BCBA, QABA and IBAO are three separate organizations, not three levels of one thing

This trips people up because the acronyms look like a hierarchy and they’re not. They are independent credentialing bodies. Each sets its own eligibility rules, runs its own exams, keeps its own register and defines its own continuing education. A credential from one isn’t a credential from another, and no board can grant, upgrade or recognize another board's certification.

Who is who

The question people are really asking

Almost nobody wants a taxonomy. They want to know one of these:

"Will an employer accept it?"

That is an employment question, not a credentialing one, and the honest answer is that it depends on the employer, the setting and the state. The check that actually settles it costs five minutes: search current job postings in your area and read what they ask for by name. If postings say BCBA, that’s your answer for that market, regardless of what any board says about itself.

"Will it satisfy my state?"

Ask the state licensing board, and ask it in writing. Where a state licenses behavior analysis it names the credential it accepts. A board's own description of its credential isn’t a statement of what your state accepts — only the state can say that. See our companion page on certification versus licensure, because this is where the two get confused.

"Can I transfer between them?"

Not in the sense people usually mean. Holding one credential doesn’t entitle you to another; you meet the second board's own requirements, from the start, on its terms.

Continuing education doesn’t travel between boards

This is the part that costs people money, because it’s discovered late.

Each board defines what counts toward its renewal, and a unit earned under one board's rules isn’t automatically a unit under another's. The same is true within a single board: for the BACB, professional development for RBTs and continuing education for BCBAs and BCaBAs are separate things with separate rules, and hours don’t swap between them.

What the boards themselves publish about renewal — and where one of them stops

We read IBAO’s own requirement handbooks rather than a summary of them, because the summaries are wrong. Of the four secondhand sources we checked, three understated the real obligation by half, and all three did it the same way: they quoted the CEUs you need before you certify as though that were the number you need to recertify. Those are two different figures in the same document.

From the IBAO’s current IBA Handbook (Version 4) and IBT Handbook (Version 3):

We said on this page earlier today that we would not print QABA’s renewal figures until we had read QABA’s own handbooks. We have now read all three — the ABAT, QASP-S and QBA candidate handbooks, downloaded from qababoard.com — and the renewal schedule the board publishes alongside them. Here is what they say, and where they disagree with each other.

Every QABA credential renews on a two-year cycle. All three handbooks carry the same sentence: all candidates must renew every 2 years. You can renew up to 60 days early. Lapse more than 30 days and a $50 reinstatement fee is added; more than 90 days and it is $100; let it expire for a whole two-year period and you reapply and sit the exam again.

QASP-S is the only one of the three whose current handbook prints its own CEU total. The January 2026 QASP-S handbook gives 20 CEUs per cycle, 2 of them ethics, on every row of its renewal table — and adds a requirement the other two do not have: 2 CEUs in comorbidities and 2 in trauma-informed care. The ABAT handbook states a minimum of 1 ethics hour and prints no total. The QBA handbook prints neither. Totals of 12 for ABAT and 32 for QBA appear in the board’s separate renewal schedule, a document last updated December 2022 whose table stops at April 2026 — so if you hold an ABAT or a QBA, confirm your number with the board rather than with us.

Two places QABA’s own documents contradict each other, which you should know before you plan around either. The renewal schedule has a column headed “In-Person” — 3 for ABAT, 5 for QASP-S, 5 for QBA — and none of the three current handbooks repeats it. Every mention of in-person in the handbooks is about supervision, not continuing education. We are not going to tell you that some of your CEUs must be earned in person, because we cannot establish from the board’s current documents that it is true; we are telling you the column exists so you can ask. And the ABAT handbook says there are two renewal deadlines, January 1 or July 1, directly above its own table listing four. The QBA handbook says four. Ask the board which applies to you and keep the answer in writing.

Checking whether a practitioner really holds what they claim

If you’re a parent or an employer, each board maintains its own public register, and that’s the place to check — not a CV, not a badge on a website, not an email signature. You check the register belonging to the body that issued the credential being claimed. A person may legitimately hold a credential from one board and nothing from another; that’s not a red flag by itself. Being unable to find them on the register of the board they name is worth asking about.

How to choose, if you’re still deciding

• Start from the job you want and the state you want it in, then work backwards to the credential those employers and that state name.
• Read the eligibility requirements at the source — degree level, coursework, supervised experience, exam — rather than a summary.
• Cost the whole cycle, not the exam: application, exam, supervision, renewal, and the continuing education you will need every cycle for as long as you hold it.
• Check the renewal cycle length and its continuing-education requirement before you commit, and check it at the board, not in a summary. That obligation is permanent; the exam is once.

← All our credentialing guides — eight plain-English answers to the questions practitioners and families actually ask.