Getting licensed as a social worker in North Carolina

Compact member

Checked against the North Carolina Social Work Certification and Licensure Board 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

Licensed Clinical Social Worker Associate (no exam to obtain; exists to accrue the LCSW hours)

LCSWA

Exam comes after the first credential

No exam to register. The Clinical exam comes after your hours.

Known fees

Fees the North Carolina Social Work Certification and Licensure Board publishes for the LCSWA
LCSWA initial application fee$145
Known total$145

What else it takes

Supervised hours
3,000 hours, 100 supervision, for the LCSW
ASWB exam level
None for this credential
Licensure compact
Member jurisdictionMultistate licenses are not yet being issued. Last checked against the compact's own site.
Last checked
1

Next step

Complete a CSWE-accredited MSW, DSW, or PhD in social work. Submit the Application for Certification/Licensure Packet with a $145 application fee and Form SSA-89 (required since March 30, 2026).

The ladder

North Carolina has 4 rungs. 3 need an ASWB exam.

  1. bachelors

    CSW

    ASWB Bachelors

    Certified Social Worker.

  2. supervisee

    LCSWA

    No ASWB exam

    Licensed Clinical Social Worker Associate (no exam to obtain; exists to accrue the LCSW hours). Practice is supervised at this rung.

  3. advanced

    CMSW

    ASWB Masters

    Certified Master Social Worker (non-clinical master's certification; a parallel branch, not a step toward LCSW).

  4. clinical

    LCSW

    ASWB Clinical

    Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

Requirements change

Nothing on our law calendar changes North Carolina'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 North Carolina moves, this page moves with it.

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

North Carolina asks for 3,000 hours of supervised experience and 100 hours of supervision.

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

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Programs in North Carolina

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 24 programs in North Carolina

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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