ABA licensure by state: what your state asks for beyond your BACB certification

This guide covers fourteen states so far — California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. We add a state once we have read its requirement in the state’s own code or at its licensing board — and each row names the source we read. If your state is not here yet, that does not mean it has no requirements — it means we have not checked it, and you should ask your licensing board.

Your BCBA certification is national. Your license isn't. Most states that license behavior analysts accept BACB certification as the core of the requirement, and then add something of their own that the BACB never asked you for. This page tracks that second part, because it's the part people find out about late.

Each state below carries the date we checked it at the state agency's own page. We quote the agency rather than paraphrase it, and we name the agency so you can check it yourself. Rules change without notice and none of this is legal advice — confirm with your board before you rely on it.

The short version

Texas

Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA) and Licensed Assistant Behavior Analyst (LaBA), via the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. At renewal, TDLR verifies your current certification and accepts it as your continuing education — and then requires one thing the BACB doesn't.

"A human trafficking prevention training course, approved by the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), must be completed to renew your license."
— TDLR, behavior analyst renewal page

TDLR's own list of covered license types names "Behavior Analyst, Behavior Analyst Assistant" alongside audiologists, dietitians, midwives and speech-language pathologists. It isn't a one-time course: it comes back at every renewal, and the course has to be on the HHSC-approved list. A good human-trafficking course that isn't on that list won't count — the approval, not the topic, is what your renewal checks. HHSC publishes the list and includes at least one free option.

Authority: Tex. Occ. Code ch. 116; HB 2059 (86th Legislature, 2019); rules at 16 TAC ch. 121.

Checked: 3 September 2026 — at TDLR, Behavior Analysts

Illinois

Licensed Behavior Analyst and Licensed Assistant Behavior Analyst, via IDFPR, under the Behavior Analyst Licensing Act. Two things here surprise people.

First, the sexual harassment prevention hour — and it doesn't wait for your CE cycle to start:

"Each individual (non-business) license holder must complete a one-hour sexual harassment prevention course during each renewal cycle, beginning with the first renewal after obtaining their initial license." … "This continuing education requirement applies to any individual (non-business) license holder under any licensing Act administered by the Department, even if the profession does not otherwise require continuing education credits for renewal, reinstatement, or restoration."
— IDFPR, continuing education

That last clause is the one to read twice. Illinois behavior analysts don't owe general CE until the 2027 renewal — but the harassment hour is owed at the first renewal regardless. Accepted sources are your employer, the Illinois Department of Human Rights training, or a continuing education provider authorized under an Act the Department administers.

Second, Illinois cares how the course is delivered: online CE has to include an examination, which rules out watch-only video libraries. Licenses expire 31 October of odd years; the first period can be shorter than two years, and after that it's a two-year cycle. Behavior analysts are also mandated reporters under ANCRA, with training required every three years.

Checked: 3 September 2026 — at IDFPR, Behavior Analysts

New York

Licensed Behavior Analyst and Certified Behavior Analyst Assistant, via the New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions. New York requires coursework in identifying and reporting child abuse and maltreatment, and it's specific about who may teach it: the training has to come from a provider approved for that purpose by NYSED. The curriculum itself is written by the NYS Office of Children and Family Services, and approved providers present it. OCFS is an approved provider and offers the training free.

Unlike Texas and Illinois, this is generally a one-time requirement at initial licensure rather than something that comes back each cycle. One thing to watch: Chapter 25 of the Laws of 2024 amended the curriculum, so if you trained years ago, what you took may no longer match what's now taught.

Authority: Ch. 544 of the Laws of 1988, as amended; Soc. Serv. Law § 413 as amended by Ch. 56 of 2021 and Ch. 25 of 2024.

Checked: 3 September 2026 — at NYSED Office of the Professions, mandated training

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania reaches behavior analysts through its Behavior Specialist license, which sits with the health-related boards. That brings Act 31 with it: child abuse recognition and reporting training from a provider approved by the Department of Human Services. Unlike New York's, Pennsylvania's version recurs — three hours before initial licensure and two hours at every biennial renewal.

Watch for this one: two different Pennsylvania approvals are both called "Act 31." DHS approves the training curriculum, while the Department of State's Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs handles continuing education credit for licensed professionals. A course can carry one and not the other.

Authority: Act 31 of 2014; 49 Pa. Code § 33.256 / § 5.97; Child Protective Services Law § 6311.

