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Decoding the 2027 BACB Fieldwork Requirements

Picture of Madalyn Brock, M.Ed., BCBA

Our article on Decoding the 2022 Fieldwork Requirements was a hit! So, we wanted to put out some updated guidelines for trainees who are applying to sit for the BCBA exam in 2027 or after.

 

One important guideline for the new requirements is that these changes are taking effect now if you are a trainee that is applying to sit for the exam in 2027 or later. For example, if you are a trainee finishing your hours in January 2027- even though you are obtaining hours in 2026- you must meet the 2027 requirements for all of your hours. If you are unsure whether you will apply for BCBA certification before or after January 1, 2027 the BACB recommends meeting both requirements to ensure that your hours count.

 

There are still two pathways, regular supervised fieldwork and concentrated fieldwork. Let’s dive into the 2027 fieldwork requirements here, the changes from 2022 requirements are in red:

 

  1. SUPERVISED FIELDWORK:

2,000 hours are required total. You have five continuous years to complete these hours.

A supervisory period is one calendar month (for example, January 1st - 31st).

In this month….

  • You must accrue at least 20 hours, but not more than 160 hours.
  • There are no more contact requirements, meaning you do not have to meet with your supervisor for a minimum amount of meetings in a month. There are no longer minimum meeting frequency requirements; however, supervision must still meet all percentage and observation requirements outlined by the BACB.
  • At least 5% of hours must be supervised.
  • 1 observation with a client is required in this month, it must be 60 minutes This counts toward the 5% supervision requirement as long as your supervisor is watching in real-time with you (even if it is a recorded session) and giving you feedback about the session.
  • At least 50% of supervised hours must be individual per supervisory period (meaning not in a group).
  • At least 60% of TOTAL hours must be spent working on unrestricted activities, which I will break down below.

So, let’s say you want to max out your hours and get all 160 in a month. That means, 5% of 160 would be 8 hours. So, 8 hours would have to be in supervision with your supervisor. Of those 8 hours, 1 hour should be a client observation.

  1. CONCENTRATED SUPERVISED FIELDWORK:

1,500 hours are required total. You have five continuous years to complete these hours.

A supervisory period is one month.

In this month….

  • You must accrue at least 20 hours, but not more than 160 hours.
  • There are no more contact requirements, meaning you do not have to meet with your supervisor for a minimum amount of meetings in a month. There are no longer minimum meeting frequency requirements; however, supervision must still meet all percentage and observation requirements outlined by the BACB.
  • At least 5% of hours must be supervised.
  • 1 observation with a client is required in this month, it must be 90 minutes long. This counts toward the 7.5% supervision requirement as long as your supervisor is watching in real-time with you (even if it is a recorded session) and giving you feedback about the session.
  • At least 50% of supervised hours must be individual per supervisory period (meaning not in a group).
  • At least 60% of TOTAL hours must be spent working on unrestricted activities, which I will break down below.

So, let’s say you want to get 100 hours of concentrated fieldwork. That means that you will need 7.5% of 100 hours in supervision which is 7.5 hours total. Of those 7.5 hours, 1.5 hours should be spent doing a client observation with your supervisor.

Restricted Versus Unrestricted Hours

At least 60% of the total hours accrued must be spent working on unrestricted activities. This is a requirement for the total hours accrued (i.e. the 2,000 or 1,500 requirement)- it is not a requirement that must be met per month.

Unrestricted activities are the things that a behavior analyst will perform after they are certified. These include things like collecting data, training other staff and stakeholders on ABA programs and techniques, conducting ABA assessments, graphing data and progress, researching for a client’s interventions and writing ABA programming.

Restricted activities should account for less than 40% of total fieldwork hours accrued- these include hours the trainee is delivering therapeutic and instructional procedures to a client.

Remember, in one supervision period- you can have 100% of your hours be restricted or unrestricted activities as long as you don’t go over the total percentage limits for these activity types.

It is also crucial to make sure that as a trainee you are not counting hours that are not behavior-analytic in nature. These are things like attending staff meetings on organization specific policies and updates, administrative activities like billing and scheduling, and completing schoolwork and school-related readings.

 

Conclusion

 

I hope breaking down the requirements and providing examples has been helpful! As always, it is important to continually follow the behavior analyst certification board’s website for updates to supervised fieldwork hour requirement changes. Throughout your supervision experience use the BACB’s BCBA handbook to gain a solid understanding of the expectations and requirements for both BCBA supervisors and their trainees.

 

 

References:

Behavior Analyst Certification Board. (2025). Now available: 2027 BCBA and BCaBA transition guides. Retrieved from https://www.bacb.com/now-available-2027-bcba-and-bcaba-transition-guides/