What entity should your ABA practice use, and can a behavior analyst form it?

The two questions that decide your entity

Almost every state's answer falls out of two questions. First, does anything in your state compel a professional entity for ABA at all? That gateway question has its own hub, the entity decision, and in 27 of the 30 states here the answer is no: an ordinary LLC owned by anyone may deliver ABA, so the professional forms are elections rather than requirements. New York and Illinois are the statutory exceptions, Washington is the doctrinal one, and seven states carry caveats. Second, given that answer, what does your state's entity menu actually offer, and what rules attach to each form if you choose it? Some states offer a PLLC whose members must all be licensed, a few offer no PLLC at all, and the professional corporation's ownership rules vary state to state. Work through those two questions for your state and the entity choice usually answers itself.

The spectrum: from a standard LLC to an ownership mandate

It helps to picture the states on a spectrum of how tightly they control the entity and its ownership.

At the permissive end, a pure ABA practice can use a standard LLC owned by anyone. Colorado sits here because although it licensed behavior analysts in 2026, the licensing act creates no professional entity requirement and no ownership rule, so a standard LLC still works with any owner (HB26-1425; C.R.S. Title 7, Article 80). Ohio sits here because it declared its corporate-practice doctrine dead in 2012 (ORC § 4731.226). Texas sits here for pure ABA because its strict corporate-practice doctrine is medicine-specific and does not reach behavior analysts licensed through TDLR (Occupations Code Chapter 506). Arizona and Utah are close behind, offering a PLLC but not forcing it, and allowing flexible ownership. The wide-build states add a second reason a practice can sit here: the state's professional-entity statute is a closed list that omits behavior analysts, so the professional form is not merely optional but unavailable, and the licensed-owner rule cannot reach the practice. Connecticut (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 33-182a(1)), Kentucky (KRS 275.015(26)), and Minnesota (Minn. Stat. § 319B.02, subd. 19) all work this way, as does California, where no behavior analyst license exists at all and the Moscone-Knox regime therefore cannot attach (Cal. Corp. Code § 13401(a)). New Jersey and Massachusetts write the elective principle into the statute itself: New Jersey's Professional Service Corporation Act says licensed persons "may organize" one (N.J.S.A. 14A:17-5(a)), and Massachusetts applies the professional form to an unlisted profession only if its board permits or the licensee elects it (M.G.L. c. 156A, § 2(b)(ii)). Nevada, Indiana, and Louisiana round out the permissive group on similar terms.

In the middle sit the states with no PLLC, where the practice uses a standard LLC or a professional corporation. Georgia expressly lets professionals use an LLC (O.C.G.A. § 14-11-1107(f)), Maryland permits the same and reserves its corporate-practice doctrine for medicine (Md. Code, Corporations and Associations § 4A-203.1), and Missouri's doctrine is light and lightly enforced (RSMo Chapters 347 and 356). The wide-build adds six more states without a distinct PLLC form: California, which offers no professional LLC to any profession; New Jersey, whose PLLC bill never passed; Louisiana, which legislates professional corporations profession by profession; Minnesota, whose Professional Firms Act is an election overlay on ordinary entities; Indiana, whose LLC may render professional services to the extent the licensing authority permits; and South Carolina, whose LLC Act is general and whose professional corporation is elective.

Further along sit the states whose professional forms carry licensee-ownership rules if you elect them. Michigan's PLLC and PC must be fully licensee-owned and single-discipline if used (MCL 450.4904), Tennessee's PLLC requires qualified licensees if elected (T.C.A. § 48-249-1109), Wisconsin's service corporation carries a same-field rule (Wis. Stat. § 180.1911), and Virginia's professional forms are same-profession vehicles, though Virginia law also lets an ordinary corporate entity render the profession through the licensee (Va. Code § 54.1-111(F)). In none of these is the professional form compelled for ABA: North Carolina's professional-entity statutes omit Article 43 from their list (N.C.G.S. § 55B-2(6)), and Oregon's LLC Act expressly permits an ordinary LLC to render professional services. The District of Columbia and Pennsylvania are open with caveats, the District because its 2024 rules are still maturing and Pennsylvania because its common-law doctrine polices clinical control rather than ownership. Florida sits here too, not because of its elective Chapter 621, which does not reach unlicensed ABA, but because its Health Care Clinic Act makes an ABA-only practice a licensed clinic unless it is a Medicaid provider (Fla. Stat. § 400.9905(4)(q)). South Carolina carries a "learned professions" doctrine its courts have applied to medicine and optometry and never to behavior analysis. And at the far end, three states compel the professional form by three different mechanisms. New York names applied behavior analysis in its PLLC statute and requires every member to be licensed or certified under Article 167, with proxies to non-members void (N.Y. LLC Law § 1207(b), (c)). Illinois imposes an explicit statutory ownership mandate: by January 15, 2027, every owner of an ABA business must be a licensed Illinois behavior analyst (225 ILCS 6/150). Washington's statutes are elective, but its Supreme Court states the corporate-practice doctrine as forbidding any business entity from practicing a licensed profession through employees absent legislative authorization, and the licensee-owned PLLC is the authorization (Columbia Physical Therapy, 168 Wn.2d 421 (2010); RCW 25.15.046); the doctrine is untested for ABA, and the conservative structure is the PLLC.

