Updated for 2026

Tennessee LMFT & CMFT Continuing Education Requirements

Tennessee marriage and family therapists must complete 20 continuing education hours every 2 years to renew their LMFT / CMFT license, including 3 hours of law & ethics.

total hours / 2 years

law & ethics hours

Biennial · renewal date depends on the licensee's birth month.

Tennessee LMFT & CMFT requirements

Requirement	Notes
Total continuing education	20 hours every 2 years.
Renewal	Biennial cycle: renews at the end of your birth month.
Law & Ethics	3 hours required each cycle.
Approved providers	Tennessee requires prior Board approval for CE courses unless the course is provided or sanctioned by one of the sponsors the rule pre-approves: the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, any state professional association affiliated with one of those national associations (for example the Tennessee Association for Marriage and Family Therapy), the National Board for Certified Counselors, nationally or regionally accredited institutions of higher education, and any U.S. state regulatory agency for marital and family therapy. The course must pertain to the practice of marital and family therapy. Anything outside that list must be approved by the Board before it will count, and courses must be offered within Tennessee unless the rule provides otherwise. Keep the course description and completion certificate in case the Board audits you.
Board audit	The board may audit licensees to verify CE compliance.

Keeping the proof in order: what to keep for a CE audit, with every state’s retention period and what the audit notice asks for.

