arkansas LPC via LAC)

• Graduate education:

  • Master's or higher in counseling/therapy, minimum 60 graduate semester hours meeting Board-approved core curriculum.

• Entry exams:

  • National Counselor Examination (NCE) or NCMHCE, and the Arkansas jurisprudence exam, plus any oral interview the Board requires for initial licensure.

• Supervised practice for LPC:

  • 3,000 Client Contact Hours (CCH) under supervision
    • At least 2,000 direct
    • Up to 1,000 indirect (Level 2 only)
  • 175 clock hours of supervision
    • 1:10 ratio for first 500 direct hours
    • 1:20 ratio for the remaining 2,500 hours

All hours must be accumulated while licensed as an LAC under a Board-approved supervision agreement, in accordance with the rules of the Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling and Marriage & Family Therapy (17 CAR Part 75, revised July 2026).