Getting licensed as a social worker in Michigan

Checked against the Michigan Board of Social Work on .

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Your board, the portal you apply in, the fees, the supervised hours, and the order to do them in.

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Your first license

Limited Master's Social Worker (no exam, no hours; accrues 4,000 hrs; renewable 6x)

Limited LMSW

Exam comes after the first credential

No exam for this one. Michigan licenses you first, then you test.

Known fees

Fees the Michigan Board of Social Work publishes for the Limited LMSW
Limited Master's Social Work license, application plus 1-year license$44
Known total$44

What else it takes

Supervised hours
4,000 hours over at least 24 months, supervision: no single total, for the LMSW-Clinical
ASWB exam level
None for this credential
Licensure compact
Not a memberMultistate licenses are not yet being issued. Last checked against the compact's own site.
Last checked
1

Next step

Earn a qualifying master's or doctoral social work degree. Obtain a Michigan Limited Master's Social Work license before accruing Michigan supervised experience.

The ladder

Michigan has 4 rungs. 3 need an ASWB exam.

  1. bachelors

    LBSW

    ASWB Bachelors

    Licensed Bachelor's Social Worker.

  2. limited

    Limited LMSW

    No ASWB exam

    Limited Master's Social Worker (no exam, no hours; accrues 4,000 hrs; renewable 6x). Practice is supervised at this rung.

  3. advanced

    LMSW-Macro

    ASWB Advanced Generalist

    Master's Social Worker, macro designation.

  4. clinical

    LMSW-Clinical

    ASWB Clinical

    Master's Social Worker, clinical practice designation.

Requirements change

Nothing on our law calendar changes Michigan's exam requirement today. The change that does touch you is national: ASWB launched the 2026 exams on August 3, 2026 with three content areas and 122 items, and held fees at $230 Masters and $260 Clinical. ASWB's announcement.

Law calendar read . If Michigan moves, this page moves with it.

Already passed? Track your supervised hours toward your clinical license.

Michigan asks for 4,000 hours of supervised experience. Supervision hours: no single total (4 hours per month).

Checked against the published rule. Last checked September 6, 2026.

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Programs in Michigan

How first-timers from each accredited program here did on the ASWB exam. A rate built on fewer than 10 first-time exams is one or two people, so those programs show how close they are to that floor instead of a percent. Source: ASWB, 2025 report.

See all 23 programs in Michigan

Sources

We read the board's own pages. Nothing here is a guess.

SWTPA is not affiliated with any state board or with ASWB. Requirements change; the board's page is the source of record. This record is also available as JSON.

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