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.
Minnesota, provision by provision
Minnesota
Ownership open; ABA not covered by the Professional Firms ActHolding: a non-licensee may wholly own a standard Minnesota LLC or corporation that delivers ABA. Chapter 319B, the Professional Firms Act, reaches psychology and several other licensed professions by name, but behavior analysis is not among its enumerated categories, so the Act's election-and-ownership regime never applies to ABA regardless of entity form.
Yes, and recently. Effective January 1, 2025, an individual may not engage in the practice of applied behavior analysis unless licensed under Minnesota Statutes Sections 148.9981 to 148.9995, administered by the Board of Psychology with a statutory Behavior Analyst Advisory Council.
Conclusion. ABA is a licensed profession in Minnesota, the gateway for the entity questions below, though as the next axis shows, the state's professional-firm statute does not reach it.
Minnesota's Professional Firms Act, Chapter 319B, lets a firm elect professional-firm status to furnish services in one of the categories specifically enumerated at Section 319B.02, subdivision 19, medicine and surgery, chiropractic, registered nursing, psychology, social work, marriage and family therapy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, architecture, accountancy, and law among them. For several of these professions, including psychology, the relevant licensing board has taken the position that election is effectively required to operate as anything other than a sole proprietorship or general partnership. Behavior analysis is not on the enumerated list.
Conclusion. No professional-firm election is available, or required, for ABA, because behavior analysis is not among the enumerated categories the Act covers; the ownership restrictions that apply to psychology and other listed professions under Chapter 319B simply do not extend to behavior analysis.
It does not, and this is a clean, enumerated-list answer rather than an interpretive one. Unlike a catch-all clause that might arguably sweep in a newly licensed profession, Chapter 319B's category list at Section 319B.02, subdivision 19 is a closed, named list, and it has not been amended to add behavior analysis since Minnesota's 2025 licensure took effect.
Conclusion. ABA sits entirely outside Chapter 319B's scope, a clear negative answer rather than an ambiguous one.
Ownership. No ownership-by-law rule restricts who may hold equity in a Minnesota ABA practice. The licensing statute itself, Sections 148.9981 to 148.9995, regulates individual practitioner licensure, not business-entity ownership, and because Chapter 319B does not reach ABA, there is no professional-firm ownership restriction layered on top either.
Clinical control. Because ownership is unrestricted at the entity level, clinical control rests with the licensed individual practitioners under their own supervisory and disciplinary obligations to the Board of Psychology, not with an entity-level ownership rule.
Conclusion. A non-licensee may wholly own a standard Minnesota LLC or corporation that employs licensed behavior analysts.
No behavior-analyst-specific fee-splitting statute was identified, consistent with the newness of Minnesota's licensure regime. The Board of Psychology maintains professional-conduct standards for the professions it regulates, and those standards may extend to behavior analysts as the Board's rulemaking under the 2024 enabling legislation continues to develop; this should be confirmed directly with the Board. Any ABA practice billing Minnesota Medical Assistance or commercial insurers remains fully subject to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark rules regardless.
Conclusion. A management agreement should be priced at fair market value to satisfy the federal anti-kickback framework; confirm the Board of Psychology's current professional-conduct rules as applied to behavior analysts directly, since this is a newly regulated profession whose disciplinary framework is still maturing.
ABA is a licensed profession in Minnesota, effective January 1, 2025 (axis one), but the Professional Firms Act's enumerated category list at Section 319B.02, subdivision 19 does not include behavior analysis, a clean scope exclusion rather than an ambiguous one (axes two and three). No separate corporate-practice doctrine or ownership-by-law rule fills that gap, so ownership is open at the entity level (axis four). No identified state fee-splitting statute constrains ABA specifically, though the Board of Psychology's general professional-conduct standards may apply and the federal anti-kickback framework applies in full (axis five). Therefore a non-licensee may wholly own a standard Minnesota LLC or corporation that delivers ABA, one of the more settled open-ownership answers among the newly licensed states in this guide.
Outlook: how this verdict could change
Likelihood of change: Moderate. Minnesota's licensure regime is barely a year old, and as the Board of Psychology continues to build out its rulemaking, a future legislative session could add behavior analysis to Chapter 319B's enumerated category list, particularly since ABA now sits under the same Board that administers psychology, which is already on that list.
What to watch. Any amendment to Minn. Stat. § 319B.02, subdivision 19 adding behavior analysis, and continued Board of Psychology rulemaking under the 2024 enabling legislation, including the still-developing non-BACB equivalency pathway and any professional-conduct rules specific to behavior analysts.
Disruption if it changes: Moderate. Adding ABA to Chapter 319B would newly require professional-firm election and licensee ownership for anyone operating as other than a sole proprietorship or general partnership, a meaningful change from the current fully open position.
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. Minnesota's newness cuts both ways here: the entity-ownership answer is clean today, but the same immaturity that leaves it clean also means the underlying regulatory framework, supervision rules, and professional-conduct standards for behavior analysts are still being built out. Use this page to locate the operative provisions and to speak from the source, then confirm the current text and citations against the official code and engage qualified Minnesota counsel before acting. Nothing here is legal, tax, or financial advice.
The provisions quoted here change and are interpreted by agencies and courts, and Minnesota's licensing regime is new enough, operative since January 2025, that mechanics are still being finalized. The official Minnesota code and qualified Minnesota counsel are the authoritative sources. Neither this page nor any secondary source should be relied on in place of direct verification and professional advice.