Two bills at third reading · read 18 August 2026 · neither is law
Two bills would change what California associates and therapists have to do. Both are decided by 31 August.
In short
What California therapy bills are moving in 2026?
What AB 1598 and SB 903 would change, where each one stood on 18 August 2026, and the two dates that decide them
2 bills at third reading; 31 August to passOne is sponsored by the Board itself and would end the annual Law and Ethics exam for associates. The other would put the first rules on artificial intelligence in a therapy practice. Both cleared appropriations on 13 August 2026 and are waiting for a floor vote. Here is what each one actually says, and the two dates that settle them.
Where they standAB 1598SB 903The other thirteenWhat happens next
Status, read 18 August 2026
Both passed their own house. Neither bill is law.
A California bill has to pass both houses and then be signed. Both of these have cleared one house and the second house’s appropriations committee, and both were sitting on the second house’s floor calendar when this page was written. Because each was amended in the second house, each also needs a concurrence vote back in its house of origin before it can reach the Governor.
| AB 1598 | SB 903 | |
|---|---|---|
| House of origin | Assembly | Senate |
| Sponsor | The Board of Behavioral Sciences | Author-sponsored |
| Subject | Behavioral sciences licensing | Artificial intelligence in psychotherapy |
| Passed its own house | 21 May 2026 | 19 May 2026, 39–0 |
| Off the suspense file | 13 Aug 2026 | 13 Aug 2026, 13–0 |
| Where it was on 18 August 2026 | Senate third reading | Assembly third reading |
| Still needs | A Senate floor vote, then Assembly concurrence | An Assembly floor vote, then Senate concurrence |
Action dates and vote counts from the LegiScan histories; sponsorship from the Board’s own analyzes.
AB 1598 · Behavioral sciences
The Board is asking to stop making associates retake the Law and Ethics exam every year.
This is the Board’s own bill, and almost all of it lands on people who are not licensed yet. It would amend thirty sections of the Business and Professions Code and repeal three. The first seven changes below are the ones the Board’s April 2026 analysis describes; the last two are from the version in print as amended 10 June 2026, in the Senate, after that analysis was written.
As things stand an associate has to pass the California Law and Ethics Exam again at every renewal. The bill removes that yearly retest, and instead requires the exam to have been passed “no more than seven years prior to the board’s receipt of the application”.
The window in which hours you have already earned still count would grow by a year. For anyone whose hours have been slowed by a placement falling through, this is the provision that matters most.
The bill permits counseling and supervision hours gained before degree completion, capped at 750.
Seven years of registration in total rather than six, with the renewal deadline extended to match.
For an associate on a subsequent registration number, working in a single private practice setting.
Matching the Law and Ethics change above.
Small, and the only fee change in the bill.
The version in print adds imam to the priests, rabbis and ministers already exempt, for faith-based counseling delivered through a recognized faith-based entity. The limits are the part worth reading: the service still has to sit “in a religious or spiritual context”, it does not reach the diagnosis or treatment of mental illness, and an exempt person must not claim to be licensed or use a restricted title.
Today an associate or trainee has to tell clients they are unlicensed and working under supervision. The bill adds one item to that disclosure: the name of the employer, or, where the work is unpaid, the name of the entity being volunteered for. A small sentence that makes the arrangement behind the therapy visible to the client.
If you are counting hours
Nothing here is in force. The rules that govern your hours today are the ones on our page for the 3,000 hours, and they are unchanged until a bill is signed and takes effect. What this bill would change is how long those hours stay good and how many times you can renew while you earn them.
SB 903 · Mental health professionals: artificial intelligence
The first rules on using AI in a therapy practice, and a $10,000 penalty behind them.
SB 903 would create the Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act as a new chapter of the Business and Professions Code, beginning at section 4989.80. It does two separable things: it says who may offer psychotherapy at all, and it draws a line through what a licensed practitioner may hand to a machine.
The advertising provision, in the bill’s own words
“An individual, corporation, or entity shall not provide, advertise, or otherwise offer therapy or psychotherapy services … unless the therapy or psychotherapy services are conducted by an individual who is a licensed professional.”
| A licensed professional could not let AI… | …but could use it to |
|---|---|
| Make independent therapeutic decisions | Manage appointment scheduling and reminders |
| Interact directly with a client in any form of therapeutic communication, unless the product is FDA-approved and HIPAA-compliant | Process billing and insurance claims |
| Generate therapeutic recommendations or treatment plans without review and approval | Draft general communications about therapy logistics that carry no therapeutic advice |
| Detect emotions or mental states | Prepare and maintain client records, including therapy notes |
| Analyze anonymized data to track progress or identify trends, subject to review | |
| Identify and organize external resources or referrals |
The prohibitions are in the proposed section 4989.84(b); the permitted administrative and supplementary uses in 4989.82.
