Choosing a practitioner

Who may give acupuncture, and with what training, is decided country by country, and in most countries there is more than one route. One is a dedicated acupuncture qualification of three years or more. The other is a shorter course added to a health profession the person already holds, such as medicine or physiotherapy. Two safety reviews reported on this wiki mention training: a review of acupuncture in children found that many of the serious events might have been caused by substandard practice, and the review of adult studies on After a treatment notes that most practitioners in the studies it pooled were well trained. This page reports what each regulator or professional body says it requires. It ranks no route above another, and every page it links to was opened on 9 October 2026. Rules change, and the regulator’s own page is the one to check.

Training hours by route

The World Health Organization’s 2020 benchmarks for the training of acupuncture set out the full-training figures and describe a separate, adapted route for physicians and other health professionals, sized to what they already know. The 1999 WHO guidelines they build on asked for two years of full-time study, 2,500 hours, for non-medical practitioners, and at least 200 hours for a qualified physician learning acupuncture as one technique in clinical work.

United Kingdom

The Professional Standards Authority states that acupuncturists are not regulated by law in the UK and that voluntary registers exist. The British Acupuncture Council is a member of the Accredited Register scheme the PSA runs, and sets the entry training shown in the table. Its courses are accredited by the British Acupuncture Accreditation Board, at honours degree level, and graduates of those courses can join automatically.

Health professionals who are already regulated by law follow other routes. BMAS membership is open to most UK health professionals under statutory regulation, such as doctors, dentists and nurses, and to people on a PSA-overseen voluntary register who have completed its Foundation Course. The AACP’s members are physiotherapists regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council, and it sets its own training minimum, also in the table.

Premises are a separate matter. In England, section 14 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 requires an acupuncturist and their premises to be registered with the local council, where the council has resolved to apply the section; doctors and dentists are exempt. In London, the London Local Authorities Act 1991 treats premises offering acupuncture as an establishment for special treatment, which needs a licence, with exemptions for doctors, dentists and members of qualifying professional bodies. Wales runs a compulsory licensing scheme in which acupuncture, including dry needling, is a special procedure: the practitioner needs a personal licence and the premises an approval certificate, both from the local authority.

United States

Each state licenses acupuncturists through its own board. The National Certification Board for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine (NCBAHM, formerly NCCAOM) says a majority of states require its examination or certification; its state map, last updated in February 2021, shows California running its own licensing exam and some states with no acupuncture practice act. The Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine sets the minimum for an accredited master’s degree in the February 2026 version of its Standard 7, as shown in the table above.

Physicians follow different rules. The AAMA states that most physicians may practise acupuncture within the scope of their medical licence, and that ten states mandate a set number of training hours: 300 in Georgia, New Jersey, New York and South Carolina; 300 hours or six months of training in Louisiana; 200 in Maryland, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Virginia; and an approved course in Rhode Island. The training its own full membership requires is in the table. Dry needling, the insertion of needles into muscle trigger points, is practised by some physical therapists. The American Physical Therapy Association describes it as within physical therapists’ scope in some states and not others; Dry needling covers the method.

Canada

Regulation is provincial, and the provinces below regulate acupuncture through a college or order:

• Ontario: the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of Ontario states that the titles Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner and Acupuncturist, and the designations R. TCMP and R. Ac, are protected by law.
• British Columbia: traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and acupuncturists are regulated by the College of Complementary Health Professionals of BC, formed in June 2024 by merging four colleges.
• Alberta: the Government of Alberta’s occupational guide states that practitioners must register with the College of Acupuncturists of Alberta under the Health Professions Act, which requires an approved programme and the Alberta registration examinations; only members may use the title Doctor of Acupuncture.
• Québec: the Ordre des acupuncteurs du Québec recognises one college, the Cégep de Rosemont, since 1986, and admits by mobility people authorised in Alberta, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
• Newfoundland and Labrador: the Acupuncturists Regulations, in force since October 2012, require an approved programme and a registration exam, and protect the titles Acupuncturist and Registered Acupuncturist.

Australia

Australia registers acupuncturists nationally through the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia, one of the boards working with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra). Anyone using a protected title has had to be registered since 1 July 2012, in the acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine or Chinese herbal dispensing division. The protected titles are Chinese medicine practitioner, Chinese herbal dispenser, Chinese herbal medicine practitioner, Oriental medicine practitioner and acupuncturist. A practitioner registered in another profession may use acupuncture if appropriately educated and competent, and must present as a member of that profession. The Medical Board of Australia’s endorsement standard, in effect since 1 July 2022, requires a programme accredited by the Australian Medical Council and approved by the board, and a doctor may use the title acupuncturist only with that endorsement or with registration by the Chinese Medicine Board. The Chinese Medicine Board lists the accredited programmes, mostly bachelor’s degrees, plus one master’s degree in acupuncture.

China

China’s Law on Traditional Chinese Medicine, in force since 1 July 2017, requires anyone providing Chinese medicine treatment to pass the national qualification examination for Chinese medicine physicians and register to practise (Article 15). The same article opens a second route for people who learned by apprenticeship or have years of practice and proven skill: with recommendations from at least two Chinese medicine physicians, they can qualify by passing a practical assessment organised at provincial level, and then practise within the scope registered.

Germany and Portugal

In Germany, the additional qualification in acupuncture for physicians requires specialist recognition in a field of direct patient care plus the course training shown in the table, under the German Medical Association’s model specialty training code; only the version adopted by each regional medical association binds its members. Outside medicine, the Heilpraktikergesetz requires anyone practising medicine without a physician’s licence to hold a permit; the law does not name acupuncture.

Portugal regulates acupuncture as one of seven non-conventional therapy professions under Law 71/2013, alongside herbal medicine, homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, naturopathy, osteopathy and chiropractic. The Directorate-General for Higher Education reports that a bachelor’s degree in acupuncture, set by Portaria 172-C/2015, began in the 2017–18 academic year.

What this page cannot tell you

A registration or a membership shows what training a practitioner completed and which body hears complaints about them. None of the sources here compares the safety or results of treatment by route, so this page does not say one route is safer. Some of the bodies are regulators set up by law and others are professional associations that set their own entry rules, and a title such as acupuncturist is protected by law in some countries and not in others. The US state map dates from 2021, and several pages here carry no date. AcuiQ’s protocol entries record what a published study prescribed and do not say who gave it or how they were trained; What AcuiQ does not do sets out that limit.