Checked: 3 September 2026 — at PA Department of State, Behavior Specialist licensure snapshot

Michigan

Michigan licenses behavior analysts under the Public Health Code, through LARA's Bureau of Professional Licensing. On top of your BACB certification, Michigan wants implicit bias training — and it comes back every cycle. Mich. Admin. Code R. 338.7004 requires "a minimum of 2 hours of implicit bias training within the 5 years immediately preceding issuance of the license or registration" for initial licensure, and for renewal "a minimum of 1 hour of implicit bias training for each year of the applicant's license or registration cycle."

The rule also says that "a licensee or registrant shall not carry forward implicit bias training hours earned during 1 renewal cycle to the next renewal cycle" — so you can't bank it. It applies to licensure under Article 15 of the Public Health Code, which is how Michigan reaches behavior analysts.

Checked: 3 September 2026 — at Michigan LARA, Behavior Analysts

Florida

Florida doesn't license behavior analysts for in-state practice. It ran its own certification program from 1993 and handed it to the BACB in 2003, and it hasn't replaced it. In practice your BACB certification is the credential, and Medicaid reimbursement rules do the work a license would do elsewhere.

One wrinkle that's easy to misread: search Florida's Department of Health licensee registry and you will find behavior analyst entries — but every one of them is an out-of-state telehealth registration. That's a separate track for practitioners outside Florida delivering telehealth into it, with its own renewal. It isn't an in-state license, and finding it in the registry doesn't mean Florida licenses resident behavior analysts.

Checked: 3 September 2026

California

No in-state license. That is the whole answer, and it is the one people most often get wrong.

The Board of Behavioral Sciences is the board that would hold such a licence. Its own licensee page lists four: LCSW, LMFT, LPCC and LEP. There is no behavior-analysis licence of any kind on it. California gates the work a different way: a regional centre classifies a vendor as a Behavior Analyst on the basis of BACB certification, and as an Associate Behavior Analyst on BCaBA. The credential the state's own system runs on is the national one.

So a Californian BCBA has no state licence to renew and no state CE scheme stacked on top of the BACB's. That is not the same as nothing applying to you. Employers, regional-centre contracts, school districts and payers set requirements of their own, and we have not checked those.

If you search this yourself you will find SB-479, from the 2015–16 session, which would have created a behavior analyst licence. Read the board's licensee list rather than the bill: the list is what tells you what exists today.

Authority: California Board of Behavioral Sciences licensee list; DHCS regional-centre vendor classification.

Checked: 11 September 2026

Indiana

Indiana adds two topics of its own, and — unusually — lets them count twice.

“one (1) continuing education (CE) unit in trauma informed care”
“one (1) CE unit in either of the following: (A) Abuse and neglect. (B) Mandatory reporting.”
— 844 IAC 21-3-1

Then the sentence that makes Indiana easier than it looks:

“CE units earned to satisfy subsection (a) may also be used to maintain certification with the BACB.”
— 844 IAC 21-3-1

That is the contrast worth reading this page for. Indiana lets the same units serve both your state renewal and your BACB cycle. Texas does not — its human-trafficking course must be HHSC-approved and sits outside your BACB CEUs entirely. Same idea, a state adding its own topic, with opposite consequences for how you plan your cycle.

844 IAC 21-3-1 does not state the renewal cycle, so we went to the board's own licensing page for it:

“All LBAs and LABAs expire December 31st of the odd years.”
— Indiana PLA, Behavior Analyst licensing information

Once renewed, it runs two years, to the next 31 December of an odd year.

Authority: 844 IAC 21-3-1. Indiana moved behavior analysts to 844 IAC 21; the older 839 IAC covers a different profession set. Online applications went live 13 May 2025.

Checked: 13 September 2026 — at Indiana PLA, Behavior Analyst licensing information

Kansas

Kansas is the one state on this page that writes its own continuing-education scheme instead of pointing at the BACB's.

“Each licensed behavior analyst shall complete 30 hours of documented and approved continuing education oriented to the enhancement of the licensee's practice, values, ethics, skills, or knowledge during each two-year renewal period.”
— K.A.R. 102-8-9

“During each two-year renewal period and as a part of the required continuing education hours, each licensee shall complete four hours of professional ethics.”
— K.A.R. 102-8-9

Kansas asks for 30 hours; the BACB asks for 32. In practice, meeting your BACB requirement covers the Kansas hour count — but Kansas is stating its own rule rather than deferring to the BACB's, so the obligation survives independently of your certification status. If your certification lapses, the Kansas hours do not go away with it.

One thing we have not established: whether Kansas requires an approved sponsor. The rule lists acceptable activity types — academic courses, seminars, workshops, self-directed projects, supervision, publications — and names no approved-provider list. The rule is silent on sponsors, and silence is not permission. Ask the Board before you assume any provider counts.

Authority: K.A.R. 102-8-9, Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board.

