NCSL + IJ License to Work extract · May 15, 2026
Occupational licensing statistics from the live extract
Key findings from the filled profession-by-state grid. These are row counts, confirmation flags, and composite burden scores, not advice on whether to pursue a license.
- Requirement rows
- 4,947
- Board-confirmed
- 54.9%
- Professions
- 97
- CA burden
- 28.5
Of 4,947 state-by-profession rows (97 x 51), 2,717 are board-confirmed (54.9%); California scores 28.5 on the burden ladder versus 65.0 in New Hampshire (mean 48).
Key findings
Standalone, citable statements from this extract. Free to reuse with attribution to PlainCredential (CC BY 4.0; cite the page).
- 4,947 state-by-profession requirement rows fill a 97 x 51 grid (every profession has a row in every jurisdiction). That is a complete extract, not a count of boards that independently license each title.
- 2,717 of 4,947 rows are board-confirmed (54.9%). The remaining 2,230 category estimates sit inside that census, not beside it.
- 26.8% of the 4,947 rows are Healthcare (1,326 rows across 26 of 97 professions). Same share as the profession mix because the grid is fully filled.
- 28.5 is California's composite burden score (#1 on this ladder) versus 65.0 in New Hampshire (#49). The 51-jurisdiction mean is 48. Lower score means a heavier documented burden, not fewer licensed titles (every state has 97 rows).
- 5,919 mean confirmed pre-licensure education hours for Psychologist (range 5,000-6,973, n=51 jurisdictions). Category-estimate rows are excluded.
- 4 confirmed hour schedules are identical across Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Speech-Language Pathologist (mean 3,459 hours, n=51 jurisdictions each). Treat that as one cloned vector, not 4 independent board schedules.
- $361 mean confirmed initial fee for Mortgage Loan Originator (n=51). The confirmed ceiling in this extract is $740 in California.
- 91.3% of 2,717 confirmed rows list an exam requirement (2,481). Estimates are excluded from that share.
Two cuts of the same extract
Compact membership is counted from enacted compact_members rows. The gauge is the exam-required share of confirmed requirement rows only.
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures Occupational licensing requirements plus Institute for Justice License to Work 3rd Edition burden scores · 2022 Compact membership is the enacted compact_members table, not free-text reciprocity notes on requirement rows.
How to read these numbers
Four populations stay labeled. (1) The filled grid: 97 professions times 51 jurisdictions. (2) Board-confirmed rows, where is_category_estimate is 0. (3) Category estimates inside that grid, not a second census. (4) Enacted compact members. Reciprocity_states is free-text boilerplate and is not counted as a reciprocity rate. Agriculture rows in this extract are 100% category estimates. Always verify current board rules before relying on a single cell. See methodology and the strictest-states ranking.
Download the state snapshot: licensing statistics CSV (CC BY 4.0).
Every figure on PlainCredential is rendered directly from NCSL and state occupational- licensing board data, no number is typed in by an editor. Key Findings recompute the filled grid, confirmed-versus-estimate split, burden scores, confirmed hours and fees, exam share, and compact membership from the live SQLite extract. No figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 15, 2026.