Associate Professional Counselor (APC) in Georgia: 2026 Guide

What the APC License Is

Georgia's counseling licensure runs through the Georgia Composite Board of Professional Counselors, Social Workers and Marriage and Family Therapists (the Board), and the Associate Professional Counselor is the license every candidate holds between a graduate degree and full licensure as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). It is a license in its own right, not a registration or a placeholder step: a person who holds it may only use the title "Associate Professional Counselor" (Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 135-5-.01(c)1), and the statute separately allows the title "licensed associate professional counselor" for that same license (O.C.G.A. § 43-10A-11(c)). This guide uses "Associate Professional Counselor" as the main title, the way the Board's own rule states it.

The APC stage has its own application, its own exam, and its own registered contract before anyone starts counting post-degree hours. What follows covers who qualifies, what the contract affidavit requires, what an APC may and may not do, and how the license ends, on schedule or not, in the LPC.

Who Qualifies: Degree, Practicum and Exam

The starting point is a master's degree or higher from a regionally accredited program "that consists of at least 60 semester hours or 90 quarter hours" in clinical counseling or counseling psychology, with an approved supervised internship or practicum (O.C.G.A. § 43-10A-11(a)(1)(A)). The program itself needs the right accreditation: For anyone completing the degree after September 30, 2018, it must be accredited by CACREP or CORE, or be a regionally accredited program recognized by CHEA and "substantially similar in coursework and content to a CACREP or CORE accredited program" (Rule 135-5-.01(b)1). The practicum inside that degree runs 600 hours for the same post-September 2018 group (Rule 135-5-.01(b)1); those practicum hours belong to the degree, not to the post-master's experience an APC later accrues under a contract.

Before the license issues, the applicant registers an acceptable contract with the Board, "the Directed Experience Under Supervision Contract" (Rule 135-5-.01(b)2; O.C.G.A. § 43-10A-11(a)(1)(B)), and passes "the required competency examination for licensure prescribed by the Board" (Rule 135-5-.01(b)3). Georgia's rule does not name that exam. An APC who later moves to the LPC does not retake it (Rule 135-3-.03(2)(b)2).

The Contract Affidavit

Every APC works under a Board-approved contract. The Contract Affidavit instructions state it plainly: "You must complete a SEPARATE CONTRACT AFFIDAVIT for EACH directed experience site and supervisor" (APC Contract Affidavit). One relationship, one affidavit; a change of site or a change of supervisor means a new one.

Changes have a clock on them. "The applicant is responsible for notifying the Board of any changes in the contract, by submitting a new contract within fourteen (14) days of the change" (Rule 135-5-.01(b)2). The Contract Affidavit also sets the supervision pace: "Contract affidavit must specify the number of hours per week to meet the minimum thirty-five (35) hours required per year" (APC Contract Affidavit).

What an APC May Do: Direction vs Supervision

An APC practices "only under direction and supervision, and only for a period not to exceed five years while obtaining the post-master's experience" (Rule 135-5-.01(c)2). The rule keeps direction and supervision as two separate roles, and the contract affidavit lists them separately.

Direction is administrative: "the ongoing administrative overseeing by an employer or superior of a Professional Counselor's work in the practice of professional counseling" (Rule 135-5-.02(a)2). The director is "the person who provides direction and who is either the employer of the person who receives direction or is the supervisor in the administrative chain of command" (Rule 135-5-.02(a)3). Supervision is clinical: "the direct clinical review, for the purpose of training or teaching, by a supervisor of a Professional Counselor's interaction with their client(s)," and it "may be provided pro bono or for a fee" (Rule 135-5-.02(a)4). The contract affidavit has a separate part for the director and for the supervisor.

Work Settings and the Private-Practice Bar

The rule sets what counts as an acceptable place to earn directed experience. Acceptable settings "may include, but is not limited to, education, rehabilitation, career development, mental health, community, or industrial organizations," and "practice without direction is not a work setting acceptable to the Board" (Rule 135-5-.02(a)9). The Contract Affidavit states the private-practice bar directly: independent private practice "is not acceptable as a work setting to the Board for the purposes of obtaining directed experience under supervision" (APC Contract Affidavit).

The work site itself needs structure behind it. Directed Experience is "time spent under direction engaging in the practice of Professional Counseling," and the site needs "a signed contractual agreement that outlines the job description, office hours, performance review procedures and dismissal policies"; a non-compensated arrangement is "reviewed on a case by case basis," and "the agreement between the work site and the candidate should be akin to employment" (Rule 135-5-.02(a)6).

APC vs LPC

The APC and the LPC sit under the same statute and the same rule chapter, but they differ on what each license allows and how each one ages.

The Five-Year Limit, Renewal and CE

An APC may practice "only for a period not to exceed five years" (O.C.G.A. § 43-10A-11(c); Rule 135-5-.01(c)2), and the Board's FAQ measures that from the date of initial issuance: "5 years after the date of initial issuance of an APC or AMFT license is the final expiration date of the license." Inside that five years it still renews on the Board's ordinary schedule: "All licenses shall expire on September 30th of even numbered years" (Rule 135-6-.03(1)). Continued practice past the late renewal period "shall constitute unlawful practice" (Rule 135-6-.03(5)).

If the license lapses for failure to renew, the Board allows one reinstatement: "Associate level licenses (Associate Professional Counselor and Associate Marriage and Family Therapist) that lapse for failure to renew by the end of the established late renewal penalty period may be reinstated only once" (Rule 135-6-.04(3)). "Associate level licenses may not be placed in inactive status" (Board FAQ).

Renewal costs the same work as every other license the Board issues: "Thirty-five (35) hours of continuing education are required to be obtained within the two (2) year biennial licensure cycle to renew each license, including associate level licenses" (Rule 135-9-.01(2)(a)), with at least 5 of those hours in ethics "obtained through synchronous activities only" (Rule 135-9-.01(2)(b)). For the full CE breakdown across every Georgia license, see Georgia license renewal and CE requirements.

How the APC Ends in the LPC

The APC license exists to be finished, not renewed indefinitely. The statute sets the LPC experience requirement at "two years of post-degree experience under direction and supervision in a work setting acceptable to the board" (O.C.G.A. § 43-10A-11(a)(2)(B)). The Board applies that change through Board Policy VIII, approved November 17, 2022: APCs licensed before July 1, 2022 who meet the educational requirements in the current law "shall be allowed to move forward with the LPC licensing process by completing the required two (2) years of Directed Work Experience with appropriate Supervision."

A year, for this purpose, is defined: "a minimum of 1000 hours of directed experience acquired in not less than a twelve (12) month period," with "a minimum of thirty five (35) hours of supervision obtained during one twelve (12) month period of Directed Experience" (Rule 135-5-.02(a)7(v), 8(v)). All of it has to land inside a window: "all Directed Experience must be obtained within the sixty (60) months prior to the date of application," and the same sixty months applies to the supervision hours (Rule 135-5-.02(a)7(vi), 8(vi)).

For the full two-year path from APC to LPC, see Georgia LPC requirements. For how those hours and that supervision break down, see Georgia LPC hour requirements and Georgia LPC supervision requirements. Once the two years are behind an APC, the application itself is covered in Georgia LPC application.

Common Mistakes on the Georgia APC License

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FAQ: Associate Professional Counselor in Georgia