As of September 2026, Colorado is the only US jurisdiction where the veterinary professional associate (VPA) — the profession's proposed mid-level role — exists in enacted law, and even there nobody has yet registered to practice: the required national credentialing exam is still in development, and Colorado's regulator projects first registrations no earlier than late 2026.
Florida came closest to becoming the second state; its 2026 bill died on the legislative calendar.
Where the role stands, state by state
Only one row of this table has a checkmark in it.
Colorado voters enacted the role by ballot initiative in November 2024 and the legislature layered operating rules on top in 2025 — but the credentialing exam the framework depends on has not been built yet, so no one is registered or practicing as a VPA anywhere in the United States as of this tracker's verification date, September 16, 2026.
Every status below carries its date; none of it should be quoted as current after a legislative session you haven't checked.
| Jurisdiction | Status | Detail, as of Sept 16, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Enacted — registrations not yet possible | Prop 129 passed Nov 5, 2024 (52.76%–47.24%); HB25-1285 signed May 30, 2025, effective Jan 1, 2026; the 2025 law's rulemaking still in progress; national exam in development; first registrations projected no earlier than late 2026 (Colorado DORA) |
| Florida | Bill died — no law | CS/SB 796 cleared all three Senate committees (9–0, 11–0, 21–1) before dying on the calendar Mar 13, 2026; companion H 805 died in Rules the same day; the 2025 bill did not pass |
| Every other state | No 2025–26 bill found | AVMA's own legislative tracking names Colorado and Florida as the only states with mid-level-practitioner bills in the 2025 or 2026 sessions |
"Authorized" is doing deliberate work in this page's title.
A state can enact a framework (Colorado), legislate hard and still end up with nothing (Florida in 2026), or never file a bill at all (the other 48, as far as current tracking shows) — and even the first of those only creates the possibility of practice, which Colorado's own registration bottleneck then defers.
Nothing about adoption status here is evergreen, by design.
What this page deliberately does not do is re-litigate whether the role should exist.
The arguments, the association positions, the campaign funding — both sides in their own words — are the case for and against the mid-level practitioner's subject.
Everything below this table stays on the law: what passed, when, and what would change a row.
New to the role itself? What a veterinary professional associate is comes first.
Dated legal status — verify before relying on it
Colorado: what actually became law, and when
Colorado's row is the table's only "enacted" entry, and it took two instruments. Proposition 129, a citizen initiative, passed on November 5, 2024 with 52.76% of the vote against 47.24%, writing the profession into statute: a VPA holds a master's degree in veterinary clinical care or the board-determined equivalent, registration is required from January 1, 2026, the "VPA" and "RVPA" titles have been protected since that date, and practicing without registration is a class 2 misdemeanor. HB25-1285, signed May 30, 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, supplied the operating rules — supervision tier, premises requirement, the three-VPA cap, the written supervisory agreement, and an employer protection.
What those rules actually require and what the statute lets a VPA do is unpacked in what a veterinary professional associate is; this page tracks only the status.
Two statute-level facts a tracker reader should still carry.
First, every clause authorizing VPA practice conditions it on working under a licensed veterinarian who is responsible for the VPA's performance — there is no independent-practice pathway anywhere in the text.
Second, one employer-side effect carries a date: since January 1, 2026, no corporation, employer, director, or officer can require a licensed veterinarian to enter a supervisory agreement or supervise a VPA as a condition of continued employment.
How ownership and employment structures interact with that duty is the corporate practice of veterinary medicine's subject.
Can anyone actually register yet?
No — and this is the part most "first VPA state" coverage leaves out.
The statutory registration requirement commenced January 1, 2026, but the credentialing exam the whole framework depends on does not exist yet, and Colorado's regulator has said registrations "may not be obtained until sometime in late 2026" at the earliest (Colorado DORA, Veterinary Licensing Guide, February 2025).
Who is building that exam, on what money and what timeline, and which rulemaking tracks are still open behind it — all of that is the what-is-a-VPA guide's territory.
This page tracks the bottom line: as of September 16, 2026, no one can register as a VPA in Colorado or anywhere else.
The degree side has the same shape: Colorado State University's Master of Science in Veterinary Clinical Care is the only announced pathway to the required degree anywhere, and no one holds the degree yet — so no one has cleared the education requirement.
The program structure, admissions requirements, and cost are the VPA education pathway guide's subject; this page tracks only the status.
One bridge exists for current technicians: the board may let a registered veterinary technician specialist's training count toward the VPA education requirement — but the statute requires a VTS to pass the same national credentialing exam once it exists (what the VTS credential actually is).
Florida: the closest a second state has come
Florida is the counterexample to "nobody else is interested," and the table row above already carries its status.
Two details remain for this page to add.
The Senate's own bill analysis put a would-have-been date on CS/SB 796: had it passed, the registered VPA position it created would have taken effect January 1, 2027 — the clearest measure of how close this came to being live law.
And the tracker's read: a bill that sweeps every committee nearly unanimously before dying procedurally is a live coalition that can refile, so expect Florida's row to move.
The same hedge applies to the "no other state" row above: it rests on AVMA's legislative tracking, which was reported secondhand — the underlying report could not be retrieved during verification — so read that row as strong but not exhaustive.
The committee vote tallies, the 2025 predecessor bills, and what the near-miss implies for the debate are retold in what a veterinary professional associate is, which routes the full argument to the case for and against the mid-level practitioner.
The rule underneath every row is the one that governs veterinary licensure itself: authorization is state by state, and nothing a degree confers in one state carries into another (state licensure and jurisprudence exams).
What would change this tracker
Five events would move a line in the table above, and each is checkable:
- Colorado's board approves a credentialing organization — or the national credentialing exam gets a name and a first administration date
- The board sets the indirect-supervision clinical-hour benchmark (the rulemaking still open at the verification date)
- The first VPA registration issues in Colorado — DORA projected late 2026 at the earliest
- Florida, or any other state, refiles a mid-level bill in a later session
- CSU's first MS-VCC cohort completes the program — the earliest point any graduate could clear the degree requirement
One negative finding is part of the record too: no litigation challenging Proposition 129 or HB25-1285 had been located as of the verification date — an absence of evidence, not a verified permanent state of affairs.
Until one of the triggers above fires, the practical summary is blunt: this role cannot be hired for anywhere in the United States.
The people it matters to right now are Colorado veterinarians reading supervision obligations that cap them at three VPAs and protect them from being required to supervise at all — the same delegation duty every practice already carries (what you can legally delegate) — and technicians weighing the one statutory bridge that exists (what the mid-level role would mean for technicians).
Everyone else is watching a framework get built in a single state, which is exactly what this page tracks.
If your own career runs through the licensed side of that supervision line, veterinarian job listings are live today.