Who must be licensed to practice ABA in New Hampshire, and how do you get credentialed?

Is ABA licensed in New Hampshire, and is any bill moving

No behavior-analyst license, registration, or board was found. The Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC) board list, as captured on August 21, 2026, has no behavior-analyst board, and the table of contents of RSA Title XXX (occupations and professions), as captured on October 7, 2026, has no behavior-analyst chapter. The nearest chapters are RSA 329-B (psychologists) and RSA 330-A (mental health practice) (OPLC find-a-board page and gc.nh.gov RSA Title XXX contents, archived copies of the official pages). The state sites refused connections from the research environment, so these are archived copies of the official pages and not live reads.

No behavior-analyst licensure bill appears in the 2025 or 2026 sessions. A keyword search of Citizens Count, which searches bill titles and summaries and not full text, returned no bill for "behavior analyst," "applied behavior," or "behavior analysis" in either year (citizenscount.org bill search). The General Court's own bill status site was not reachable, so treat that as a lead and not a verified absence.

The psychology statute names behavior analysis

This is the point that separates New Hampshire from a plain no-license state. The psychology chapter's definition of psychology practice by a licensed psychologist includes, in its own list of activities, "behavior analysis and therapy."

RSA 329-B:17, I makes it unlawful, except as RSA 329-B:28 provides, for any person "to be engaged in psychology, licensed school psychology-doctoral, or licensed school psychology-specialist practice unless that person is licensed by the board or working under the direct supervision of a person licensed by the board." A violation is a class A misdemeanor if committed by a natural person and a felony if committed by any other person (RSA 329-B:17, I and II, archived copy of the official page, captured October 10, 2026). The exemptions in RSA 329-B:28 cover persons licensed or permitted under RSA 330-A, students and interns, clergy, unpaid volunteers, physicians and advanced practice registered nurses, credentialed school psychologists, federal employees, and the psychotherapy activities of employees or consultants of an institution or agency that provides clinical mental health services, supervises its staff clinically, and assumes responsibility for those services. No exemption names behavior analysts or BCBAs.

Two readings are possible, and we found no authority choosing between them. One is that the definition describes what a licensed psychologist does, so it does not make a non-psychologist's behavior-analytic work the unlicensed practice of psychology. The definition is introduced as "psychology practice by a licensed psychologist." The other is that behavior analysis falls inside the statutory scope of psychology practice, so the prohibition in RSA 329-B:17 reaches it. We found no board guidance, rule, opinion, or case on the point. It is a question for New Hampshire counsel before a practice relies on the no-license conclusion, and it affects ownership and entity structure, as the stack section below explains.

The credential tiers

The state defines no behavior-analyst tiers. The only Medicaid rule found that names behavior analysts is He-W 589, which covers school-based services. It lists Board Certified Behavior Analysts as "performing-only" providers and requires that they be "appropriately certified by the national Behavior Analyst Certification Board, and if supervising others, have a supervisory certification issued by the national board and be acting within the scope of that certification" (He-W 589.02(r), 589.04(c)(2), Cornell LII copy). No rule found names BCaBA or RBT.

The certifying entity: the BACB, by name

Unlike states whose mandates avoid naming a certifier, New Hampshire names the BACB in the insurance mandate. To be eligible for coverage, applied behavior analysis "must be provided by a person professionally certified by the national Behavior Analyst Certification Board or performed under the supervision of a person professionally certified by the national Behavior Analyst Certification Board" (RSA 417-E:2, I(a)). Certification by any other entity does not satisfy the statute's words, so a practitioner certified elsewhere should expect an insurer to ask for BACB status.

What it takes to practice

There is no state application, examination, or fee tied to a behavior-analyst license. Education, supervised fieldwork, and examination are set by the BACB. The state layers are the insurance mandate and Medicaid. Two things to separate: the credential the payer wants, which is BACB certification, and the licensure question in the psychology statute above, which the payer layer does not answer.

Title protection and scope

No title protection or scope-of-practice act for behavior analysts was found. RSA 329-B:17 protects the title psychologist and the words psychology and psychological in a title or work product, and that protection is separate from the scope question above. A practice should keep service descriptions and job titles consistent with that language.

Supervision rules

The mandate's supervision condition is a payer condition: services performed under the supervision of a BACB-certified person. The school-based Medicaid rule requires a supervising BCBA to hold the BACB's supervisory certification and act within its scope. No New Hampshire supervision ratio for community ABA was found, and the rules for community Medicaid ABA were not retrieved.

Renewal and continuing education

No state renewal cycle or continuing-education requirement for behavior analysts was found. The practical obligation is keeping BACB certification in force, because the mandate conditions coverage on it.

