Interactive Map of State Constituent Chapters of the AAPA

Every AAPA constituent chapter and every state’s PA licensing board in one place. All 59 chapters, each link opened and checked in July 2026.

Tap your state on the map and you get two links: your AAPA constituent chapter and the board that licenses PAs in that state. Or search the full table underneath.

Those two get mixed up constantly, and it costs people weeks. Your chapter is a membership organization — local CME, state-level advocacy, job leads, real student scholarships. Your licensing board is the government. The chapter can’t issue your license, and the board won’t advocate for you. Most PAs end up needing both.

What is a constituent chapter, exactly?

Think of AAPA as the national organization and your constituent chapter as its boots on the ground in your state.

AAPA charters chapters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and six federal services — Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Public Health Service, and Veterans Affairs. AAPA says its state chapters sit inside five regions. It doesn’t publish which states are in which region anywhere public, so I’m not going to pretend to know — the filters on the map above are plain geography, mine, not AAPA’s.

Your chapter is the one that runs CME within driving distance, testifies at your state capitol, and knows which health systems in your state are actually good places to work.

Why should you care about your state chapter?

Because the rules that decide how you get to practice are written in your state capitol, not in Alexandria, Virginia.

I’m a family practice PA in California. My license doesn’t come from AAPA — it comes from the California Physician Assistant Board, one of only a handful of standalone PA boards in the country. Every rule that shapes my day at our county clinic was argued over in Sacramento. Not nationally. Locally.

That’s the whole case for your state chapter, in one sentence.

Four more concrete reasons:

1. CME you can actually get to. Most chapters run one or two annual conferences at a fraction of what the national conference costs once you add airfare.
2. Advocacy that moves your scope of practice. More on this below — it’s the big one.
3. Jobs before they’re posted. Chapter career centers and conference hallways are where PA jobs in your state circulate first.
4. Students get the best deal in the profession. Also below.

Which states have modernized PA practice?

This is where state chapters earn their dues.

In May 2017 AAPA’s House of Delegates adopted Optimal Team Practice — the position that a PA shouldn’t be legally tethered to one specific named physician. North Dakota went first: Governor Doug Burgum signed H.B. 1175 on April 4, 2019.

As of AAPA’s June 2026 update, AAPA lists 10 states that have eliminated the legal requirement for a specific relationship between a PA and a physician or any other provider: Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.

Two honest caveats, because this gets misreported constantly.

Several of these are hours-gated. South Dakota’s law, signed March 27, 2025, drops the collaboration-agreement requirement only after 6,000 hours — about three years full time. Oklahoma’s HB 2584, effective August 29, 2025, uses 6,240 hours. A new grad in either state still needs an agreement. Anyone telling you “PAs don’t need a supervising physician in South Dakota” is skipping the fine print.

And this is not independent practice. These laws remove a specific named physician mandate. They don’t expand your clinical scope, they don’t excuse you from practicing within your education and experience, and they don’t stop a hospital from requiring collaboration the state no longer does. AAPA’s own framing is practicing “to the full extent of your education, training and experience” — not autonomy.

One more wrinkle: Oklahoma passed its law but doesn’t appear on AAPA’s list of 10 — most likely because Oklahoma conditions the change on board verification of those hours rather than removing the requirement outright. Either way, confirm with your chapter before you rely on any of it.

Is it “physician assistant” or “physician associate”?

Both. And that’s not a dodge — it’s the actual, messy answer.

On May 24, 2021, AAPA’s House of Delegates voted 198 to 68 to make physician associate the profession’s official title. AAPA has since renamed itself the American Academy of Physician Associates.

But the title in law changes state by state, and slowly. As of July 2026, six states have changed it in statute — Oregon first in 2024, then Maine and New Hampshire in 2025, then Iowa in April 2026, Delaware in May, and Alaska in June. Two more, Kansas and Wisconsin, treat “physician associate” as equivalent without renaming the profession throughout their statutes — Wisconsin by administrative rule, and Kansas by a 2026 law that doesn’t take effect until January 1, 2027. In the remaining 42 states, in federal statute, and in Medicare regulations, you are still legally a physician assistant.

And your certification hasn’t changed at all. NCCPA still administers the PANCE, and your credential is still PA-C.

