Transfer Your Counseling License to New Hampshire: Reciprocity & Endorsement (2026)

New Hampshire has passed the Counseling Compact into law, and its board may describe the state as having joined, but as of 2026-09-27 it was not issuing or accepting privileges. That makes New Hampshire a non-compact state in practice: no privilege lets you see a client located here, in person or by telehealth, and a New Hampshire license cannot yet anchor privileges elsewhere. Plan on a New Hampshire license by endorsement, and check the commission's announcements, because states have been switching on every few weeks.

New Hampshire's independent counselor license is the Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (LCMHC), issued by the Board of Mental Health Practice (RSA 330-A) within OPLC. The conditional license is the supervised tier. Out-of-state counselors are licensed by endorsement under RSA 310:17 (HB 594, 2023) and Plc 313. OPLC licenses holders of an active, unencumbered, non-temporary license from a jurisdiction whose requirements are 'substantially similar'. For counselors, Plc 313.37(a) defines that as a 60-semester-hour counseling master's, the NCMHCE or an equivalent, and at least 2,500 hours or 2 full-time years of supervised postgraduate experience. The applicant's own hours are not re-counted. reciprocity_partners is OPLC's published named list of 40 qualifying jurisdictions for the Clinical Mental Health Counselor license. It is an ELIGIBILITY list, not automatic reciprocity. Counselors from DC, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota or Wisconsin are not on it and use the regular route (Plc 304). New Hampshire has ENACTED the Counseling Compact but is not yet issuing or accepting privileges. compact_member and compact_status are assembler-provided. oplc.nh.gov returned HTTP 403 and gc.nh.gov dropped connections on 2026-09-27, so all board and rule content was read from Internet Archive captures of the official pages (dates in sources). Board-published eligibility list (40 jurisdictions: alabama, alaska, arizona, arkansas, california, colorado, connecticut, delaware, hawaii, illinois, indiana, iowa, kansas, kentucky, louisiana, maine, massachusetts, minnesota, mississippi, missouri, montana, nebraska, nevada, new-jersey, new-mexico, new-york, north-carolina, north-dakota, ohio, oklahoma, oregon, rhode-island, tennessee, texas, utah, vermont, virginia, washington, west-virginia, wyoming) — an endorsement-eligibility list, not a bilateral reciprocity agreement, so it is recorded here rather than as reciprocity partners (same rule as the physical-therapy gold row).