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Licensure
The route to LMFT, and how long it really takes.
Becoming an LMFT in California is five gates with no discretion in any of them: a qualifying degree, practicum before you graduate, 3,000 supervised hours over at least 104 weeks, supervision that meets the Board's form, and two exams. The 3,000 is rarely the gate that decides your date. A caseload of adult individuals will close it and still leave you ineligible, because 500 of your 1,750 direct hours have to be couples, families or children. The calculators here project all four gates from the week you actually work and name the one you are waiting on.
Money runs alongside all of it. Board fees for the whole route fell from $1,750 to $875 on 1 July 2026 and revert in 2030. An associate job offer is really two questions wearing one coat — what it pays now, and how fast it closes your hours — and offer letters only answer the first. What the site cannot settle: whether the Board will accept a particular supervisor's paperwork, or whether a specific degree qualifies. It gives you the code section to check, not the ruling.
71 pages, in 3 sections: The route, and what it costs · Counting the hours, and the job that banks them · Where the degree comes from. Every figure below is computed or cited, and links to the page that carries it.
Key insights
$875 in Board fees, down from $1,750
The reduced schedule line by line, and what the headline total omits
What you should know about this figure
This figure comes from What do the Board fees cost now?, on the Board's published fee schedule and the statute sections linked on the page. Your own number will differ — the page shows the working and, where there is a calculator, runs it on your figures.
$1,463 a unit
Per-unit cost, COAMFTE accreditation and four forum threads, in one place
What you should know about this figure
This figure comes from Is Alliant's MFT worth $1,463 a unit?, on the Board's published fee schedule and the statute sections linked on the page. Your own number will differ — the page shows the working and, where there is a calculator, runs it on your figures.
$140,080 total
Three programs under one name, priced and scheduled quite differently
What you should know about this figure
This figure comes from Which Pepperdine MFT format should I apply to?, on the Board's published fee schedule and the statute sections linked on the page. Your own number will differ — the page shows the working and, where there is a calculator, runs it on your figures.