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.
Delaware, provision by provision
Delaware
Ownership openHolding: a non-licensee may freely own an ordinary Delaware corporation or LLC that employs BACB-certified behavior analysts. Delaware has no behavior-analyst license or registration, so ABA is not a professional service, no professional entity is available or required for it, and the corporate-practice doctrine does not reach it. Delaware's insurance mandate makes BACB certification the practical credential, but that is a payer requirement, not a state license.
This matters because the entire professional-entity analysis applies only to a licensed profession; an unlicensed service is not a professional service and is governed by ordinary business-entity law. Delaware is one of the last states that does not license or register behavior analysts. The Board of Mental Health and Chemical Dependency Professionals in Title 24 Chapter 30 regulates counselors, chemical-dependency professionals, and art therapists, with no behavior-analyst provision, and the national tracking bodies list Delaware among the states without a behavior-analyst law. A school-based behavior-analyst certificate exists on the education side, but that is not a professional license to practice.
Delaware's professional entities exist, but they are the vehicle for licensed professions. The professional-service-corporation and professional-LLC forms are available to persons authorized by law to render a professional service. Their availability presupposes a state license or authorization, so where the state does not regulate a profession, these forms simply do not come into play and an ordinary corporation or LLC governs.
The scope link is where Delaware's answer is fixed. The professional-entity forms reach only a professional service, and a professional service presupposes state licensure or authorization. Because Delaware does not license or register behavior analysts, ABA is not a professional service in the state, the professional-entity forms do not apply to it, and an ABA practice is an ordinary business governed by the general corporation and LLC law. No professional entity is compelled or available on that basis.
The ownership conclusion follows from the gateway finding and needs no separate doctrine to support it, but it is worth being precise about why no doctrine reaches back to disturb it. Delaware's corporate-practice concerns are oriented to medicine and operate, where they operate at all, through the licensed-professional requirements of the professional-entity statutes; they presuppose a licensed profession to attach to. Because Delaware does not license behavior analysts, there is no license for any corporate-practice rule to hook, and the professional-entity forms, which exist only for licensed professions, never engage. An ABA practice is an ordinary business, and a non-licensee may own it outright. The only way this conclusion changes is enactment of a behavior-analyst license, at which point the professional-entity statutes and any corporate-practice concern would need to be re-read against the new act, which is why the outlook flags Delaware's licensure bills.
Open ownership does not mean open economics, even in a state that does not license the profession. Delaware's profession-specific fee-splitting bars sit in the discipline provisions of the licensed practice acts and reach those licensees, not an unlicensed ABA practice. The operative constraints are the Delaware public-assistance anti-kickback statute, which reaches anyone who solicits, offers, or receives a kickback in connection with items or services reimbursable under a public assistance program, and the federal anti-kickback statute, which reaches any provider billing Medicaid or Medicare. Both bite the moment the practice bills a public program, regardless of who owns it. The practical consequence is the one common to every open-ownership state: a 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 exactly what these statutes police.
Reading the five together: behavior analysis is not a licensed or registered profession in Delaware (axis one), the professional-entity forms are the vehicle for licensed professions only (axis two), the scope link therefore never engages because ABA is not a professional service (axis three), the corporate-practice doctrine does not reach an unlicensed service (axis four), and the only live constraint is the anti-remuneration rules that reach public-program providers (axis five). Therefore a non-licensee may freely own an ordinary Delaware corporation or LLC that employs BACB-certified behavior analysts. Delaware is the analytical sibling of the other no-license states on this pillar; the verdict would change only if Delaware enacted behavior-analyst licensure.
This entity question sits alongside the other state analyses in the entity decision pillar and the broader ABA compliance knowledge base: how Delaware 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. Delaware is one of a shrinking group of states without a behavior-analyst license, and the state's ABA advocacy community has pressed for licensure, so a licensing bill in a future session is plausible.
What to watch. Any Title 24 bill creating a behavior-analyst license or registration; enactment would move Delaware from an open, unlicensed posture into the professional-entity cascade the other states run.
Disruption if it changes: Moderate. Licensure would make the professional-service definition apply and could bring the professional-entity forms and any ownership conditions into play.
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 Delaware 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 Delaware code and qualified Delaware counsel are the authoritative sources. Neither this page nor any secondary source should be relied on in place of direct verification and professional advice.