How to Check an ESA Provider's License in Your State
Every US state has a free public lookup for health professional licences. Take the licence number and name from the ESA letter, go to the licensing board for that state and profession, and search. A valid letter shows an active licence in the state where the tenant lives. No match, or a licence in the wrong state, means the letter is unreliable.
A licence number on a letter is only useful if someone checks it. Landlords should, and tenants should before they pay. This guide walks through exactly how, state by state, and what a good result and a bad result look like.
Why the licence check matters most
Everything else on an ESA letter can be typed. The licence is the one thing that connects the document to a real, accountable person who can lose their livelihood if they sign something false. Checking it takes two minutes and catches the large majority of fake letters, which typically carry either no licence number, a number that does not exist, or a number belonging to someone in a different state or profession.
For tenants, checking before you pay a provider protects you from buying a letter that will fail the moment a landlord verifies it.
What you need from the letter
The provider's full name as licensed, their licence type (LPC, LCSW, LMFT, PhD, MD and so on), their licence number, and the state that issued it. A letter missing any of these is already a warning sign. A legitimate letter puts all four on the letterhead or in the signature block.
How to look it up
Each state runs its own lookup, usually through the licensing board for that profession. Search for the state name plus the profession plus the words licence lookup or licence verification. The official site will be a .gov address or a state agency domain.
Enter the licence number, or the name if the number field does not match. The result should show the person's name, licence type, status (active, expired, suspended), issue and expiry dates, and any disciplinary action.
Common boards: Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council for counsellors and social workers; California Board of Behavioral Sciences; Florida Department of Health licence verification; New York Office of the Professions; Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation; Washington Department of Health provider credential search. Physicians are separately licensed by each state's medical board.
Reading the result
Good result. Active licence, name matches the letter, profession matches the letter's licence type, state matches where the tenant lives, no disciplinary action. Warning signs. Licence expired or suspended. Name does not match. Licence type does not match, for instance the letter says LPC and the lookup shows a nursing licence. Licence is in a state other than the tenant's, with no telehealth registration in the tenant's state. Fail. No record found under the name or number. This is the most common result for fake letters, and it is conclusive.Telehealth registrations
Several states allow out-of-state professionals to practise by telehealth if they register. Florida, Idaho, Vermont, South Carolina and Delaware are examples. If the letter's provider is licensed elsewhere but has a telehealth registration in the tenant's state, that registration is verifiable through the same state lookup and makes the letter valid. If they have neither an in-state licence nor a telehealth registration, the letter is on weak ground.
What SignMyESA does
Every SignMyESA letter carries the evaluating professional's name, licence type, licence number and state, and every professional in our network is licensed or telehealth-registered in the client's state. We also put a verification ID on each letter so a landlord can confirm it through our verification page in addition to the state lookup. Both checks should agree, and if they ever do not, we want to hear about it.
