How Social Work License Transfer Works: Endorsement, ASWB Score Transfer, and Clinical Titles

Match the tier, not the initials

Most states license social workers in three or four tiers, and the names do not line up. The independent clinical license is the LCSW in most states, the LICSW in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Washington and the District of Columbia, and the LISW in Ohio. Boards decide which license you qualify for by what your current one authorizes. If you diagnose and treat independently, you apply for the destination's clinical license under whatever name it uses. In DC, that is the LICSW: DC's LISW is a different, non-clinical license.

The endorsement file

Expect to assemble the board's application, verification of each license you hold, proof of your MSW, your ASWB score, and a fingerprint background check; some states add a law or ethics exam, course or video. Verification is state by state, because social work has no national license database, so each board you have held a license with sends its own confirmation or you point the new board to its online lookup.

Sending your ASWB score

You never retake the ASWB exam to change states. Log in to ASWBCentral, request a score transfer to the new board, and pay $40; delivery takes 7-10 business days. Check two things first: whether the destination accepts your exam category for its clinical license (some take only the Clinical exam, others also the Advanced Generalist), and whether it limits how old a score may be.

How supervised hours are judged

Clinical licensure depends on post-MSW practice under supervision, and each state sets its own count. Most boards accept experience completed under your former state's rules once you hold the clinical license there. Others compare it with their own requirement, commonly around 3,000 hours over two or more years, or waive the comparison after some years of licensed practice. That rule, more than the fee, decides whether a file moves quickly.

Common pitfalls

Applying for the wrong tier because the initials looked familiar. Assuming an enacted compact means you can already practice across state lines; it does not. Relying on ASWB's Social Work Registry to forward documents, when it stopped taking new applications on March 16, 2026 and closes on March 31, 2027. And holding only an Advanced Generalist score for a board that licenses the clinical tier on the Clinical exam alone, which you want to find out before you file, not after.

Apply first, then send the score

ASWB's own instructions put the board application first. You file with the new state, then request the score transfer in ASWBCentral, and ASWB sends the score to the board within 7 to 10 business days. If your name has changed since you tested, ASWB will not complete the request until you upload legal documentation of the change, so have the marriage certificate or court order scanned before you start. After that, the board's calendar sets the pace more than your paperwork does. Louisiana shows how meeting-based review works. Milestones take about two weeks to appear on the applicant dashboard, every item, background-check results included, must reach the board office 7 days before a board meeting, and the decision posts 7 to 10 business days after that meeting. A file that misses the cutoff waits for the next meeting. Louisiana also treats an online application as valid for one year from the date the office receives it; an application not completed in that time has to be filed again. Before you commit to a start date, find the destination board's meeting dates and its document cutoff, and count back from them.

Every license you have ever held

Boards want to hear from more than the state you are leaving. Louisiana's endorsement instructions are a useful model of what a thorough board asks for. Every board you hold or held a license with completes Louisiana's verification of licensure form and mails it in. LCSW applicants also need verification of their supervision hours and of the supervising social worker's license, and you send Louisiana a copy of the licensing law of each jurisdiction where you were licensed so the board can compare standards. On top of the paperwork, endorsement applicants in Louisiana take an open-book exam of 50 items on the state's Social Work Practice Act and board rules: 70 percent passes, you have 3 hours once you start, and a failed attempt can be retaken with no waiting period. Make the list before you apply: every social work license at every tier, including an LSW or LMSW you later upgraded from and any license you let expire. Each one is a separate request to a separate agency, and the file is not complete until the last verification arrives. If a supervisor from years ago has to sign for your hours, contact them first, because that signature is the item you control least.

A past board action travels with you

Assume the destination board will learn about any discipline. ASWB runs the Public Protection Database, a flagging system that its member boards use in two directions: each board files reports of its disciplinary actions online, and each board can view the reports other boards have filed when it decides on an applicant. When a flag raises a question, ASWB encourages the board to contact the board that filed the report for the details of the action. Endorsement itself rests on the same idea. ASWB describes it as a board accepting an existing active license in good standing as evidence that you meet its requirements, so a license under discipline weakens the very thing the application relies on. Because the board will see the record either way, answer the history questions in full and attach certified copies of any board order along with proof that you completed its terms. A file that explains an old action up front saves the board a round of letters asking for the same documents.

Seeing clients before the new license is issued

ASWB's guidance is that you need a license from the new jurisdiction to practice there, whether in person or electronically. A telehealth client who lives across a state line is covered only once you are licensed where the client is. A few states issue short permits to clinicians licensed elsewhere, and Kansas's statute shows what one looks like. The Kansas board may issue a temporary permit to a social worker licensed for independent clinical practice in another jurisdiction, in good standing there and with clinical practice behind them, once it approves a written application. The permit allows no more than 30 days of practice a year, and the fee can be up to $200. Any service within a 24-hour period counts as a full day, you file quarterly reports of the days you worked in Kansas, and the permit expires one year after it is issued. In an emergency the board may extend it for one further year of up to 30 days. Practicing without a permit can bring a cease and desist order and a fine of up to $1,000 a day. Thirty days a year will not span a typical application, so treat a permit like this as a way to see a handful of clients, not as a bridge for a move. Plan for a gap between your last clinical day under the old license and the new license's issue date.

Degrees earned outside the United States

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) is the accrediting agency for social work education in the United States, recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. For degrees from other countries, CSWE runs the International Social Work Degree Recognition and Evaluation Service (ISWDRES), which recognizes social work credentials comparable to accredited US bachelor's and master's degrees; CSWE lists state licensing among the purposes that recognition serves. ISWDRES works in two stages. First comes a screening form, one per applicant, filed only after you have completed the degree, with a $35 fee; it confirms that your degree is in social work, an unpaid form is deleted after five business days, and results usually come within two weeks. Once screening is approved, CSWE emails you access to the recognition application, which carries a fee set by the country that awarded the degree: $170, $380 or $610. CSWE does not review supporting documents until that fee is paid. Your program then sends two official documents to CSWE itself: the transcript or mark list, and a proof-of-graduation letter. Start this well before you apply to a board.

Moving at the bachelor's or master's level

This site's state data covers the clinical license, but the same mechanics apply at the lower tiers, with one extra trap: the exam category. ASWB offers Associate, Bachelors, Masters, Advanced Generalist and Clinical exams, and says a passing result is valid in any state or province that uses that licensing exam; its own example is a Clinical pass, which transfers when you apply for a new clinical license elsewhere. A Masters pass therefore travels to a master's-level license that uses the Masters exam, but not to a license the new state ties to a different exam. Louisiana's instruction to endorsement applicants is the safe default anywhere: apply for the credential equivalent to the one you hold now, and let the board tell you if it maps you somewhere else. If the new state does require a different exam, ASWB charges $230 for the Associate, Bachelors or Masters exam and $260 for the Advanced Generalist or Clinical. Each exam has 122 questions, 110 of them scored, with a four-hour time limit.

Key terms in the glossary: licensure by endorsement, interstate compact, primary state of residence, reciprocity.