# Pre-Degree and Post-Degree Hours in California

Your degree date splits your hours into two counts. AMFTs can carry up to 1,300 hours across that line. APCCs and ASWs carry none.

## What Your Degree Date Decides

The California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) sorts every hour you log by which side of your degree date it falls on. Which side an hour lands on is fixed. What the Board does with the pre-degree side is the biggest single difference between the three license tracks.

| | AMFT (LMFT track) | APCC (LPCC track) | ASW (LCSW track) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-degree hours that count toward the 3,000 | **Up to 1,300** | **None** | **None** |
| Limit inside that on counseling and supervision | 750 hours, combined | Nothing to limit | Nothing to limit |
| Do you register with the Board before your degree? | No | No | No |
| Is there a pre-degree status at all? | Yes, MFT Trainee. You hold it by enrolling, not by applying | Yes, PCC Trainee. Same, and its hours still don't count | No. The Board has no student status on this track |
| Is pre-degree fieldwork still required? | Yes, by your degree program | Yes, by your degree program | Yes, by your MSW program |
| Where your practicum hours end up | Inside the 3,000, up to the caps | On your degree, never on the 3,000 | On your degree, never on the 3,000 |

### Trainee Is a Status, Not a Registration

Nobody registers with the Board before their degree, on any of the three tracks. All three handbooks carry the same sentence: you will not register with the Board as a student.

MFT Trainee and PCC Trainee are statuses you hold by enrolling in a qualifying degree program and completing 12 semester or 18 quarter units. Nothing is applied for and no number is issued. The LCSW track has no equivalent status at all. Your first registration on any track is your associate one, after your degree.

### The Date Is the One on Your Transcript

It isn't your ceremony date, and it isn't the day you handed in your last paper. The Board reads your degree date off the date posted on your transcript. That's the date the split runs from.

There's a second date behind it, and the two are not the same thing. Your degree date closes the pre-degree side. Your associate registration date is when the Board would normally start counting the post-degree side. [The BBS 90-Day Rule](/guides/bbs-90-day-rule) governs the weeks in between. Hours in that gap are post-degree hours, not practicum hours.

## The LMFT Track: 1,300 Hours, With a Smaller Cap Inside It

The LMFT track is the only one of the three where pre-degree hours reach the 3,000. It's also the only one with a cap inside that cap, and that inner cap is the part that surprises people.

| The limit | Hours | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Everything you can claim before your degree | **1,300** | The maximum supervised work experience you can earn toward licensure as an MFT Trainee. |
| Counseling and direct supervisor contact, combined | **750** | Both of them, together, out of one budget. Not 750 of each. |
| What the rest has to be | **550** | Nonclinical experience only. There's no way to convert this half into counseling time. |

### 750 Is Not 750 Hours of Therapy

Your supervision comes out of the same 750 as your counseling. That's the sentence to reread. Sit two hours of supervision a week for a year at one site and roughly a hundred hours of the 750 are gone before you count a single session.

So the practical ceiling on pre-degree client work is well under 750. The 550 sitting above it can only ever be nonclinical: progress notes, reports, testing, client-centered advocacy, workshops. Those are useful hours and they count. They aren't therapy.

### When the 750 Runs Out, Someone Has to Choose

Go past the 750 and some of your counseling and some of your supervision stops counting. The Board doesn't say which. SparkHours credits counseling first and lets supervision take the remainder. That's the reading that leaves you the most direct client contact on your record. It's our interpretation, not a Board rule, and we'd rather you knew which is which.

### What This Leaves for After Your Degree

At least 1,700 of the 3,000 have to be earned after your degree. That's a minimum in its own right, not only what's left when you subtract the 1,300. Max out your traineeship and you still owe those 1,700. Earn nothing before your degree and you owe all 3,000.

Either way the post-degree side carries no ceiling of its own, so pre-degree hours shorten the road rather than shaping it. See the full [AMFT hour requirements](/amft) for what the 3,000 has to contain.

## The LPCC and LCSW Tracks: None of It Counts

No hours you earn before your degree count toward your 3,000. Not practicum, not field placement, not one hour of it. All 3,000 have to be post-degree.

The LPCC handbook puts it in one line: no hours earned as a Trainee may count toward the 3,000 hours of experience required for licensure. The LCSW track doesn't even have the category. There's no student status on it at all, so there's nothing to count.

There's no crossover provision and no exception. If you're deciding whether to log those hours, log them. But log them knowing where they go.

