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.
New Mexico, provision by provision
New Mexico
Ownership openHolding: a non-licensee may freely own an ordinary New Mexico corporation or LLC that employs BACB-certified behavior analysts. New Mexico 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. New Mexico's autism 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 governed by ordinary business-entity law. New Mexico is one of the states that does not license or register behavior analysts, a status confirmed by the national certifying and tracking bodies. A behavior analyst practices in New Mexico on the strength of national BACB certification, which payers and the state's autism mandate recognize, rather than a state-issued license.
New Mexico's professional entities exist as an optional vehicle for licensed professions. The professional-corporation form under the Professional Corporation Act is available to persons authorized by law to render a professional service, and its availability presupposes a state license or authorization. Where the state does not regulate a profession, this form does not come into play and an ordinary corporation or LLC governs.
The scope link is where New Mexico's answer is fixed. The professional-corporation form reaches only a professional service, and a professional service presupposes state licensure or authorization. Because New Mexico does not license or register behavior analysts, ABA is not a professional service in the state, the form does not apply to it, and an ABA practice is an ordinary business governed by the general corporation and limited-liability-company law.
The corporate-practice doctrine is what, in some states, forces licensed ownership. The ownership conclusion in New Mexico is secured on two independent grounds, and both are unusually clean. The first is the gateway: New Mexico does not license behavior analysts, so ABA is not a professional service and the professional-corporation form never engages, an ordinary LLC governs and its ownership is unrestricted. The second would matter only if New Mexico later enacted a license, and it is decisive: New Mexico has no corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrine at all. A 1987 Attorney General Opinion confirmed that non-physician entities may employ physicians, and the Medical Practice Act requires only that individuals who practice medicine hold a license, not that a medical entity be physician-owned. Because the doctrine does not exist even for medicine, a future ABA license could not import one. A non-licensee may own an ordinary New Mexico entity that employs behavior analysts, and that conclusion would survive the enactment of licensure.
Open ownership does not mean open economics, even in a state with no corporate-practice doctrine and no behavior-analyst license. New Mexico's profession-specific fee-splitting bars reach licensees rather than an unlicensed ABA practice, so the operative constraints are the Medicaid fraud statute and the general illegal-kickback statute, together with the federal anti-kickback statute. The state Medicaid statute reaches anyone who solicits or receives remuneration, including a kickback, bribe, or rebate, in return for referring a person for a service reimbursable under the medical assistance program, and it reaches an ABA practice the moment it bills Medicaid; the federal statute reaches the same practice through Medicaid and Medicare. 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 precisely what these statutes police.
Reading the five together: behavior analysis is not a licensed or registered profession in New Mexico (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 Medicaid fraud and federal anti-kickback rules that reach public-program providers (axis five). Therefore a non-licensee may freely own an ordinary New Mexico corporation or LLC that employs BACB-certified behavior analysts. The verdict would change only if New Mexico 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 New Mexico 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. New Mexico is among a shrinking group of states without a behavior-analyst license, and licensure bills recur in states at this stage, so enactment in a future session is plausible.
What to watch. Any behavior-analyst licensure or registration bill; enactment would move New Mexico 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 New Mexico 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 New Mexico code and qualified New Mexico counsel are the authoritative sources. Neither this page nor any secondary source should be relied on in place of direct verification and professional advice.