Checked: 3 September 2026 — at Kansas BSRB, Behavior Analyst

Virginia

Yes — Behavior Analyst and Assistant Behavior Analyst, via the Virginia Board of Medicine.

Virginia licenses, and the licence is built on your BACB certification rather than replacing it:

“An applicant for licensure to practice as a behavior analyst or an assistant behavior analyst shall hold current certification as a BCBA® or a BCaBA®”
— 18VAC85-150-60

Renewal is biennial, in odd-numbered years, in your birth month. The CE requirement is where Virginia is worth reading closely:

“a behavior analyst shall attest to having completed 32 hours of continuing education and an assistant behavior analyst shall attest to having completed 20 hours of continuing education as approved and documented by a sponsor recognized by the BACB”
— 18VAC85-150-100(A)

Two more sentences from the same section change how you plan, and the quote above does not show them:

“Four of the required hours shall be related to ethics in the practice of behavior analysis.”
— 18VAC85-150-100(A)

“A practitioner shall be exempt from the continuing education requirements for the first biennial renewal following the date of initial licensure in Virginia.”
— 18VAC85-150-100(B)

So 32 hours of anything does not renew you. Four of them have to be ethics, and the assistant's 20 carry the same four. And if this is your first renewal since you were first licensed in Virginia, you owe no continuing education for it.

Virginia does not run a CE scheme of its own. It asks for hours from a sponsor the BACB recognizes. Special Learning is a BACB ACE Provider, OP-14-2437.

Whether a particular set of hours satisfies a particular licensee's renewal is between that licensee and the board. We can tell you what we hold; we cannot tell you where you stand.

Authority: Code of Virginia § 54.1-2900 et seq.; regulations at 18VAC85-150.

Checked: 13 September 2026 — at Virginia Board of Medicine, Behavior Analysis

Washington

Yes. Three credentials, not two: Licensed Behavior Analyst, Licensed Assistant Behavior Analyst, and Certified Behavior Technician, all under WAC 246-805.

Washington is the first state on this page that credentials the technician tier. If you hold an RBT and work in Washington, this row is the one to read.

Renewal is every two years, on your birthday.

CE has two doors, and the first one is your BACB certification:

“(1) Maintaining certification from a professional credentialing entity that requires CE as part of certification; or (2) Completing a minimum of 32 hours of CE related to the practice of applied behavior analysis.”
— WAC 246-805-401

The assistant’s figure is 20 hours, at 246-805-402. Either door, at least four of the hours have to be professional ethics and boundaries, and business-practice hours are capped at eight for the analyst and six for the assistant.

And the one people miss: two hours of health-equity CE every four years, under WAC 246-12-800 through -830. That is a four-year clock running inside a two-year renewal, so the cycle it falls in is not the cycle you are looking at.

Authority: WAC 246-805, sections -400, -401, -402 and -990; health equity at WAC 246-12-800 through -830.

Checked: 13 September 2026 — at Washington State Legislature, WAC 246-805

Ohio

Yes, but it is a certification and not a license: the Certified Ohio Behavior Analyst, issued by the State Board of Psychology under ORC chapter 4783.

Ohio is the first state on this page where the credential sits with the psychology board rather than with its own board or a licensing department.

Your BACB certification is a requirement of the Ohio credential itself:

“shall demonstrate current certification as a board certified behavior analyst by the ‘Behavior Analyst Certification Board’”
— OAC 4783-4-01

The BACB route is the one the rule writes first. Two others exist: reciprocity, or equivalent requirements plus a psychometrically valid exam set by a nationally accredited credentialing body.

Registration is biennial and the deadline is a fixed date rather than your own: certification expires automatically if you do not register and pay by 31 August of each even-numbered year following the year you were certified. Ohio does set its own CE rule for this certificate: OAC 4783-2-01 requires no fewer than 23 hours of approved continuing education every two years, including no fewer than four hours in ethics and professional conduct.

While you are on active duty in the armed forces, 4783-1-03(B) waives both the registration fee and the CE requirements, provided you file the form. Ohio-licensed psychologists, and counselors, social workers and marriage and family therapists licensed under chapter 4757, are exempt where the behavior-analytic work sits within their own education, training and experience.

And the part that decides your cycle: if your BACB certification is active when you file, Ohio does not ask you for those hours at all.

“Certificate holders who demonstrate active certification as a board certified behavior analyst by the behavior analyst certification board or its successor organization at the time of submitting a biennial registration of a certificate… shall be deemed to have completed sufficient biennial CE … and to have certified to the board that the CE requirements have been met.”
— OAC 4783-2-01(C)(2)

So the 23 hours are the road for a certificate holder whose BACB certification is not active when they register. Keep the BACB current and Ohio rides on it.

