What the Louisiana State Board of Social Work Examiners requires to reach LCSW — supervised hours, exams, continuing education and renewal.
The supervised-hours total is genuinely unsettled. Louisiana appears to have reduced its supervised-practice requirement from 5,760 hours (of which 3,840 under BACS supervision) to 3,000 hours in an October 2025 rule change. The board's own June 2025 rulemaking document confirms it proposed the reduction. But the 3,000 figure appears only on third-party mirrors of the administrative code, and we could not reach labswe.org directly to confirm. We are not publishing a single number. Contact the board before you plan around either figure.
| Credential | Full name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| RSW | Registered Social Worker | Baccalaureate, agency-employed, non-clinical. |
| CSW | Certified Social Worker | Temporary, for master's graduates pursuing licensure, up to 3 years. |
| LMSW | Licensed Master's Social Worker | Master's level. |
| LCSW | Licensed Clinical Social Worker | Independent and private practice. |
| BACS | Board-Approved Clinical Supervisor | A designation added to an LCSW, not a separate license. |
| Supervised experience | See the flag above — we are not publishing a figure we cannot source to the board |
| Supervision hours | 96 hours hours of face-to-face supervision within the total, each meeting between 30 minutes and 2 hours |
| Supervision frequency | No more than 80 hours of practice may elapse without a supervisory meeting. Group supervision is capped at 48 hours, extendable to 72 on written request, with no more than 5 supervisees per group. |
| Minimum elapsed time | Not specified by the board |
| Direct client contact | Not specified by the board |
Louisiana's rules define the examination only as a board-approved standardised test and do not name an ASWB category. Third-party sources assert the ASWB Clinical exam for the LCSW, but we could not confirm that from a board source.
We have flagged the exam mapping above because the board does not state it plainly in the sources we could reach. Confirm it with the board before you register and pay for a category.
20 clock hours annually, collected 1 July to 30 June.
Easy to get wrong. Supervision may begin only after your LMSW is issued, and the supervision contract must be filed within 60 days of the first session.
Louisiana has enacted the Social Work Licensure Compact. Thirty-three jurisdictions have. Enactment is not the same as availability: the Compact Commission has not opened applications and no multistate licenses have been issued yet. Until it goes live, licensure by endorsement remains the route into another state. Where the compact actually stands.
Primary authority: Louisiana State Board of Social Work Examiners. Where anything on this page differs from the board, the board governs.
We do not publish fee amounts. Boards revise fee schedules without notice and a stale figure on a page people budget from is worse than no figure — use the board link above for current fees.
Requirements change. Confirm anything you intend to act on with the board before you apply. Tell us if something here is out of date and we will correct and re-date the page.
Last reviewed: October 2026 · Next scheduled review: January 2027
This guide is the reference. If you want it turned into dates and a checklist — when to register, when each exam opens to you, what the fees come to — the roadmap builder does that for Louisiana.
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