Issues Facing the Interstate Massage Compact

If you have been closely following the Herculean effort to establish an interstate massage compact for massage portability, you already know things have gotten messy. But, if you’re new to this conversation and unaware of what’s been going on, let’s look at the challenges (and check out the timeline at the end of this article).

The original interstate massage compact, called the IMpact and spearheaded by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB), was on track with five of the seven states needed having passed it into law. But the compact moved too slowly according to the US Department of Defense (DOD) and the Council of State Governments (CSG), and there were disagreements with the language between the FSMTB and American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA). Then, a new version of a compact arrived from AMTA, complicating matters. Now, we have two very similar compacts at odds with each other, neither of which currently has enough states signed on to make it official. If your head is spinning, don’t worry, you’re not alone. 

What’s Next?

This year’s legislative session (which for most states runs from January through late spring/early summer) will likely make or break whether massage therapists get a compact in the near future. Whichever version of the compact language is signed into law in seven states first will be the foundation upon which the first massage compact commission is built. If that doesn’t happen this year, the chances of getting a massage licensure compact may diminish. The result could be that we get one of these two compacts, state legislators decide to stay above the fray and reject both versions, or they simply ignore the issue. If either of those last two happen, the massage profession may be deprived of license portability, which would be an unfortunate outcome.

ABMP’s Stance

Yes, it’s a lot. Once you’ve gotten your head around the timeline and the “what if” scenarios, you may wonder where ABMP stands on this topic. 

We want to be explicitly clear: We stand with you, our members, who deserve professional portability and all the benefits that come with it. We stand on the side of compromise. We stand on the side of coming together to establish an interstate compact that will help advance individual massage therapists and the profession as a whole. Are we happy with how this has been handled, with our members and us being omitted from the process? Absolutely not. But we have no interest in getting hung up on matters of ego. 

We stand with you, our members, who deserve professional portability and all the benefits that come with it.

What we want is for everyone involved to focus on achieving our mutual goal: securing true professional portability for massage therapists across the country. We call on our partners in the profession to set aside differences and work with us and each other to secure the best outcome for massage therapists. ABMP stands on the side of our members and all professionals, we stand on the side of progress, and we stand on the side of portability. We urge you to join us. If your state becomes a candidate for potential compact approval, the ABMP Government Relations department will notify you with state-specific information with direction about which legislators are key to passage. Then you can reach out to your legislators and let them know portability is essential to the profession and that you want your state to be a compact member. 

Interstate Massage Compact Timeline

2021: The FSMTB is selected by the DOD in a competitive bid process to lead the development of a compact.

2021–2022: FSMTB’s Technical Assistance Group does exhaustive work drafting the compact language.

2022: Public input is solicited on the draft compact language.

2023: The final language is released in January, and legislators begin filing bills to adopt the IMpact in their states.

2023–2025: Five states join the IMpact (in order: Nevada, Ohio, Arkansas, Virginia, Montana).

August 2025: Concerns are raised to the FSMTB and AMTA by the DOD and the CSG about the slow pace of the IMpact’s adoption and potential issues with the bill language.

Fall 2025: CSG and DOD work exclusively with AMTA to draft language for a new compact bill. The FSMTB declines to participate, while ABMP, having participated previously, is unintentionally omitted from the process.

October 2025: Proposed language for a new compact bill is given a limited release by AMTA to a subset of massage therapy professionals for public comment, almost all of whom are AMTA members.

January 2026: States begin filing bills with the new compact language, while other states continue working to pass the original IMpact language. There are now two versions of an interstate massage compact competing to see which will be adopted by seven states first, the number needed to officially complete a compact and form a compact commission.