Washington · MFT

LMFTA to LMFT: Washington's Marriage and Family Therapist Hour Requirements

Last updated July 12, 2026

Washington's LMFTA is a real license — you cannot legally practice as an unlicensed associate — and moving up to the full LMFT is a cumulative-hours game with no interim paperwork. Two things set the MFT path apart from the state's counseling and social work tracks: double the supervision (200 hours, not 100) and a 500-hour couples/family subset of your direct hours. Here is what the road looks like.

The hour targets

The 500-hour couples/family subset

Of your 1,000 direct client contact hours, at least 500 must involve diagnosing and treating couples and families, per WAC 246-809-130. Hours with an individual client count toward the 1,000 direct total but not toward the 500-hour subset. As in Oregon, these sessions blend into your regular direct hours, so tag them as you go. The MFT couples/family hours guide lays out what counts in both states.

200 supervision hours, two overlapping floors

Washington LMFTAs need 200 supervision hours — double the LICSW and LMHC target — and the 200 carry two independent floors on the same hours:

• By format: at least 100 hours one-on-one; up to 100 may be group.
• By supervisor credential: at least 100 hours with an LMFT who has 5 or more years of clinical experience; up to 100 may be with an equally qualified practitioner (LMHC, LICSW, psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychiatric ARNP).

These are floors, not exclusive buckets — all 200 could be one-on-one with a qualifying LMFT. Underneath both, the WAC 246-809-020 baseline still applies: at least 1 hour of supervision per 80 hours of clinical practice. Your supervisor must have held an unrestricted license for at least two years, with 15 clock hours of supervision training, and cannot be a relative, peer, or your own therapist.

Credits that shorten the road

• COAMFTE-accredited degree: graduates receive credit for 500 direct client hours and 100 supervision hours toward the Washington LMFT requirements.
• SUDP experience: 3+ years as a Substance Use Disorder Professional within the past 10 years reduces the total from 3,000 to 2,700 hours.

No interim reports — then DOH 670-005

Washington has no periodic reporting windows and no birth-month deadlines during your associate period. You track your hours across the whole supervised experience, and each supervisor completes a DOH 670-005 — the Marriage and Family Therapy Supervision and Experience Verification form, one per supervisor and per practice setting — submitted with your final LMFT application. The tradeoff: "no reports" means no forcing function, so if your tracking drifts, nobody notices until the end, when reconstructing hours across supervisors and settings gets painful. Almost Licensed keeps the running split — the 200-hour supervision total, the 100-hour LMFT-supervisor floor, and the 500-hour couples/family subset — and pre-fills the DOH 670-005 per placement.

The six-renewal cap and the exam

The LMFTA license can be renewed a maximum of six times before you must transition to LMFT — roughly seven years of associate practice at most, with renewals on your birthday and 18 CE hours per year. If you are pacing part-time, map your remaining renewals against your realistic weekly clinical volume early; the Washington renewal-cap guide covers the math (the same cap applies to LMHCAs). For the exam, you take the AMFTRB national MFT exam through Professional Testing Corporation / Prometric — submit your request well ahead of your desired testing window. The Oregon LMFT associate guide shows how the same discipline works south of the river.

This guide is informational, not legal advice. Licensure rules change — always verify current requirements with your board before making decisions about your supervision plan, and flag any discrepancies to support@almostlicensed.com so we can fix them.