The entity types, explained

The vocabulary varies by state, which is part of what makes this confusing. A few definitions make the comparison readable.

• Standard LLC. An ordinary limited liability company. Some states let professionals use one for professional services; others require a professional form instead.
• Professional LLC (PLLC). An LLC for licensed professionals, usually requiring all members to be licensed in the service and often limited to a single profession. Most states in this guide offer one, but three do not.
• Professional corporation (PC). The corporate counterpart, owned by licensees. Some states require a single professional service per PC.
• Professional association (PA). An older professional form available in some states, such as Georgia.
• Service corporation. Wisconsin's term for what most states call a professional corporation, with a same-field ownership rule (Wis. Stat. § 180.1911).
• Professional company. Pennsylvania's term for its professional LLC, with a restricted-company variant for certain learned professions.

Choosing among them is partly a tax and liability decision, covered below, and partly a question of what your state actually offers, which is where the no-PLLC states change the calculus.

When your state has no PLLC

Nine states in this guide do not offer a distinct professional limited liability company, so the familiar advice to form a PLLC simply does not apply. In Georgia, Maryland, and Missouri, and in California, New Jersey, Louisiana, Minnesota, Indiana, and South Carolina, professionals use a standard LLC or a professional corporation, and each of the three reaches that result differently: Georgia and Maryland expressly permit an LLC to render professional services, while Missouri pairs a permissive LLC with a professional corporation that requires a certificate from the licensing authority (RSMo § 356.041). The practical effect in all nine is that the standard LLC is often the cleaner choice, and non-licensee ownership is more workable than in the strict states. The lesson of the no-PLLC states is that the entity menu itself is state-specific, so confirming what your state offers comes before deciding which form to use.

Can a behavior analyst form the professional entity

Even where a PLLC or PC exists, a second question can arise: is behavior analysis within the list of professions the professional-entity statute covers? Many of these statutes predate behavior-analyst licensure and define eligible professional services by an enumerated list. Where the list uses broad categories, eligibility is clean. Virginia is the clearest example, because it licenses behavior analysts through its Board of Medicine as a healing-arts profession, and its PLLC statute reaches the healing arts and the behavioral science professions (Va. Code § 54.1-2957.16; § 13.1-1102). Where the list is narrower, the answer can be no, and that is usually good news: Connecticut, Kentucky, and Minnesota each define professional services by a closed list that omits behavior analysts, so a behavior analyst cannot form the professional entity and, for the same reason, is not subject to its ownership rule. California and Florida reach the same place because they license no behavior analysts at all. Indiana defines "health care professional" by licensing board rather than by profession, so a psychologist and a behavior analyst may co-own one Indiana professional corporation, the only state in this guide where that is true (Ind. Code §§ 23-1.5-1-8, 23-1.5-2-3(a)(4)). Where the statute is principle-based, as in Nevada, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, a licensed behavior analyst may elect the professional form and is not required to. Where licensure is very new, the answer is worth confirming with the licensing board before relying on the professional form. The newest-licensure states, the District of Columbia in 2024 and the recent boards in several others, are exactly where this question is still settling.

The 30-state comparison at a glance

The table summarizes where each state falls. The form column shows the recommended or required entity, the ownership signal shows how flexible ownership is, and the last column captures the single most distinctive feature. Open a state's page for the full, cited analysis.

Three developments to watch in 2026

Three items stand out as the most consequential and the most fluid this year.

Tax treatment as a separate layer

Entity form and tax classification are different decisions, and conflating them is a common error. An LLC or PLLC is taxed by default as a sole proprietorship or partnership depending on the number of members and can elect corporate or S-corporation treatment. A professional corporation is a corporation for tax purposes unless it makes an S election, which in some states, Maryland among them, creates a meaningful default difference between the PC and the LLC. Several states also layer their own entity-level taxes, such as the Texas franchise tax or per-member professional-entity fees. Decide the tax classification with a tax adviser alongside the entity, and never let a tax structure introduce an owner the state's ownership rules prohibit.

Multistate practice and the strictest-state rule

If you operate in more than one state, each entity is only its home-state piece, and the states do not agree with one another. A non-licensee-owned LLC that is fine in Ohio or Colorado is impermissible in Illinois and New York and carries untested corporate-practice exposure in Washington. The practical consequence is that multistate groups usually standardize on a structure that satisfies the strictest state in their footprint, rather than the most permissive, and connect entities through contracts rather than equity where Illinois requires it. Illinois and New York, with their ownership mandates, are typically the binding constraint in any footprint that includes them, and Washington is the state whose doctrine makes the licensee-owned PLLC the prudent standard. The expansion and sale page covers how groups build for this.

How the entity connects to the rest of the guide

Entity choice is one layer of a larger compliance picture, and it pairs most closely with the capital question in ownership, MSOs, and private equity: this hub covers what entity you use and whether a behavior analyst can own it, that one covers how outside capital comes in, and they are the matched halves of the same decision, with the threshold question of whether any professional form is compelled belonging to the entity decision. The entity is built around the behavior-analyst license covered in licensing and credentialing, it is what gets enrolled and disclosed to payors in Medicaid and insurance mandates, it carries the facility and records obligations in facility licensure and HIPAA, and foreign qualification and standardizing structure across states are the concern of practice expansion and sale.

Common questions about ABA entities