Authority: ORC chapter 4783; OAC 4783-4-01, 4783-1-03, 4783-5-01, and 4783-2-01 for the CE rule.

Checked: 13 September 2026 — at Ohio Administrative Code, rule 4783-4-01

Nevada

Yes. Behavior analysts are regulated under NAC 641D.

Nevada takes the friendlier of the two approaches this page keeps running into. It adopts the BACB’s own continuing-education requirements by reference, as they stood on 1 December 2019 plus any later version the Board approves, and then adds a single topic of its own:

“At least 2 hours of instruction on evidence-based suicide prevention and awareness, which may be completed as part of the continuing education described in paragraph (a)”
— NAC 641D

Read that second clause before you plan your cycle. Nevada’s extra topic is allowed to sit inside your BACB hours rather than beside them, which is the Indiana pattern and not the Texas one. If you have just read our Texas row, do not carry the assumption across: a state adding a topic does not always mean a state adding hours.

Nevada credentials three tiers, and the statute names them: behavior analyst, assistant behavior analyst, and registered behavior technician. Renewal runs on the calendar rather than on your birthday — NRS 641D.360 requires each of them to apply, pay the biennial fee and submit evidence of continuing education on or before 1 January of each odd-numbered year.

Authority: NAC 641D; NRS 641D.360 for renewal.

Checked: 13 September 2026 — at Nevada Legislature, NAC 641D

Georgia

Yes. Licensed Behavior Analyst and Licensed Assistant Behavior Analyst — and Georgia has its own Behavior Analyst Licensing Board.

Start with the board, because this is the easiest thing on the page to get wrong. Georgia’s behavior analysts are licensed by the Georgia Behavior Analyst Licensing Board, which is its own body. It is not the Composite Board of Professional Counselors, Social Workers and Marriage and Family Therapists — a different board, one search result away, and the wrong door to knock on.

Then the part that makes Georgia different from every other state here. Most states ask for your BACB certification when you apply. Georgia asks you to keep it:

“Maintains active status as a board certified behavior analyst through Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) or its successor”
— Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 75-5-.01(1)(a)6

Your Georgia licence is tethered to your BACB status continuously, not just at entry. The same rule accepts another certifier accredited by the NCCA or ANSI where the board identifies one. Passing the BACB examination is a licensure condition in its own right, as is a master’s degree built on applied behavior analysis coursework in an approved sequence.

Two practical things a candidate usually finds out late. Georgia requires a fingerprint record check through the Georgia Crime Information Center and the FBI, at your own cost — no other state on this page asks for that. And Georgia has something the other thirteen do not:

“A board certified behavior analyst or a board certified assistant behavior analyst residing and practicing in another state who temporarily provides applied behavior analysis services in this state to a resident of this state may apply for a Temporary License to practice behavior analysis in this state.”
— Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 75-5-.03

If you are a BCBA or BCaBA living elsewhere and a Georgia family needs you for a stretch, there is a named route for that, subject to a satisfactory background check. Full reciprocity is separate, under 75-5-.02, where the other state’s requirements are comparable and it reciprocates.

On continuing education, here is exactly what we know and where we stopped. The board’s rules are organised as five chapters — organisation, fees, procedure, the ethics code, and licensure — and none of them is a continuing-education chapter. That is measured from the department’s own chapter list. It is not the same as saying Georgia has no CE requirement: a duty could sit in the statute, O.C.G.A. Title 43 chapter 7A, which we have not read. What we can tell you is that the board’s rules carry no CE chapter and that your licence requires active BACB status throughout — so your BACB cycle is doing work here whether or not Georgia adds a cycle of its own. Ask the board before you assume either way.

Authority: Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. Department 75, chapter 75-5 (licensure); 75-5-.01(1)(a) for the requirements, 75-5-.02 for reciprocity, 75-5-.03 for the temporary licence.

Checked: 13 September 2026 — at Cornell LII’s mirror of the Georgia Compiled Rules, Department 75 — the board’s own portal refused our requests

What we haven't checked yet

Most states license behavior analysts in some form. The fourteen above are the ones we've read at source. We'd rather show you fourteen we've checked than fifty we haven't, so we're adding states as we source them. If yours is missing and you need it next, tell us and it moves up the list.

A gap here means "we looked and didn't find it," never "we didn't look." Where a state has a requirement we couldn't confirm at source, we leave it out rather than guess — so treat a missing state as unchecked, not as clear.

Compiled by Special Learning, 12 September 2026. General information, not legal advice — confirm current requirements with your licensing board before you rely on them.