### Your Fieldwork Is Still Required

These hours don't reach the 3,000. That doesn't make them optional. Both tracks require pre-degree fieldwork, and you can't get the degree without it.

- **LPCC:** your degree program has to include at least six semester or nine quarter units of supervised practicum. Your practicum itself has to include at least 280 hours of face-to-face experience counseling individuals, families or groups.
- **LCSW:** field placement comes from your MSW program and its accreditation, not from a BBS hour rule. The LCSW handbook sets no fieldwork hour requirement of its own.

[How practicum and pre-degree hours work](/practicum) covers the pre-degree side in full, including what your school will want to see.

### Careful With Two Words That Look Alike

Pre-**degree** and pre-**registration** are different things. Your pre-degree hours never count on these two tracks, but hours earned after your degree and before your number arrives *can*. That's [the 90-Day Rule](/guides/bbs-90-day-rule), and it's worth reading before you write off your first months of paid work.

## What Changes on Your Graduation Date

Less than you'd think. The rules that govern your week are mostly the same on both sides. What actually flips is which hours count, where you're allowed to work, and how much supervision a heavy week owes you.

| | Before your degree | After your degree |
|---|---|---|
| What the Board calls you | MFT Trainee or PCC Trainee. The LCSW track has no student status. | AMFT, APCC or ASW, once your number is issued |
| Hours that count toward the 3,000 | AMFT: up to 1,300. APCC and ASW: none. | All of them, within the caps that apply to your whole path |
| The weekly supervision unit | At least one unit at each work setting, in any week experience is credited there | **Unchanged.** Same trigger, same amount, same per-setting rule. |
| Supervision a heavy week owes | MFT and PCC Trainees: a 5:1 ratio, one unit for every five hours of direct clinical counseling, averaged over your time at that setting. The LCSW track has no ratio, because the Board sets no rules for MSW students | One more unit in any week you perform more than 10 hours of direct clinical counseling at a setting. No averaging. |
| Weekly credit maximums | 40 hours of experience in any seven consecutive days, between all your settings, and six hours of supervision in any week | **Unchanged.** The same two figures. On the APCC and ASW tracks they only ever bite after your degree, because nothing before it is credited. |
| Where you can work | Trainees work as a W-2 employee or a volunteer, and are barred from private practice and professional corporations | Still W-2 or volunteer, and still no practising independently. Private practice opens once your number is issued, and closes when your registration's six-year limit runs out |
| Enrollment | MFT and PCC Trainees: your counseling has to be part of your supervised course of study while you're enrolled in practicum | Nothing tethers your hours to a school any more |

### The Switch Happens on a Date, Not on a Number

This is where the two dates catch people. Your degree date ends the trainee rules. Your associate number, which arrives later, doesn't start a third set.

So a week worked the day after your degree posts is already an associate week. The 5:1 ratio is over. Pass 10 hours of direct clinical counseling at a setting that week and you owe the second unit, whether or not your number has arrived.

One thing does wait for the number. You can't work in a private practice or a professional corporation until the Board issues it.

## Both Sides Age Out, and One Side Gets an Exception

All of your work experience has to be accrued no more than six years before the Board receives your Application for Licensure. The handbooks say it the same way on all three tracks, and the Board's own example is plain: an application received on April 3, 2022 counts experience gained between April 3, 2016 and April 3, 2022.

The clock runs on the licensure application at the end, not on your associate registration at the start. And it's one window over both phases, not one per phase.

### The LMFT Carve-Out

One exception exists, and only where pre-degree hours count at all. Up to 500 hours of counseling and supervision you earned as a Trainee while enrolled in practicum can be older than six years.

Read the two figures together. It's 500 out of your 750 counseling-and-supervision hours, not 500 out of the whole 1,300. Your nonclinical pre-degree hours get no relief, and anything past the 500 ages out on the same six-year clock as everything else.

The LPCC and LCSW tracks have no equivalent. That costs you nothing on those tracks, because pre-degree hours never counted in the first place.

Practically, this matters most if your degree is a few years behind you. A long stretch between your practicum and your licensure application can quietly retire hours you already banked.

## Where This Comes From

Nearly every figure here comes from the Board's own handbook for your license. The pre-degree caps sit in the LMFT handbook at page 9. The LPCC handbook rules trainee hours out at page 7. The LCSW handbook explains at page 3 why there's nothing to rule out. The six-year rule sits at LMFT page 17, LPCC page 13 and LCSW page 13.

