Urge California’s Legislature to Reduce Laboratory Professional Licensure Fees

Join your California colleagues in urging the state legislature to reverse its tripling of state licensure fees

For 2026, the California Legislature more than tripled laboratory personnel licensure renewal fees and more than doubled initial licensure fees.  The Legislature’s change imposed one of the highest licensure fee burdens of any health profession in California, and it occurred with no meaningful opportunity for public input. California’s licensure fees are now by far the most expensive in the country. 

In addition, the Legislature replaced the previous biennial license with an annual license, doubling the compliance burden for licensees and making it one of the few professions in California with an annual licensure requirement.

California’s laboratory workforce is already strained. These excessive burdens could encourage laboratory professionals to leave California, deter new entrants, and worsen staffing shortages that threaten patient access to essential diagnostic testing. They could also push laboratories—along with the jobs and tax revenue they generate—out of the state.

Join your colleagues in multiple pathology and laboratory medicine organizations as we work to reverse these fee increases.  We ask that you contact your elected representatives in the California legislature using the action alert link below and urge them to reduce your licensure fees.

We encourage you to forward this message to your colleagues and friends and urge them to take action too.  Thank you!!!