Arizona delegates behavior analyst licensing to its existing committee from January 1, 2027; Louisiana repeals its board's 2028 sunset, effective August 1, 2026

What changed, Arizona. 2026 Arizona Session Laws, chapter 148, Senate Bill 1145, is effective from and after December 31, 2026, meaning its provisions take hold on January 1, 2027. Today, Arizona licenses behavior analysts through the Board of Psychologist Examiners, exercising its authority under A.R.S. Sections 32-2091.06, 32-2091.07, and 32-2091.09. From January 1, 2027, the Board delegates that authority to license and regulate behavior analysts to its existing Committee on Behavior Analysts, which A.R.S. Section 32-2091.15 already establishes within the Board. The Board continues to exist as the Committee's parent body; it does not disappear. What changes is who performs the day-to-day licensing and discipline work for behavior analysts specifically: a dedicated committee rather than the Board's general psychology-licensing apparatus.

What changed, Louisiana. 2026 Louisiana Acts, No. 872, House Bill 1076 by Representative Muscarello, repeals R.S. 37:3718 in its entirety. That single-sentence repeal removes a statutory sunset provision that had attached a July 1, 2028 termination date to the Louisiana Behavior Analyst Board and its entire licensing chapter, R.S. 37:3701 et seq. The repeal act itself contains no separate effective-date section; under Louisiana's constitutional default for an act that does not specify its own effective date, it took effect August 1, 2026, the date following the close of the legislative session in which it passed. The practical effect is straightforward: Louisiana's licensing framework for behavior analysts, assistant behavior analysts, and line technicians, built around the Louisiana Behavior Analyst Board since the mid-2010s, no longer carries any expiration date that the legislature would need to act again to avoid. The Board's qualification requirements, including the state-specific jurisprudence examination required of every applicant on top of national BACB-equivalent certification, are unaffected by the repeal; only the chapter's own sunset clause is gone.

Every Arizona behavior analyst or applicant is affected by the regulator change, since on and after January 1, 2027 the Board's licensing and discipline authority over them is exercised by its existing Committee on Behavior Analysts under delegation rather than by the Board's general apparatus, even though the underlying statute and licensing standard do not otherwise change. Anyone applying to the Board around the transition date should expect the same kind of agency-identity question Oklahoma providers are facing on a similar timeline: which body is actually processing an application depends on the filing date relative to the transition. Every Louisiana behavior analyst, assistant behavior analyst, and line technician is affected by the repeal in a purely favorable way, since a risk that was previously worth tracking, the chapter's own expiration in 2028 absent legislative action, no longer exists. A multistate practice operating in both states should treat these as two independent, unrelated developments; nothing in either state's change depends on or interacts with the other.

This is practical guidance, not legal advice. In Arizona, confirm with the Board of Psychologist Examiners which office, the Board directly or its existing Committee on Behavior Analysts, is handling a given application or renewal as the January 1, 2027 transition approaches, and update any internal compliance documentation that currently names the Board alone as the behavior-analyst regulator. In Louisiana, no action is required in response to the repeal itself; a practice that had been tracking the former 2028 sunset date as a planning risk can remove it from any compliance calendar, while continuing to budget for the state's jurisprudence exam and the absence of formal reciprocity for analysts licensed elsewhere, both of which are unaffected by this repeal. For the fuller picture in each state, including the complete licensing, entity, and ownership rules, see the Arizona licensing guide, the Arizona entity decision page, the Arizona PLLC and professional-entity page, the Louisiana licensing guide, the Louisiana entity decision page, and the Louisiana PLLC and professional-entity page.

A similar regulator-identity transition is underway in Oklahoma, effective November 1, 2026, where licensing authority moves from a state agency division to a dedicated psychology board, the same structural pattern as Arizona's shift to a dedicated committee.

Last updated October 2026.