AB-1598 Behavioral sciences

What happened

The August 27 enrolled AB 1598 would revise counseling exemptions and licensing timelines. Its faith-based exemption requires work for a recognized faith entity in regular duties, no additional fee beyond customary compensation, no misleading licensed title and counseling limited to religious/spiritual context rather than mental-disorder diagnosis or treatment. Other professional exemptions have their specified scope. The proposal would also allow six renewals over seven years for the listed associate registrations and change experience/examination recency rules.

For marriage/family therapy, clinical social work and professional clinical counseling, the operative law-and-ethics clauses exempt initial-license and subsequent-registration applications received on or before January 1, 2030 from the seven-year examination age limit; January 1 itself is included in the exemption. A subsequent associate generally could not work in private practice without the one-time, two-consecutive-year hardship approval for one employer, required before work starts or continues, with good cause, joint signatures and a remaining-hours plan. Client disclosures would include unlicensed/supervised status and employer or volunteer entity. All these changes remained proposed.

Why it matters

Licensing and referral teams need the exemption conditions, cohort boundary and board-approval safeguards, rather than a general assumption of expanded unlicensed practice.

Sources

• AB-1598 Behavioral sciences, bill historyOfficial · California Legislature · 2026-08-31 · Source review 2026-09-10
• AB-1598 Behavioral sciences, current bill text (08/27/26 - Enrolled)Official · California Legislature · 2026-08-27 · Source review 2026-09-10