There is no MFT compact — read this first
Psychologists have PSYPACT. Counselors have the Counseling Compact. Social workers have theirs. Marriage and family therapists are excluded from all three, and in 2025 AAMFT decided not to pursue a compact of its own.
What it built instead is Access MFTs, a model law that states adopt one at a time. It does not create a privilege you buy or a credential that reaches across state lines. It strips the duplicative parts out of an ordinary licensure-by-endorsement application: no re-verification of your degree, your supervised hours or your national exam.
So the question that decides your route is not the one compact sites train you to ask. It is not which state issued your license — it is which state you are moving to, and whether that board has adopted the model.
The short version
A compact is an agreement among member states to recognize each other's licenses, usually by issuing a privilege that rides on the one you already hold. That is how the physical therapy, nursing and physician compacts work. None of them covers MFTs, and the three that serve adjacent professions all exclude them.
AAMFT looked at building one and concluded the model law route was faster. A compact needs a critical mass of states before it does anything at all — the APRN Compact has been stalled short of its trigger for years and has issued nothing. A model law starts working in the first state that passes it.
The trade is that you never get one credential covering many states. You get a second full license, which you renew, with its own continuing-education requirements and its own renewal date. More to maintain than a privilege — and more durable, because it does not evaporate when some other license lapses.
Two routes, and what separates them
Endorsement in an Access MFTs state
- What it is
- A full license from the destination board, granted on the strength of the license you already hold
- Available?
- In the seventeen states that have adopted the model law, and in seven more that reached the same place independently under their own names.
- Limits
- Still an application to that board, with its own fee. Some states add a background check or a jurisprudence exam on top.
- Timing
- Faster than a standard application because the board is not re-evaluating your degree, your supervised hours or your exam — but it still runs on the board’s queue.
A standard license application
- What it is
- A full license, evaluated from scratch
- Available?
- Everywhere. It is the only route where the model law has not been adopted.
- Limits
- The board re-examines education, supervised clinical hours and examination history, and may apply its own years-of-practice requirement before it will even consider endorsement.
- Timing
- Months, and it does not compress for a start date. Begin it well before you need it.
Privilege fees have not been set. Our concierge fee for a state license is listed on our pricing page.
Where the model law has been adopted
17
Confirmed to have adopted Access MFTs
36
Not yet confirmed against the current list
All seventeen Access MFTs states are named above. What the second column cannot tell you is the rest of the picture: AAMFT reports a further seven states that reached streamlined endorsement on their own, without the initiative and under their own names, and does not say which. Arizona got there through a universal recognition law covering every profession, not an MFT bill at all.
So a state outside the seventeen is not necessarily a hard one. It moves with legislative sessions too — four states adopted the model in 2026, and Oregon and Wisconsin are targeting 2027. We confirm the route with the destination board before you pay for anything, which is the only answer that actually governs your application.
Confirmed Access MFTs states
Streamlined endorsement: an unrestricted license elsewhere, an application and a fee, without re-proving your degree, your hours or your exam.
What endorsement asks for
A valid, unrestricted MFT license in another state or territory. That is the substantive requirement, and in an Access MFTs state it largely replaces the rest.
A completed application and the board’s fee. The model streamlines the evidence, not the paperwork.
Some states add a criminal background check.
Some states add a state jurisprudence exam on their own statutes and rules.
What the model removes is the duplicative part: re-verification of your degree, your supervised clinical hours, and re-taking the national examination. Several states also dropped years-of-practice minimums that previously blocked an application outright.
What the compact does not do
There is no compact, and no privilege to buy
MFTs are excluded from PSYPACT, the Counseling Compact and the Social Work Compact alike, and in 2025 AAMFT decided against pursuing one. Nothing here works like the PT or nursing compacts: there is no privilege you purchase, no home-state rule, and no single credential that reaches multiple states. Every state you practice in issues you its own license.
The destination state decides, not your home state
This is the inverse of how the physician and physical therapy compacts work. Under a compact, the state that issued your license controls whether you have a route at all. Under endorsement, the state you are moving TO sets the terms — so the question is always what that board requires, not what your current board allows.
It does not make you licensed in two states at once
Endorsement gets you a second full license, which you then renew, and which carries its own continuing-education requirements and its own renewal date. That is more durable than a privilege, and it is also more to maintain. Therapists holding licenses in several states are managing several renewal calendars.
It will not get you paid
A license settles the legal authority to practice; it does nothing about payer enrollment. Credentialing is per-state and per-payer, runs on its own timeline, and frequently takes months longer than the licensing did. Starting a role licensed but not enrolled means the work is done and the claims are not payable.
On that last point — multi-state payer enrollment and credentialing is handled by our sister team at whiteglovecredentialing.com.
What to do about it
Start with the destination, not your current license. Ask the board you are moving to whether it has adopted the Access MFTs model, and ask it in writing. That single answer decides whether you are filing a streamlined endorsement or a full application, and it is the difference between weeks and months.
Keep your existing license unrestricted and current while you apply. Endorsement rests on it being in good standing, and a lapse mid-application is the avoidable way to lose the route you were relying on. Unlike a compact privilege, though, a lapse does not retroactively invalidate a license you have already been granted elsewhere.
Budget for the parts the model does not remove. Even in an adopting state there is an application fee, often a background check, and sometimes a jurisprudence exam on that state's own statutes. The model strips out the duplicative evidence, not the process.
And if anything in your licensing history would make you pause before answering a disclosure question, get it assessed first. Disclosed and resolved is a paperwork step; discovered after a non-disclosure is a separate offense that boards treat far more seriously than whatever it concealed.
Authoritative sources
White Glove MFT is an independent licensing-support service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by AAMFT, AMFTRB, or any state licensing board. Everything on this page is our own summary, and membership and timelines change; for the authoritative and current position, go to the source:
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