Illinois social work license reciprocity does not exist in the strict sense. What the state offers instead is licensure by endorsement: the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) reviews your out-of-state LSW or LCSW credentials and grants an Illinois license if your original state’s requirements were substantially equivalent to Illinois standards at the time you were licensed.1Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Licensed Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Social Worker Licensure Application Packet Equivalent, not identical. If a piece of your education, exam history, or supervised hours falls short of what Illinois requires under the Clinical Social Work and Social Work Practice Act (225 ILCS 20), you’ll need to close that gap before the endorsement is approved.
What Illinois Checks for an LSW by Endorsement
Illinois recognizes two educational paths to the Licensed Social Worker credential. Under 225 ILCS 20, Section 9A, you qualify with either a graduate degree from a social work program approved by the Department, or an undergraduate degree in social work from an approved program plus at least three years of supervised professional experience after earning the degree.2Illinois General Assembly. 225 ILCS 20 – Clinical Social Work and Social Work Practice Act
If your original state licensed you based on a bachelor’s plus experience, Illinois can still recognize that credential, but you’ll have to document the supervised work on Form VE-SW. If a graduate degree alone qualified you where you came from, the path is cleaner.
One point that surprises endorsement applicants: Illinois no longer requires an exam for the LSW tier. Section 9A(4) of the Act is blank.2Illinois General Assembly. 225 ILCS 20 – Clinical Social Work and Social Work Practice Act Your original state’s exam history may still factor into the equivalency review, but Illinois won’t make you sit for the ASWB Masters exam just to get the LSW.
What Illinois Checks for an LCSW by Endorsement
The clinical credential has a higher bar. Under Section 9 of the Act, you need a master’s or doctoral degree in social work from an approved program, substantial supervised clinical experience after the degree, and a passing score on the ASWB Clinical examination (or an authorized alternative).2Illinois General Assembly. 225 ILCS 20 – Clinical Social Work and Social Work Practice Act
The hour thresholds depend on your degree:
- Master’s degree holders: 3,000 hours of supervised clinical experience after earning the degree.3Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Qualifications for Licensure – Licensed Clinical Social Worker
- Doctoral degree holders: 2,000 hours of supervised clinical experience after earning the degree.3Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Qualifications for Licensure – Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Total hours aren’t the only test. Under 68 IAC Section 1470.20, your supervisor must have met with you an average of at least four hours per month to discuss cases and treatment. Group supervision counts but caps at five supervisees per session. If your hours came from a state where clinical social workers aren’t licensed, your supervisor had to be practicing clinical social work and credentialed at the highest level that state offers.4Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Administrative Code Title 68 Part 1470 Hours logged outside those structural rules may not count toward Illinois’s requirement, even if the raw total is well above 3,000.
If you already passed the ASWB Clinical exam in another state, you don’t retake it. You ask ASWB to send your scores to Illinois.
Documents to Request Before You File
IDFPR won’t start reviewing until every third-party document is in hand, and schools and other state boards routinely take two to four weeks to respond. Request everything up front.
- Form ED (Certification of Education). You complete your section and send it to your graduating institution; the school submits it with official transcripts. Required of every applicant.1Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Licensed Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Social Worker Licensure Application Packet
- Form CT (Certification of Licensure). The licensing board in your original state and the state where you most recently practiced each complete a Form CT confirming license status, dates, and discipline history. The boards return it directly to IDFPR.5Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Qualifications for Licensure – Licensed Social Worker
- Form VE-SW (Verification of Employment/Experience). Required for all LCSW applicants and for any LSW applicant using the bachelor’s-plus-experience path. Your clinical supervisor completes the supervisor section.1Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Licensed Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Social Worker Licensure Application Packet
- ASWB score transfer (LCSW endorsement). You request this through ASWB. Each transfer costs $40 and takes seven to ten business days. If you’re enrolled in the ASWB Social Work Registry, one transfer per enrollment period is included.6Association of Social Work Boards. Sending Your Exam Results to Another State or Province
Fingerprinting From Out of State
Every applicant goes through a criminal background check by fingerprint, and prints must be submitted within 60 days of your application.7Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Fingerprint Background Check Guide
You don’t have to travel to Illinois for this. Out-of-state applicants can have a local certifying agency, usually a police department, capture prints on an FBI Fingerprint Card. You then complete the Identity Verification Certifying Statement (Form OOS-FP) and mail the card to an IDFPR-licensed Illinois fingerprint vendor that handles card scans. The vendor transmits the results to IDFPR.7Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Fingerprint Background Check Guide Vendor and background-check fees generally run $30 to $75.
Filing and What It Costs
IDFPR moved all professional applications to a new online system called CORE in late 2024.8Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Social Work You create an account, choose Social Work, and select endorsement as your application method. The application fee is paid electronically; the current amount is shown in the portal when you start, because IDFPR adjusts fees periodically.
Once you submit, the portal tracks incoming documents. Your Form CT from another board, Form ED from your university, and ASWB score report all arrive separately, and staff match each piece to your file. Status updates as components clear. Incomplete files are the single biggest cause of delay, which is why requesting third-party paperwork before you file matters more than any other move in the process.
Realistic cost expectations beyond the IDFPR fee:
- ASWB score transfer: $40 per transfer, waived with an active Social Work Registry enrollment.6Association of Social Work Boards. Sending Your Exam Results to Another State or Province
- Fingerprinting and background check: typically $30 to $75.
- Official transcripts: usually $5 to $25 per copy.
- Out-of-state license verification: some boards charge a fee to complete Form CT. Check each board where you’ve held a license.
None of these fees are refundable if your application is denied, which is reason enough to confirm you meet the Illinois requirements before you pay anything.
After You’re Licensed
Illinois social work licenses renew on a 24-month cycle. Both LSW and LCSW holders need 30 hours of continuing education per cycle, except for the first cycle after initial licensure, which carries no CE requirement.9Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Continuing Education Fact Sheet – Licensed Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Social Worker
If you bill insurance or Medicare, the Illinois license is only the first move. You’ll need to update your CAQH ProView profile with the new license number and practice location, then re-attest so health plans can credential you in Illinois.10CAQH. CAQH Provider Data Portal Provider User Guide Medicare providers update enrollment separately through PECOS or by submitting a CMS-855I to reflect the new practice state.11Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Enrollment Applications Insurance credentialing commonly takes 60 to 120 days, so start as soon as your Illinois license number is issued.
The Social Work Licensure Compact Is Not a Shortcut Yet
A multistate Social Work Licensure Compact is in development. Once operational, a social worker licensed in a participating home state and meeting national education and exam standards would be authorized to practice in all other compact states without a separate license in each one.12Social Work Licensure Compact. Social Work Licensure Compact
As of early 2026, the compact has been enacted in at least seven states, but multistate licenses are not yet being issued; implementation is expected to take 12 to 24 months from the point enough states join.12Social Work Licensure Compact. Social Work Licensure Compact Illinois has introduced legislation (HB 2473) to ratify the compact, but the bill has not been enacted. Until that changes, endorsement is the only route to an Illinois social work license for an out-of-state practitioner.