Which States Are Dropping the ASWB Masters Exam, and What That Changes for Your Prep

Five jurisdictions have already removed or suspended the ASWB Masters exam for the first social work license, and three more have bills pending. If you are in one of them, the exam you skip is the masters one. The clinical exam is still there at the end of your supervised hours, which means your prep moves later rather than disappearing.

Here is what the statutes and board pages actually say, state by state.

Where it is already gone

Illinois has required no ASWB examination for the Licensed Social Worker since January 1, 2022, under Public Act 102-0326. An MSW graduate needs no supervised experience and no national exam to hold the LSW (Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation).

Colorado eliminated the ASWB Masters exam for the LSW through SB 24-115. The state still runs its own jurisprudence exam (Colorado General Assembly).

Connecticut is on a waiver rather than a repeal. HB 5166 extended the masters-level ASWB exam waiver through June 30, 2029, after the prior waiver expired at the start of 2026 (Connecticut General Assembly). The word to hold onto is "through." Unless the legislature acts again, the requirement comes back.

Rhode Island does not require a national exam for the Clinical Social Work license until at least August 15, 2030. The LICSW remains exam-based (Rhode Island Department of Health).

The District of Columbia does not require a national exam for the initial LGSW. Before your first renewal you have to do one of two things: pass the national exam, or complete 1,500 hours of supervised practice (DC Code 3-1208.02). That is a choice, not a removal, and it is worth making deliberately rather than by default.

Where bills are pending

These are bills. None of them is law, and none of them changes anything about your license today.

New York. A701 and S988 would repeal the ASWB examination requirement for the LMSW, effective immediately if enacted (New York State Senate).

Washington. HB 2286 and SB 6060 would eliminate the exam for the Advanced Social Worker credential and substitute enhanced LICSW supervision plus a supervisor attestation. A 2026 House executive session came and went with no action taken (Washington State Legislature).

Michigan. SB 845 proposes an exam-waiver route for applicants who fail the applicable social work exam and then complete 2,000 additional supervised post-degree hours (Michigan Legislature).

Bills die quietly all the time. Plan for the law as it stands and treat any of these passing as a bonus.

The part nobody says out loud: the clinical exam did not move

In every one of these states, the ASWB Clinical exam is still the gate on the independent clinical license.

Illinois requires the Clinical exam for the LCSW, with one statutory alternative for candidates who attempted the exam since 2019 and complete an additional 3,000 supervised hours (IDFPR). Colorado requires the Clinical exam plus the state jurisprudence exam after 3,360 hours over at least 24 months (Colorado General Assembly). Connecticut requires it for the LCSW after 3,000 post-master's hours (Connecticut Department of Public Health). Rhode Island requires it for the LICSW (Rhode Island Department of Health). DC requires it for the LICSW after 3,000 hours over two to four years (DC Code 3-1208.02).

So the honest version of the headline is this. Dropping the masters exam removes a cost and a delay at the front of your career. It does not remove a test from your life. It moves the one test that matters to the end of two to four years of supervised practice, when you are working full time, carrying a caseload, and much further from your coursework than you were the month you graduated.

That is a harder exam to prepare for, not an easier one.

What to do with the years in between

If you are in Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Rhode Island, or DC, three things are worth doing now.

Get licensed immediately. Your credential does not wait on a test score, so the fastest path to a supervised job is paperwork, not studying.

Start logging hours the day you are approved, and log them the way your board wants them counted. Hour requirements come with structure attached: direct-client minimums, individual supervision minimums, minimum elapsed months. Colorado, for instance, requires 96 supervision hours with 48 of them individual across its 3,360 (Colorado General Assembly).

Keep a small clinical-content habit running through the whole stretch. Twenty questions a week for three years is roughly 3,000 questions, and it costs you fifteen minutes. The alternative is trying to rebuild diagnostic and intervention knowledge from scratch in the eighth week of a licensing crunch.

One caution about planning around change

The waivers have dates on them. Connecticut's runs out June 30, 2029, and Rhode Island's protection runs to at least August 15, 2030. If you graduate into a waiver and stall on the license for a few years, you can land back in an exam requirement you thought was gone.

Check your own state's current rule at /licensing, or go straight to your state page at /licensing/il, /licensing/ct, /licensing/dc, and so on with the two-letter abbreviation in lowercase.

And if you are in one of the pending-bill states, register for the exam you actually have to take today. A bill in committee has never licensed anybody.