The five rows below carry the operative statutory language verbatim, each quote pulled from the official code. This page is one state from the full state-by-state reference. Nothing here is legal, tax, or financial advice.
The five-part test in brief
Whether an ABA practice needs a professional entity is a stack of five questions. The licensing act is the gateway, because an unlicensed profession is generally not a professional service and an ordinary entity governs. The professional-entity statute supplies the form and the ownership rule that applies if that form is used. The scope definition decides whether ABA is actually inside that statute. The corporate-practice doctrine, a separate body of law that often lives in the medical practice act or case law rather than the entity statute, is usually what forces licensed ownership and pushes outside capital into a management company. And the fee-splitting and anti-remuneration rules constrain management-fee economics even where ownership is open. The rows below run those five against this state's actual code, quoting the operative language so the position rests on the statute.
Arkansas, provision by provision
Arkansas
Ownership open, new regimeHolding: a non-licensee may own an ordinary Arkansas corporation or LLC that employs registered behavior analysts. Arkansas regulates behavior analysts by registration under Act 432 of 2025, not by the kind of license to which the professional-corporation and corporate-practice rules attach, so no professional entity is compelled. The verdict is provisional: the registration regime is newly enacted and still being implemented, and the Psychology Board's rules may address entity and supervision questions.
This matters because the professional-entity analysis turns on how the profession is regulated. Arkansas regulates behavior analysts by registration rather than full licensure. Act 432 of 2025, the Behavior Analyst Registration Act, created a state registration administered by the Arkansas Psychology Board and codified in Title 17 Chapter 97, the psychology chapter, and multiple 2026 sources describe it as a lighter registration framework that is still being implemented. National BCBA certification remains the underlying credential, and a counselor who delivers ABA also needs a counseling license with a behavior-analysis endorsement. This registration-not-license distinction is what drives the scope link in axis three.
Arkansas's professional entities live in Title 4: the Professional Corporation Act at chapter 29 and the professional-LLC provisions at chapters 32 and 38. These forms and their ownership rules attach to persons licensed to render a professional service, and they require the owners of a professional entity to hold the applicable license at all times. The forms are available to licensed professions and are the vehicle through which the corporate-practice rule operates for medicine.
The scope link is the pivot in Arkansas. The professional-corporation, professional-LLC, and corporate-practice rules all key to persons licensed to render a professional service. Behavior analysts under Act 432 are registered, not licensed in that sense, so on the statute's terms the professional-entity machinery does not reach them and no professional entity is compelled for an ABA practice. Because the Act is new and the Psychology Board's implementing rules were not final at the time of writing, this reading is stated as provisional and should be confirmed against the board's rules as they issue.
The ownership conclusion rests on two independent points, and both turn on the registration-not-licensure distinction from axis one. First, the professional-corporation and professional-LLC forms, and the ownership rules that require owners to be licensed at all times, key to persons licensed to render a professional service; a behavior analyst registered under Act 432 is not licensed in that sense, so the professional-entity machinery does not reach an ABA practice and an ordinary LLC governs. Second, Arkansas does recognize a corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrine, expressed through the medical-practice definition and the professional-corporation act and reinforced by an attorney-general opinion, but it is physician-specific: it restricts the corporate practice of medicine and requires physician ownership of medical professional corporations, and it does not reach a profession outside the medical chapter. A non-licensee may therefore own an ordinary Arkansas entity that employs registered behavior analysts. Because the registration regime is new and the Psychology Board's implementing rules were not final at the time of writing, this reading should be confirmed against those rules as they issue.
Open ownership does not mean open economics. Arkansas's professional fee-splitting bar is physician-specific, appearing in the medical-practices discipline provisions, so the constraint on an ABA practice comes from the Medicaid fraud statute and the federal anti-kickback rule, neither of which is confined to physicians. The state statute makes it unlawful to solicit or receive, or offer or pay, remuneration, including a kickback, bribe, or rebate, in return for referring an individual for a good, service, or item reimbursable under the Arkansas Medicaid program, and it reaches an ABA practice the moment it bills Medicaid; the federal statute reaches the same practice through Medicaid and Medicare. Together they mean ownership can sit with a non-licensee while the management fee cannot be structured freely. The practical consequence is the one common to every open-ownership state: the management fee must be fixed at fair market value for services actually rendered, not set as a share of clinical revenue or keyed to patient volume or referrals, because a percentage-of-revenue fee is precisely what these statutes police.
Reading the five together: ABA is regulated in Arkansas by registration rather than full licensure under Act 432 of 2025 (axis one), the professional-entity forms and their ownership rules attach to licensed persons (axis two), the scope link therefore does not reach a registered-only behavior analyst on the statute's terms (axis three), the corporate-practice doctrine is physician-specific (axis four), and the only live constraint is the Medicaid anti-remuneration rules (axis five). Therefore a non-licensee may own an ordinary Arkansas corporation or LLC that employs registered behavior analysts. The verdict is provisional because the registration regime is new and its implementing rules were not final at the time of writing.
This entity question sits alongside the other state analyses in the entity decision pillar and the broader ABA compliance knowledge base: how Arkansas handles professional entity formation and management and ownership structures, its licensing regime, the facility and records rules, and its Medicaid enrollment framework each carry part of the picture.
Outlook: how this verdict could change
Likelihood of change: Moderate. Act 432 was signed in April 2025 and the Psychology Board's implementing rules were still being developed at the time of writing, so the regulatory picture is the least settled in this batch.
What to watch. The Psychology Board's rules under Act 432, particularly any provision that treats registration as a license for professional-entity purposes or imposes supervision and ownership conditions on registered behavior analysts.
Disruption if it changes: Moderate. If the board's rules or a later amendment convert registration into a full license keyed to the professional-entity acts, the professional-corporation machinery could begin to apply.
Where professional advice is essential, not optional
Verbatim statutory text is a starting point, not a conclusion. Statutes are amended, agencies issue rules that fill them in, and courts interpret them, so the corporate-practice and fee-splitting questions in particular often turn on interpretation rather than the words on the page. Use this page to locate the operative provisions and to speak from the source, then confirm the current text against the official code and engage qualified Arkansas counsel before acting. Nothing here is legal, tax, or financial advice.
The provisions quoted here change and are interpreted by agencies and courts. The official Arkansas code and qualified Arkansas counsel are the authoritative sources. Neither this page nor any secondary source should be relied on in place of direct verification and professional advice.