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.
Illinois, provision by provision
Illinois
Licensed ownership required; Act Section 150Holding: licensed ownership is required. A business organization may provide ABA only if every owner and equity holder who renders the service holds an Illinois behavior-analyst license, and non-licensed owners of existing practices must divest by January 15, 2027. The compliant structure is a licensee-owned clinical entity with outside capital held in a separate management company priced to the fee-splitting limits.
Yes. Illinois licenses behavior analysts and assistant behavior analysts under the Behavior Analyst Licensing Act, signed in 2022, with the license issued and regulated by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. IDFPR commenced issuing licenses on January 15, 2025, and unlicensed practice became enforceable in 2025. The license is a profession-specific credential, and the same Act, not a borrowed medical doctrine, supplies the ownership rule below.
Conclusion. ABA is a licensed profession in Illinois, and the Act that licenses it also supplies the entity and ownership rules that follow.
A professional entity rendering ABA through an entity must be licensee-owned. A professional service corporation may issue stock only to individuals licensed to render the same or a related professional service, and a professional limited liability company requires all members to be licensed in the service the company provides. This entity-level rule is reinforced by the Act's own ownership mandate in axis four.
Conclusion. A professional entity rendering ABA may hold equity only in licensees; there is no room for lay ownership inside the clinical entity.
Illinois defines the professional forms by general category, a service that requires the provider to be licensed by the Department, so applied behavior analysis is within both the Professional Service Corporation Act and the Professional Limited Liability Company Act even though behavior analysts are not separately enumerated. Pending bills HB 5171 and SB 3807 would add ABA explicitly to the list of related professional services, which would let analysts share a professional entity with related licensed clinicians, but the general definition already brings ABA within scope.
Conclusion. ABA is within both the Professional Service Corporation Act and the Professional Limited Liability Company Act today, so the entity and ownership rules apply.
Illinois reaches ABA ownership directly rather than through a borrowed medical doctrine. Section 150 of the Behavior Analyst Licensing Act forbids any business organization from providing behavior analysis services unless its members, partners, shareholders, directors, officers, and other equity holders are licensed. On the prevailing reading this requires non-licensed owners of existing ABA businesses to divest by January 15, 2027, and Illinois and New York are the only two states with an express licensee-ownership rule for ABA. Two qualifications bear on the rule. First, the clause carries a who-renders-services phrase that some read more narrowly than the prevailing enforcement reading, and repeal bills SB 3807 and HB 5171, introduced in February 2026, would delete Section 150 outright and instead bar only unlicensed owners, officers, and agents from making clinical decisions; as of mid-2026 both remained in committee and unpassed, so Section 150 is the live rule and the January 15, 2027 deadline stands. Second, the common compliance response is a bifurcated structure, a clinical entity owned by a licensed analyst over a separate management company owned by the original investors, built to the fee-splitting limits below.
Conclusion. Section 150 independently requires licensee ownership of any ABA business, with divestment of non-licensed equity required by January 15, 2027.
Open economics do not follow from the ownership rule, because the money rules are independently strict. The Behavior Analyst Licensing Act carries the standard Illinois disciplinary ground, found across the state's professional acts, against directly or indirectly giving or receiving a fee, commission, rebate, or other compensation for a professional service not actually rendered. Illinois courts have voided percentage-of-revenue management and marketing arrangements as illegal fee-splitting, holding that a flat fee for services actually rendered is permissible but a fee tied to a percentage of professional income is not (Vine Street Clinic v. HealthLink, 222 Ill. 2d 276 (2006)). Layered on top are the federal anti-kickback statute and Stark rules for Medicaid-funded ABA and the Illinois Insurance Claims Fraud Prevention Act for commercial claims.
Conclusion. A management fee must be a fixed or fair-market amount priced to the anti-kickback, Stark, and state fraud rules, not a share of clinical collections.
ABA is a licensed profession (axis one). A professional entity rendering it must issue equity only to licensees (axis two), and the general professional-service definition brings ABA within both professional-entity acts today (axis three). Independent of those entity rules, Section 150 of the Behavior Analyst Licensing Act requires every owner and equity holder of an ABA business to be licensed and requires non-licensed owners to divest by January 15, 2027 (axis four), and the fee-splitting rules constrain the management-company economics that a compliant restructuring depends on (axis five). Therefore an ABA business in Illinois must be owned by licensed behavior analysts, and outside capital must sit in a separate management company priced to the remuneration rules.
Outlook: how this verdict could change
Likelihood of change: Elevated. Illinois already requires licensed ownership under Section 150, and its terms are still moving. The verdict would change only if Section 150 of the Behavior Analyst Licensing Act were softened or hardened by pending legislation.
What to watch. SB 712 (in flux), the January 15, 2027 divestment deadline, and HB 5171 / SB 3807, which would add ABA explicitly to the professional-entity lists.
Disruption if it changes: High. Section 150 already forces licensed ownership; the January 2027 divestment is itself the re-formation event, with recredentialing and payor re-enrollment exposure.
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. That is especially live in Illinois right now, where Section 150 carries a January 2027 divestment deadline and repeal or amendment bills are pending that could change the ownership rule before it fully bites. Use this page to locate the operative provisions and to speak from the source, then confirm the current text and the status of the pending bills against the official code and engage qualified Illinois counsel before acting. The entity verdict is also only one layer of a Illinois practice's obligations, alongside the facility and records rules and the Illinois Medicaid enrollment that discloses the entity and its owners. Nothing here is legal, tax, or financial advice.
The provisions quoted here change and are interpreted by agencies and courts, and Section 150 is the subject of active repeal and amendment efforts. The official Illinois code, the current status of the pending bills, and qualified Illinois counsel are the authoritative sources. Neither this page nor any secondary source should be relied on in place of direct verification and professional advice.