Marriage & Family Therapist: how many are there, and how many are in private practice?

National totals

What this specialty covers

A marriage and family therapist is a person with a master's degree in marriage and family therapy, or a master's or doctoral degree in a related mental health field with substantially equivalent coursework in marriage and family therapy, who receives supervised clinical experience, or a person who meets the state requirements to practice as a marriage and family therapist. A marriage and family therapist treats mental and emotional disorders within the context of marriage and family systems. A marriage and family therapist provides mental health and counseling services to individuals, couples, families, and groups.

Reading the sole-proprietor share

For this specialty, 44,313 records, or 46.8%, are flagged in NPPES as sole proprietors. This self-reported field can indicate an individual practice arrangement, but it is an imperfect proxy for private practice and does not by itself establish ownership, employment status, independence, or current patient care.

By state

New NPI registrations by year

Counts reflect the year each NPI was first issued, among records still active today. The final year is partial: this data covers through 2026-01-11.

Data notes

• The sole-proprietor field is self-reported by the provider in NPPES and is an imperfect proxy for private practice.
• A sole-proprietor count shown as <11 is suppressed: the true value is below 11, which could include zero.
• The measure counts active NPI records, not a direct census of unique people, practices, locations, or service volume.
• State counts reflect addresses and reporting in NPPES, which may not correspond to every location where services are delivered.
• Providers are counted once, by their primary taxonomy code only.

Source: CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) Data Dissemination file, FOIA-disclosable public data under CMS-6060-N. Aggregated by Hero EMR on 2026-08-03; deactivated NPIs excluded; specialty assigned from the primary taxonomy code (NUCC 25.1). Counts below 11 are suppressed. Individual providers are never published. All provider data pages.

Common questions