Written notice and consent, disclosing that AI is being used and “the specific purpose of the artificial intelligence tool or system”. If you use an AI scribe, this is the provision to read.
Up to $10,000 for each violation, assessed on the severity of the harm and the circumstances.
Separately from the licensing sentence quoted above, the version in print says a provider shall “not advertise or otherwise purport to offer psychotherapy services when the services are provided through the use of companion chatbots”. That sentence is aimed at the chatbot market rather than at clinicians, and it is the one a therapist is most likely to see quoted without its context.
“A company or entity shall not share, sell, store, or train their models on any data obtained from psychotherapy” in a manner inconsistent with applicable law - and in California the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act sits on top of everything else here. If you run a practice, this is the clause to hold your own vendor contract against, whatever happens to the bill.
The Board’s recommended position was SUPPORT IF AMENDED. Its analysis asked for consent to be written rather than verbal, for a clearer line between permitted and prohibited uses, for the religious-counseling definitions to be made consistent, and for the jurisdiction question to be settled where a violator is not a named license type.
The practical read
An AI note-taker or scribe sits on the permitted side, and acquires a consent duty. A chatbot that talks to your clients sits on the prohibited side unless it is an FDA-approved, HIPAA-compliant product. Between those two poles is where the Board asked for clarification, and where the bill as written is hardest to apply to a real product.
What the telehealth rule already requires of a recorded session →
The rest of the Board’s 2026 list
Thirteen other bills, four of them already dead.
The Board publishes what it is tracking. Subjects and statuses below are that list as it read on 18 August 2026; we have not read these bills, and the subject line is the Board’s wording, not ours.
| Bill | Subject | Status |
|---|---|---|
| AB 1988 | Companion chatbots: crisis interruption pauses | Pending |
| AB 1979 | Health care services: artificial intelligence | Pending |
| AB 2011 | Nonquantitative treatment limitations | Pending |
| AB 2352 | Medi-Cal providers: nonprofit public benefit corporations | Pending |
| AB 2551 | Health care coverage | Pending |
| AB 2575 | Health care services: artificial intelligence | Pending |
| SB 934 | Sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts: actions for recovery | Pending |
| SB 993 | Board of Behavioral Sciences: licensees: notices | Pending |
| SB 1445 | Healing arts | Pending |
| AB 1558 | Uniform Emergency Volunteer Health Practitioners Act | Dead |
| AB 2259 | Prisons: mental health | Dead |
| AB 2511 | Behavioral health provider comparable worth study | Dead |
| SB 1248 | State agencies: automated decision systems | Dead |
From the Board’s 2026 bills-through-the-Legislature list.
The two dates
31 August, then 30 September.
A bill still on the floor calendar at the end of that day does not go to the Governor this year. Final recess begins on adjournment.
Signed, vetoed, or allowed to become law without a signature - the decision is made by this date.
A statute passed in the regular session takes effect on the 1 January following its enactment, unless it carries an urgency clause. Neither of these does.
This page has two update dates built into it
- After 31 August 2026 — passed, or dead. Every status sentence above is stamped “read 18 August 2026” precisely so that a reader arriving later can see it has not been revisited.
- After 30 September 2026 — signed, or vetoed.
- If you are reading this after those dates and the page still says third reading, it is out of date and you should check the bill on the Legislature’s own site before relying on it.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The bills themselves
- AB 1598 on the Legislature’s own site - the place to read the bill and check its current status
- SB 903 on the Legislature’s own site
- AB 1598 - every version in print, including the 10 June 2026 Senate amendments, which are where the imam addition and the employer disclosure appear
- SB 903 - every version in print, including the 2 July 2026 Assembly amendments; the proposed sections 4989.80 to 4989.87 quoted above are in the current one
What the bills do - the Board of Behavioral Sciences’ own analyzes, read 18 August 2026
- The Board’s April 2026 analysis of AB 1598, which it sponsors - the source for the first seven provisions listed on this page
- The Board’s May 2026 analysis of SB 903, its SUPPORT IF AMENDED position, and the amendments it asked for
- The Board’s 2026 list of bills through the Legislature - the source for the thirteen other bills and which four are dead
Dates and vote counts
The Legislature’s own site blocks automated reading, so the provisions on this page were read from the Board’s published analyzes and the action histories rather than from the bill text on leginfo. Leginfo is linked above because it is where you should check the current status yourself. This page is a reference, not legal advice, and neither bill is law.
