Supervision Minimum Percentage

The supervision minimum percentage is the floor for how much of your total fieldwork must be conducted under direct supervision. This is one of the most commonly failed compliance requirements because it is cumulative and because the consequences of falling behind are not immediately visible. The minimum varies by fieldwork type: 5% for supervised fieldwork, 10% for concentrated fieldwork under pre-2027 standards, and 7.5% for BCaBA concentrated fieldwork under 2027 standards.

These percentages may seem small, but they translate to meaningful numbers. A BCBA candidate on the supervised track (2,000 hours, 5% minimum) needs at least 100 hours of direct supervision. A candidate on the concentrated track (1,500 hours, 10% minimum) needs 150 supervised hours — more supervised time despite fewer total hours. This is the core trade-off of concentrated fieldwork: fewer hours overall, but a larger share of them must involve your supervisor.

The cumulative calculation is what makes this requirement challenging. If you accumulate 500 independent hours before scheduling much supervision, you need 26 supervised hours just to reach 5%. But as your total grows, each new supervised hour moves the percentage less. Candidates who wait until the end of their fieldwork to address a supervision deficit often find it mathematically impossible to catch up without extending their timeline significantly.