So follow your license. AAPA’s own guidance is not to use a title your state’s law doesn’t yet support. By my count at least 21 of the 51 state and D.C. chapters have renamed themselves — you’ll see “Physician Associates” scattered through the map above, and a few chapters whose own websites still disagree with their AAPA listing. It’s a profession mid-rebrand, and nobody should feel bad about being confused by it.

I wrote more on where I land in Physician Assistant vs. Physician Associate: A Rose is a Rose? — and if you’re writing your CASPA essay right now, here’s which one to use.

Do I have to join AAPA to join my state chapter?

No. They are two separate organizations and two separate dues payments. Joining AAPA does not enroll you in your state chapter, and joining your chapter does not enroll you in AAPA.

One wrinkle worth knowing: most chapters have a Fellow tier that requires AAPA membership and an Associate tier for PAs who aren’t AAPA members. At several chapters — California and North Carolina among them — both tiers cost exactly the same. And the difference is narrower than people assume: Associates at those two chapters can still vote on state matters, hold state office, and chair committees. What they can’t do is vote on AAPA business or sit in the AAPA House of Delegates.

What does it cost to join?

AAPA national dues start at $295 a year for Fellow Professional, and student membership is a one-time $75 that runs until you graduate.

State chapter dues are much cheaper and vary a lot. Here are actual published rates as of July 2026, so you have real numbers instead of a vague range:

Chapter	Practicing PA	Student
Delaware (DAPA)	$100/year	$10/year
Illinois (IAPA)	$160/year	$35/year
North Carolina (NCAPA)	$175/year	$20 once — covers your whole time in an N.C. program
Oregon (OSPA)	$175/year	$25 for two years
Pennsylvania (PSPA)	$180/year	$65 through graduation
Michigan (MAPA)	$190/year	$40 once
California (CAPA)	$265/year	$30/year

PA students, read that table again. Twenty dollars for your entire time in PA school is the best deal in this profession, and it comes with things that are hard to get any other way: Challenge Bowl teams, mentor matching, and real scholarship money. Georgia’s chapter alone awards two $1,500 scholarships plus a $1,500 diversity scholarship every year. Colorado seats its student director as a voting member of the board.

If you’re a student and you skip this, you are leaving money on the table.

What to know about your state’s licensing board

A few things the map above will tell you that most lists won’t:

• Five states have a genuinely standalone PA board that issues the license itself: Arizona, California, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. Wisconsin has one too, but it’s statutorily attached to the medical examining board.
• Three more states have a PA board that only advises. Texas has a Physician Assistant Board, but the Texas Medical Board approves its rules and issues the license. In Utah and Rhode Island the PA board recommends and the division or the Director of Health licenses. Useful to know before you email the wrong body.
• New York licenses PAs through the State Education Department, not a medical board — though NYSED does seat a State Board for Medicine, with at least two PAs on it, that advises on PA licensing. Connecticut licenses directly through its Department of Public Health, with no PA board at all. Michigan uses a joint task force spanning the medical, osteopathic, and podiatric boards.
• Three states run two separate PA licenses. In Nevada, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, which board issues yours depends on whether your collaborating physician is an MD or a DO (West Virginia includes podiatrists). Miss that and your application lands in the wrong pile. Maine is different and often confused with these: it has two boards that both license PAs, but you pick either one and a license from either is equally valid.

Every board link on this page points at a real government page, and where a state has a quirk like the ones above, it’s noted right in the table.

Your next step

Find your state on the map. Open your chapter’s site. Look for two things: the date of their next conference and the student or new-grad rate.

Then join. It is the cheapest professional insurance you will ever buy, and the people who show up at the state level are the reason the rest of us get to practice the way we do.

If a link on this page is broken or a chapter has moved, tell me and I’ll fix it. A page like this is only as good as its last check, and readers usually catch things before I do.

Thanks for reading — I’m rooting for you.

Stephen Pasquini PA-C

Need help with the rest of the PA journey?

• Applying? The Physician Assistant Essay and Personal Statement Collaborative and our PA school mock interviews have helped thousands of applicants get in.
• Paying for it? Start with Scholarships, Grants, and Loan Repayment Programs for PAs and my own story in How to Go to PA School for Free: The NHSC and Me.
• Deciding where to land? See Physician Assistant Salary and the 10 Best Cities for PAs.
• Studying for boards? Smarty PANCE is board review that will blow your mind, not your budget — and if you’re recertifying, here’s how to study for the PANRE.