When can I apply for my NJ LCSW?

What you need

  • 3,000hours of supervised experience
  • 1,920of them face to face
  • 960of those psychotherapy

Over no less than 2 and no more than 4 years. Nothing you enter leaves this page.

With an example week: November 6, 2028. Change it to yours.

Your dates
A usual week, from now on
More: your MSW date, other hours, sessions by video or phone

By this count, you could meet every requirement the week ofNovember 6, 2028

Total hours sets your date: it is the last requirement your usual week reaches.

  1. Psychotherapy: 0 of 960 hours now; met the week of June 19, 2028
  2. Months of supervised experience: 0 of 24 months now; met the week of October 16, 2028
  3. Face-to-face with clients: 0 of 1,920 hours now; met the week of October 30, 2028
  4. Total hours: 0 of 3,000 hours now; met the week of November 6, 2028

Licensure Hours keeps the weeks you actually work toward the Board’s three totals, sends them to your supervisor to review from a link, fills in the Board’s Documentation form, and gives you your estimate from your real record. No card needed.

An estimate for the same week every week, not an approval. The Board decides.

Details

More of those hours each week would bring it sooner.

How this is calculatedThe rules, what it can’t know, and the sources

When you have 3,000 hours of supervised experience, at least 1,920 face to face with clients and 960 of those psychotherapy, over no less than 2 and no more than 4 years.

  • At least 3,000 hours of supervised clinical social work experience after the MSW, in no less than 2 and no more than 4 years; at least 1,920 of them face to face with clients, of which at least 960 psychotherapy (N.J.A.C. 13:44G-4.1(a)). The months are a floor of their own: finishing the hours sooner still means waiting.
  • Supervision: at least 1 hour of face-to-face individual or group clinical supervision a week; individual supervision by HIPAA-compliant live video counts for no more than half of your total supervision hours (N.J.A.C. 13:44G-8.1(b)1v). Like the app, the calculator keeps the hours of a week with less, and says so: whether such weeks count is the Board's call.
  • Client sessions by video or phone: we haven't found a Board answer on whether they count as face to face, so, like the app, the calculator keeps them apart and leaves them out of the dates.
  • It assumes the same hours every week from now on, at one job with a qualified supervisor. Weeks off, a lighter stretch, or a gap of four weeks or more move your date later; the four years keep running through a gap.
  • It doesn't check your supervisor's license, their 20-hour supervision course, or your Proposed Plan; the app and the Board's forms do.
  • You apply within 5 years of finishing the hours (N.J.A.C. 13:44G-4.1(b)4). After the hours come the ASWB Clinical exam and the Board's review of your application. The Board decides every application.

Nothing you enter leaves this page. The calculator works in your browser; nothing is stored or sent, and there is no account.

Sources

Checked against the New Jersey Board of Social Work Examiners’s published rules on October 11, 2026. Licensure Hours is independent and not affiliated with the New Jersey Board of Social Work Examiners; the Board’s own pages are the final word, and this is guidance, not legal advice.

By Licensure Hours, founded by Meli Pil. About us

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