Full board policy details

Multi-Media is capped at 5 of the 10 clock hours in each calendar year — 10 of the 20 hours per biennial renewal — and requires successful completion of a written post-experience examination to evaluate retention. The cap rises to 15 hours per renewal for a licensee holding two of this Board's credentials and 20 for three. Multi-Media is defined by 0450-02-.12(3)(a) as the Internet, closed-circuit TV, satellite broadcasts, correspondence courses, videotapes, CD-ROM, DVD, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and distance learning. Because the rule expressly folds teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and distance learning into this category, it is NOT equivalent to self-study: a live interactive webinar counts against the Multi-Media cap. Credits must be tagged multimedia for the structured cap to evaluate them.
There is no separately stated live or in-person minimum. The Multi-Media cap produces one as a consequence: at least 5 clock hours each calendar year (10 per biennial renewal) must come from traditional lecture/classroom formats or accredited graduate coursework. It is not encoded as a format minimum because the rule imposes no physical-attendance requirement — the constraint is the Multi-Media ceiling, which the cap above already enforces.
Excluded activities (0450-02-.12(5)(b)): regular work activities, administrative staff meetings, and case staffing; membership in, holding office in, or participating on a board or committee of a professional organization, business meetings, and banquet speeches; independent unstructured or self-structured learning; training specific to an agency's policies and procedures; and courses whose content is not counseling-related, such as finance or business management. Hours from these activities do not count toward the requirement.
Course repeat restrictions: the rule does not address CE credit for teaching or presenting a course and imposes no teach-once-per-period cap, and it contains no express prohibition on repeating the same course within a cycle for participant credit. Separately, CE hours earned to satisfy a disciplinary Board Order, or as a prerequisite to reactivation/reinstatement, cannot also be counted toward a renewal period (0450-02-.12(6)(d), (8)(e)) — anti-double-counting rules, not course-repeat rules. Tennessee has no CE carryover between cycles.
License status rules: Tennessee's inactive tier is "retired" status (0450-02-.11(2)). Retired holders do not pay renewal fees, do not renew, and have no CE obligation while retired. To reactivate a retired credential the applicant must document 10 CE hours begun and completed within the 12 months immediately preceding the date of requested reinstatement; these are replacement hours and cannot be counted toward the next renewal period (0450-02-.12(6)(a), (6)(d)). For an expired license, the CE documented must equal the hours that would have been required had the license remained active, completed within the 12 months preceding reinstatement (0450-02-.12(6)(c)). For reinstatement after revocation for CE noncompliance, CE accrues at the active rate within the 12 months preceding reinstatement (0450-02-.12(6)(b)). The structured reactivation requirement approximates this with a 10-hour total because the engine measures the renewal window, not the 12 months before a reinstatement application.
Hardship waiver or extension: the Board may waive the required hours or extend the deadline only where compliance is beyond the physical or mental capabilities of the person seeking relief. A signed written request identifying the requirement or deadline and the reason, with supporting documentation, must be submitted before December 31 of the calendar year the CE is due, and a grant is effective only for that calendar year (0450-02-.12(7)).
Multi-credential aggregation: a licensee holding two of this Board's credentials (professional counselor, marital and family therapist, clinical pastoral therapist) must complete 15 clock hours per calendar year, and three credentials require 20 clock hours per calendar year, with at least 5 hours each year directly related to each profession held (0450-02-.12(1)(b)). The per-profession 5-hour split is a manual check; the structured totals cover the aggregate 30- and 40-hour biennial figures. Ethics and jurisprudence remains 3 hours every two years in total, not 3 per credential.
New-licensee suicide-prevention deferral: an applicant for initial licensure on or after January 1, 2020 is not required to complete a suicide-prevention training program for two years after initial licensure if they demonstrate successful completion of a qualifying 2-hour academic training program completed no more than two years before application (0450-02-.12(1)(d)2). Encoded structurally via applies_when on the suicide_prevention requirement — suppressed when this is the licensee's first renewal AND the academic training was submitted at licensure.
No CE is required during the calendar year in which the license or certificate was initially approved (0450-02-.12(1)(e)). Because the accrual window is the two calendar years preceding the renewal year and the engine does not know the approval date, this exemption remains a manual first-renewal check rather than a structured override.
Approved-provider detail for 0450-02-.12(5)(a)1. Accredited institutions of higher education are pre-approved SPONSORS, not an exemption from the approval requirement — academic coursework counts because the institution is on the pre-approved list, so no activity_type_exemption applies. Pre-approved sponsors (0450-02-.12(5)(a)1) — courses pertaining to the practice of marital and family therapy that are provided or sanctioned by any of these are approved without a separate submission: (i) American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy; (ii) American Association of Pastoral Counselors; (iii) American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists; (iv) American Counseling Association; (v) American Psychiatric Association; (vi) American Psychological Association; (vii) National Association of Social Workers; (viii) any state professional association affiliated with one of the national associations in (i)–(vii) — the affiliation is what confers the pre-approval, so an unaffiliated state association must still seek Board approval; (ix) National Board for Certified Counselors; (x) nationally or regionally accredited institutions of higher education, for both graduate and continuing-education courses; and (xi) any state regulatory agency for marital and family therapy in the United States. Everything else requires prior Board approval, either by the provider (0450-02-.12(5)(a)2) or by the individual licensee (0450-02-.12(5)(a)3). There is no minimum-percentage split: every creditable hour must be pre-approved or individually approved.
Courses must be offered within Tennessee unless the rule provides otherwise. Geographic requirement (0450-02-.12(5)): "Unless otherwise provided, all courses shall be offered within Tennessee." The pre-approved sponsors in (5)(a)1 are the principal exception. A provider located in a state bordering Tennessee may also seek Board approval where it is a regulatory agency or a professional association, and an individual licensee may request approval of a specific course. The engine does not evaluate where a course was offered, so out-of-state coursework outside those exceptions is a manual check.

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Tennessee LMFT & CMFT CE: frequently asked questions

How many CE hours do Tennessee LMFT / CMFT licensees need?

Tennessee requires 20 continuing education hours every 2 years to renew a LMFT / CMFT license. Biennial cycle: renews at the end of your birth month.

How many ethics hours are required for Tennessee LMFT / CMFT licensees?

Of the total, 3 hours must be in law & ethics.

How often do Tennessee LMFT / CMFT licensees renew?

Biennial cycle: renews at the end of your birth month.

Sources & verification

State source: Tennessee board rule
Last verified: August 2026
Ruleset version: 2026.1

Reviewed against the Tennessee board source and refreshed from the compiled ruleset above. Methodology and disclaimer. Compliance data is for guidance only, not legal or board advice. Always confirm requirements with your licensing board before renewing. See something wrong? Report it →

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Tennesseeguides & data

What to keep for a CE audit

What boards ask for in a CE audit, how long each state says to keep certificates, what the notice looks like, and a printable checklist.

Tennessee mental health workforce data

19,801 active providers, or 270.7 per 100,000 residents, ranked 47 of 51. County density map and free CSV downloads.

Other Tennessee CE requirement pages

Tennessee LPC Tennessee LCSW Tennessee Psychologist