Getting credentialed: insurance and Medicaid

• Insurance mandate. RSA 417-E:2 requires coverage for pervasive developmental disorder or autism, including "professional services and treatment programs, including applied behavioral analysis, necessary to produce socially significant improvements in human behavior or to prevent loss of attained skill or function," and provides that "coverage shall not be denied on the basis that services are habilitative in nature" (RSA 417-E:1, III(h) and 417-E:2, archived copies, captured July 2025; last amended 2022, 337:2, effective September 23, 2022). The 2022 amendment eliminated the dollar caps. The Insurance Department confirmed that in Bulletin INS 25-018-AB, dated March 3, 2025, which withdrew the 2015 bulletin INS 15-046-AB and says it "should not be relied upon moving forward" (New Hampshire Insurance Department, archived copy).
• Medicaid. The Department of Health and Human Services published a notice that, effective September 1, 2025, it was adding code 97154, clarifying that code 97153 applies only to one-on-one services and is not billable for group settings, and discontinuing coverage of code 97155 because it reflects supervision and not direct treatment (DHHS public notice, archived copy captured October 31, 2025). CMS approved the related State Plan Amendment, NH-25-0020, by letter dated May 19, 2026, with an effective date of September 1, 2025 (medicaid.gov, SPA NH-25-0020). That amendment applies to fee-for-service Medicaid. A managed care plan's prior authorization form updated November 14, 2025 still lists 97155, so plans may treat it differently; this was not confirmed. A trade association, NHABA, also reported the changes.

The June 26, 2025 DHHS bulletin itself and the community ABA Medicaid rule text could not be reached. A practice billing commercial plans and Medicaid maintains separate files for each.

Practices with in-house diagnostics versus ABA-only practices

The psychology question splits the two archetypes more sharply here than in most states. A practice with a licensed psychologist in the business has a clear statutory footing for psychology practice, including the direct supervision language in RSA 329-B:17, and psychologists may be owners of professional corporations and professional limited liability companies under their own chapter. An ABA-only practice has no such footing and sits on the open question above. Neither structure is shown to be unlawful by anything we found; the difference is how much depends on an answer nobody has given.

New Hampshire-specific wrinkles

• Felony exposure for entities. The statute's penalty for a person other than a natural person is a felony. Read that against the open question before assuming it does not matter.
• The 97155 change. Supervision of a technician is no longer separately billable under fee-for-service Medicaid from September 1, 2025, per the DHHS notice. Revenue models built on billing supervision should be rechecked.
• No caps. The insurance mandate has had no dollar caps since September 23, 2022.

How this connects to the rest of your compliance stack

The absence of a behavior-analyst license has long been read to mean the entity rules do not run through a professional-entity form for an ABA-only practice, because ABA is not a covered profession. The psychology statute complicates that reading. RSA 294-A:1, VI and RSA 304-D now reach professions authorized under RSA 329-B, so the question of whether ABA is psychology practice feeds directly into who may own the practice. See the New Hampshire entity decision page and the New Hampshire entity structures page. A sale or expansion in New Hampshire turns on more than licensing: the New Hampshire sale and expansion guide covers notice, facility licensing, and covenants.

Becoming credentialed in New Hampshire: the sequence

1. Obtain BACB certification. The insurance mandate names the BACB, and the school-based Medicaid rule requires it for BCBAs.
2. Get New Hampshire counsel's view on RSA 329-B. Settle how the practice will treat behavior analysis and therapy under the psychology statute before building structure on the no-license conclusion.
3. Read each plan's ABA policy. The mandate sets the floor and has no dollar caps. Plan criteria vary.
4. Confirm Medicaid billing. Apply the September 1, 2025 code changes and confirm managed care plan rules directly.
5. Maintain certification. It feeds every gate above at once.

What this guide could not verify

New Hampshire state sites refused connections from the research environment, so most statute text comes from archived copies of the official pages. The items below were not confirmed against current official text:

• Whether any authority applies RSA 329-B to behavior analysts who are not psychologists, including board guidance, advisory opinions, or cases.
• Live copies of the OPLC board list and the 2025 and 2026 bill status on the General Court's site.
• The community ABA Medicaid rules, the June 26, 2025 DHHS bulletin, and managed care contract terms. A 2020 Medicaid to Schools guidance said New Hampshire Medicaid did not recognize RBTs as an enrolled provider type; it was not re-verified and may be superseded.
• The full text of RSA 417-E:1 definitions and which plans the mandate reaches.
• Any clinic license requirement for an ABA center under RSA 151 or its rules, covered on the sale and expansion guide.

New Hampshire licensing variables at a glance

Frequently asked questions