Two things sit outside those handbooks. The 500-hour practicum exception to the six-year rule is in the Board's MFT FAQ. And the requirement that an MSW program include field placement comes from that program's accreditation, not from a BBS hour rule. One tip if you go looking: those are the page numbers printed in the footer, and the PDF page is two higher.

- [LMFT handbook](https://www.bbs.ca.gov/pdf/publications/lmft_handbook.pdf), page 9.
- [LPCC handbook](https://www.bbs.ca.gov/pdf/publications/lpcc_handbook.pdf), page 7.
- [LCSW handbook](https://www.bbs.ca.gov/pdf/publications/lcsw_handbook.pdf), pages 3 and 9.

## Common Questions

### Do my practicum hours count toward the 3,000 hours in California?

It depends on your license track. On the LMFT track, up to 1,300 hours earned as an MFT Trainee count toward the 3,000. On the LPCC and LCSW tracks, none of them do. Every one of those 3,000 hours has to be earned after your degree is awarded.

### How many pre-degree hours can an AMFT count?

Up to 1,300. Inside that 1,300, at most 750 hours can be counseling and direct supervisor contact combined. The remaining 550 may only consist of nonclinical experience. Separately, at least 1,700 of your 3,000 have to be earned after your degree.

### Does the 750-hour pre-degree limit mean 750 hours of therapy?

No, and this is the part people get wrong. The 750 covers counseling and direct supervisor contact together. Every hour of supervision you log before your degree comes out of the same 750 as your counseling hours.

### Why don't my APCC or ASW practicum hours count?

California law requires all 3,000 hours on those two tracks to be post-degree. The LPCC handbook says no hours earned as a Trainee may count toward the 3,000, and the LCSW track has no pre-degree status at all. Your practicum or field placement is still required for your degree. It never reaches the 3,000.

### Do I register with the BBS as a trainee or a student?

No, and this catches people on all three tracks. Each handbook says the same thing: you will not register with the Board as a student. MFT Trainee and PCC Trainee are statuses you hold by enrolling in a qualifying program and finishing 12 semester or 18 quarter units. There's nothing to apply for and no number is issued. The LCSW track has no pre-degree status at all. Your first registration on any track is your associate one, after your degree.

### What date does the BBS use to split pre-degree from post-degree hours?

The date your degree was awarded, which the Board reads off the date posted on your transcript. Not your ceremony date, and not the day you finished your last class.

### Do the supervision rules change when I graduate?

The weekly unit doesn't. You need at least one unit of supervision at each work setting in any week experience is credited there, before and after your degree. What changes is what sits on top of it. MFT and PCC Trainees work to a 5:1 ratio, and everything above that one required weekly unit can be averaged over their time at a setting. Associates owe one more unit in any week they perform more than 10 hours of direct clinical counseling at a setting, and they can't average at all.

### Do the weekly maximums change when I graduate?

No. Both figures hold on either side of the line. The Board credits at most 40 hours of experience in any seven consecutive days, counted between all your settings. It credits at most six hours of supervision in any single week.

### What happens to the hours between my degree date and my associate number?

Those are post-degree hours, not practicum hours, and whether they count comes down to the 90-Day Rule. It sets four conditions and you have to meet all of them. If you do, your hours start on your degree date or the day after your employer's Live Scan, whichever falls later, rather than on your registration date.

### Do pre-degree hours expire?

All work experience has to be accrued no more than six years before the Board receives your Application for Licensure. The LMFT track carries one exception: up to 500 hours of counseling and supervision earned as a Trainee while enrolled in practicum can be older than six years. Those 500 come out of your 750 counseling-and-supervision hours, not out of the whole 1,300. The LPCC and LCSW tracks have no equivalent, though on those tracks pre-degree hours never counted in the first place.

## How SparkHours Helps

Give SparkHours your degree date once. It applies the trainee rules before it and the associate rules after it, week by week, without you switching anything. SparkHours checks weeks that straddle the date against both. It's the kind of thing a spreadsheet quietly gets wrong for months.

It also turns the weeks you log into the forms the Board asks for, and your supervisor signs each one from a link.

Start with a 14-day free trial. No credit card required.

See [how California counts your MFT hours](/guides/how-california-counts-mft-hours) for what has to be inside the 3,000, or the requirements guides for [AMFT](/amft), [APCC](/apcc) and [ASW](/asw).

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