CEU requirements
in plain English
📚 Know exactly which CEUs you need
🕝 Understand the renewal cycle
✅ Stay audit-ready
LASW Continuing Education (CEU) Requirements in Washington
After you become licensed, your LASW renews annually on your date of birth. CE hours are tracked on a 2-year cycle: 32 hours of continuing education every 2 years. Specific topic minimums apply on top of the total — see below.
Topic minimums each cycle
- Total CE: 32 hours per 2-year cycle.
- Professional ethics and law: 6 hours every 2 years.
- Professional roles and boundaries: 2 hours every 2 years — must be taken separately from the ethics & law hours (WAC 246-809-630(3)(b)).
Suicide assessment, treatment, and management
6 hours every 6 years (WAC 246-809-630(3)(d)). Counts toward your 32-hour total when taken during a reporting period.
- The training must be selected from the DOH's model list (WAC 246-809-615).
- Your first training must be completed during your first full CE period after initial licensure.
- Initial-licensure delay rule: if you completed qualifying suicide training in the 6 years before applying for initial licensure, you may delay your first WA training for up to 6 years after licensure.
Health equity
2 hours every 4 years (WAC 246-809-630(3)(c) / 246-12-830). Counts toward your 32-hour total when taken during a reporting period.
Acceptable CE
Per WAC 246-809-610, eligible CE must be relevant to the profession and contribute to professional competence. Specifically:
- Programs with a featured instructor, speaker, or panel approved by an industry-recognized local, state, national, or international organization (or institution of higher learning).
- Distance learning from the same kind of organization. Asynchronous courses must include a test of comprehension on completion. No cap.
- Employer-sponsored training — capped at 26 hours per reporting period.
- Other learning experience — capped at 6 hours per reporting period: serving on a panel, board, or council; community service; research; peer consultation; publishing articles in professional publications.
Excluded: courses primarily designed to increase practice income or office efficiency.
How to stay audit-ready
- Keep transcripts, instructor letters, or certificates of completion for every CE course.
- Spread your hours across the 2-year cycle — easier to track and cheaper than scrambling near renewal.
When does my license expire?
Your LASW expires annually on your date of birth. Submit your renewal — including the attestation that your CE hours are complete — before that date or the license lapses.