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.

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