Getting licensed as a social worker in South Carolina

Compact member (confirm with the board)

Checked against the South Carolina Board of Social Work Examiners 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 Master Social Worker

LMSW

Exam required before the license

The ASWB Masters exam is required before the license.

Known fees

Fees the South Carolina Board of Social Work Examiners publishes for the LMSW
Initial application fee$45
ASWB Masters examination$230
Known total$275

What else it takes

Supervised hours
3,000 hours, 100 supervision, for the LISW-CP
ASWB exam level
Masters
Licensure compact
Member jurisdiction (swcompact.org does not list South Carolina as a member yet, so confirm with the board)Multistate licenses are not yet being issued. Last checked against the compact's own site.
Last checked
1

Next step

Hold a master's or doctorate degree from a CSWE-accredited social work program. Submit an application and pay the $45 non-refundable application fee (LMSW Requirements, 11/2015).

The ladder

South Carolina has 4 rungs. 4 need an ASWB exam.

  1. bachelors

    LBSW

    ASWB Bachelors

    Licensed Baccalaureate Social Worker (whether practice is supervised was not read on a primary page).

  2. masters

    LMSW

    ASWB Masters

    Licensed Master Social Worker.

  3. advanced

    LISW-AP

    ASWB Advanced Generalist

    Licensed Independent Social Worker, Advanced Practice (non-clinical independent; parallel to LISW-CP: 3,000 supervised hours and 100 supervision hours over 2 to 4 years).

  4. clinical

    LISW-CP

    ASWB Clinical

    Licensed Independent Social Worker, Clinical Practice.

Requirements change

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

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

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

Checked against the published rule. Last checked September 27, 2026.

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Programs in South 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 7 programs in South 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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