Washington CE Requirements for LMHCs, LMFTs, LICSWs, and Associates

Updated August 2026

Washington fully licensed mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, advanced social workers, and independent clinical social workers must complete 32 hours of continuing education every two years. That figure changed from 36 hours effective October 1, 2025. Associates in all of those categories must complete 16 hours every year, reduced from 18 in the same rulemaking. Inside those totals, Washington requires 6 hours of professional ethics and law every two years, 2 hours of professional roles and boundaries every two years taken separately from ethics, 2 hours of health equity every four years, and 6 hours of suicide assessment, treatment, and management every six years selected from the Department of Health's model list. Suicide training hours count toward the 32-hour total. Licenses renew annually on your birthday. These requirements sit in WAC 246-809-600 through 246-809-650.

If you have read that Washington requires 36 hours, that number is out of date

Until October 1, 2025, Washington did require 36 hours of continuing education every two years for renewal. The Department of Health amended WAC 246-809-630 under rule-making order WSR 25-11-019, and the requirement dropped to 32 hours effective October 1, 2025. The same rulemaking reduced the associate requirement from 18 hours a year to 16.

Several large national CE provider sites still publish 36 hours as the renewal figure. They are quoting the superseded version of the rule.

The number also persists for a second reason. Thirty-six hours, including six in professional law and ethics, is still what an applicant must complete before the Department of Health issues a full license. That is an entry requirement, completed after the academic requirements and before licensure, and all three Department of Health profession pages state it unchanged as of August 2026.

So both numbers are real, and they describe different things. Renewal is 32 hours every two years. Initial licensure is 36 hours. If you have been budgeting your renewal CE against 36 hours, you have been overbuying by four hours a cycle. Check your own count against WAC 246-809-630 rather than against any provider's summary, including this one.

The requirements, in full

Fully licensed: LMHC, LMFT, LASW, LICSW

Total continuing education: 32 hours every 2 years (WAC 246-809-630)
Professional ethics and law: 6 hours every 2 years; topics may include those in RCW 18.130.180
Professional roles and boundaries: 2 hours every 2 years, taken separately from ethics
Health equity: 2 hours every 4 years (WAC 246-12-830)
Suicide assessment, treatment, and management: 6 hours every 6 years, from the DOH model list (WAC 246-809-615; RCW 43.70.442)

Associates: LMHCA, LMFTA, LSWAA, LSWAIC

Total continuing education: 16 hours every year (WAC 246-809-632)
Professional ethics and law: 6 hours every 2 years
Professional roles and boundaries: 2 hours every 2 years
Health equity: 2 hours every 4 years
Suicide assessment, treatment, and management: social worker associates only, see below

Ethics, roles and boundaries, and health equity hours count toward the 16-hour annual total in the year you complete them.

The suicide training requirement for associates applies to two credentials only. WAC 246-809-632(5) limits it to licensed social worker associate advanced and licensed social worker associate independent clinical. Those associates complete 6 hours after initial licensure and before their first renewal, then 6 more hours in the following six-year period. Mental health counselor associates and marriage and family therapist associates have no suicide training requirement while they hold associate status. The two Department of Health summary pages read as though they disagree on this. The rule does not.

Retired active licensees complete 18 hours every two years, including 6 in professional ethics and law, under WAC 246-809-730.

The roles and boundaries requirement, since it is the one people get wrong

Professional roles and boundaries is 2 hours every two years, and those hours cannot double as your ethics and law hours. They are counted separately. A single course can carry ethics-related content and still be a roles and boundaries course, but the hours you claim for one requirement are not available for the other.

Lovewell's Professional Roles and Boundaries: Consent, Power, and Practice is a 3-hour live training designed to meet this requirement, carrying 3 NBCC continuing education hours and 3 AASECT continuing education credits. The next live session is Friday, November 13, 2026.

Online and self-paced CE is fully allowed

Washington removed its cap on distance learning. Online continuing education counts, synchronous or asynchronous, under WAC 246-809-610. Asynchronous programs must include a test of comprehension at the end. Synchronous programs do not.

Nobody is DOH-approved, and that is worth understanding

The Washington Department of Health states plainly that it does not approve continuing education for licensed mental health counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, or licensed social workers. Any provider advertising itself as DOH-approved is describing something that does not exist. What the rule requires instead is that courses meet the standards in WAC 246-809-610 and that the instructor, speaker, or panel is approved by a recognized professional organization or an accredited institution of higher learning.

WAC 246-809-620 names the recognized organizations, and the list includes the National Board for Certified Counselors, the Washington Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the Washington Mental Health Counselors Association, the Washington Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, among others.

Lovewell Initiatives is an NBCC Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7776, and an AASECT Approved Continuing Education Provider, No. 25-0609-LI. Each clinician is responsible for confirming that their own credential and reporting requirements are met.

What else counts

Employer-sponsored training counts toward your total when it supports your professional development as an LMFT, LMHC, LASW, or LICSW, up to 26 hours per reporting period. Serving on a professional panel or board, community service, research, peer consultation, and publishing in professional journals can count for up to 6 hours per reporting period. Activities aimed primarily at increasing your income or improving office efficiency do not count.

If you develop and deliver CE-eligible instruction yourself, you may claim the same number of hours your participants receive, once per topic per reporting period.

If you are licensed in another state

These requirements apply to your Washington credential. Continuing education you complete for a Washington license may or may not satisfy another state's rules, and the reverse is equally true, since states differ on hour counts, mandated topics, and which approvals they recognize. Lovewell's trainings carry NBCC continuing education hours and AASECT continuing education credits, which many state boards accept, and acceptance is always the individual board's decision rather than the provider's.

Documentation

Keep transcripts, letters from instructors, certificates of completion, or any other formal record confirming you finished the training, per WAC 246-809-650.

Primary sources

This page is informational. Verify your own requirements with the Department of Health and your credential's rules before you renew.