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.
Virginia, provision by provision
Virginia
Ownership open; professional entity optionalYes, and the protection runs to both the practice and the title. Behavior analysts are licensed by the Board of Medicine under Title 54.1, Chapter 29, the Medicine and Other Healing Arts chapter, as practitioners of the healing arts. It is unlawful to practice applied behavior analysis without that license, not merely to use the title. Licensure alone, however, does not force the practice into a professional entity.
Virginia does not require a licensed practice to use a professional entity. Virginia law provides that nothing prevents a corporate entity that employs or contracts with a licensed individual from rendering the licensed profession through that individual (Va. Code § 54.1-111(F)), and the entity types that provision reaches expressly include an ordinary stock or nonstock corporation and an ordinary limited liability company (Va. Code §§ 13.1-542.1(3), 13.1-1101.1), so an ordinary LLC may render ABA. The professional LLC and professional corporation restrict ownership to same-profession licensees only if one of those forms is used.
Conclusion. A non-licensee may own a standard Virginia LLC that delivers ABA; the all-licensed rule applies only inside a professional LLC or corporation.
Only a few professions, such as attorneys and dentists, are actually required to use a professional form in Virginia. A healing-arts practice may render the service through an ordinary LLC under Va. Code § 54.1-111(F), so ABA is not confined to a professional entity even though the professional-entity statutes would also accept it.
Conclusion. ABA may be rendered through an ordinary LLC, so no licensed-ownership rule attaches by virtue of the entity form.
Virginia's medical-practice provisions bar unlicensed practice, but Virginia has no specific corporate-practice-of-medicine statute and only an implicit, medicine-focused doctrine (Va. Code § 54.1-2902; Family Care Center, Inc. v. Parikh). That doctrine polices clinical control, not ownership, so it does not bar non-licensee ownership of an ABA practice.
Conclusion. The implicit corporate-practice doctrine polices clinical control rather than ownership, so it imposes no licensed-ownership requirement.
Virginia's fee-division statute, Va. Code § 54.1-2962, by its terms binds only a physician licensed to practice medicine or osteopathy, so it does not reach behavior analysts directly. For an ABA practice the operative remuneration constraints are federal, principally the Medicaid anti-kickback rules, together with payor contract terms and the Board of Medicine's standards of practice and behavior-analyst regulations.
Conclusion. Management-fee economics are governed mainly by the federal anti-kickback and payor rules; the state physician fee-division statute does not reach ABA.
Outlook: how this verdict could change
Likelihood of change: Low. Virginia is not among the 2025 ownership-tightening states, and § 54.1-111(F) is a recent, affirmatively permissive provision. The verdict would change only if § 54.1-111(F), which lets a corporate entity render a profession through a licensed individual, were repealed or narrowed, or a corporate-practice statute were enacted to reach ABA.
What to watch. Virginia professional-entity and healthcare-transaction activity; no bill currently targets § 54.1-111(F).
Disruption if it changes: Moderate. Repeal of § 54.1-111(F) would push ABA into a professional entity and force re-formation; it is unlikely, but high-cost if it happened.
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 Virginia counsel before acting. The entity verdict is also only one layer of a Virginia practice's obligations, alongside the facility and records rules and the Virginia 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. The official Code of Virginia and qualified Virginia counsel are the authoritative sources. Neither this page nor any secondary source should be relied on in place of direct verification and professional advice.