Psychology License Reciprocity by State (2026)

The pathways, applied to psychology

Licensure by endorsement (the only route to a full license)

Every permanent move runs through the destination board. It verifies that your license is active and unrestricted, that your doctoral degree came from a qualifying program, and that your supervised professional experience meets its standard; it accepts your EPPP passing score rather than re-testing you; and it applies its own jurisprudence exam and criminal background check. Boards call this endorsement, reciprocity, licensure by credentials, or comity — the labels differ, the substance does not. Nothing about it is automatic, and no state issues a license simply because another state did.

Mobility credentials (CPQ, ABPP, National Register)

The profession's answer to a slow endorsement file is a portable credential assembled once and accepted many times. The ASPPB Certificate of Professional Qualification (CPQ) is the most widely recognized; ABPP board certification and National Register listing serve a similar role. Where a board accepts one, it generally stops re-auditing your degree, hours, and exam and moves straight to its own state requirements. If you expect to move more than once in your career, obtaining one early is usually the highest-leverage thing you can do.

PSYPACT authorizations (practice across lines without moving)

For psychologists who are not relocating, the compact solves a different problem: serving clients in other participating states. An E.Passport plus an APIT authorization covers telepsychology into any participating state; an Interjurisdictional Practice Certificate plus a TAP covers up to 30 days per calendar year of in-person practice in a given receiving state. Both require an active unrestricted license in a participating home state, and both end when that license does. They are practice authority, not licensure — and they never accumulate into one.

The jurisprudence exam is the near-universal add-on

Almost every board requires you to pass its own examination on that state's psychology practice act, rules, and ethics before licensing you, regardless of how long you have practiced elsewhere. It is short and open-book in many states and a genuine gate in others, and it is the requirement most often missed when psychologists plan a move around the EPPP alone. The state pages record whether the board publishes one and what it involves.

Two things move on this map and are worth re-checking against the sources before you rely on them: PSYPACT participation continues to expand, with states enacting the compact well before their boards begin issuing authorizations, and individual boards revise endorsement fees and supervised-experience rules on their own schedules. Every state row on this site carries the date it was verified against the board and the compact commission.

This dataset covers the doctoral Licensed Psychologist credential only. Master's-level psychological practitioners, psychological associates, school psychologists, and psychiatrists are licensed under separate credentials with their own, different transfer rules, and nothing here should be read as describing them.