Reference Source

State pharmacy technician-to-pharmacist supervision ratios

The maximum number of pharmacy technicians a single pharmacist may supervise in each US state, with the practice setting it applies to and any conditions that raise or lower the cap. Each record is one jurisdiction with its ratio rule, the practice setting (community/retail, hospital/institutional, or both), whether conditional increases apply (e.g., higher ratio if technicians are certified, if automated dispensing is in use, or if the setting is institutional), and the regulatory citation. Answers 'how many techs can I supervise in Ohio' (no cap on licensed technicians; max 3 trainees), 'does California allow a higher ratio for certified techs', 'which states have no fixed ratio', and 'what is the pharmacist-to-tech ratio in a hospital in Connecticut'. States range from strict 1:2 caps (Connecticut community, New York community, Tennessee) to no fixed cap (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin — at least 13 states where professional judgment applies).

Records21
Sources15
Verified
Review by
LicenceState administrative codes and statutes are government works. Facts are not copyrightable (Feist, 1991); each record quotes a short attributed span and links back to the state's own regulatory text.

The data

StateMaximum ratio (tech:pharmacist)Practice settingConditional increaseCitationTrainee limit
Florida1:1 (statutory default; board guidelines may permit higher ratio)all settingsboard may adopt guidelines permitting pharmacist to supervise more than one technician; actual ratio set by Board of Pharmacy guidelinesFla. Stat. § 465.014(1)
Georgia4:1all settingsAt least 1 of 3 technicians must be certified; at least 2 of 4 must be certified. Hospital pharmacies may apply to the board for an increased ratio.Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 480-15-.03(e)
Illinoisno fixed ratio (professional judgment)all settings225 ILCS 85/9
Massachusetts4:1all settings4:1 requires at least two certified pharmacy technicians, or one certified tech and one intern, or two interns; otherwise maximum is 3:1 with at least one intern or certified tech247 CMR 8.06(3)
Minnesota2:1all settings3:1 for intravenous admixture preparation, unit dose packaging, prepackaging, and compoundingMinn. R. 6800.3850, Subp. 6
New Jersey2:1all settingsratio may exceed 1:2 if all technicians working above the 1:2 limit have passed the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board exam or a Board-approved certification program, or a Board-approved training program with testing componentN.J.A.C. 13:39-6.152 trainees maximum; trainees excluded from the 1:2 ratio during in-service training (not to exceed 210 days)
New York2:1 (registered technicians) or 4:1 (unlicensed), max 4 totalall settingsPharmacy interns and unit-dose cart-fill staff in institutional settings are exempt from the ratioN.Y. Educ. Law § 6841
Ohiono fixed ratio (professional judgment)all settingsOAC 4729:3-3-013 trainees per pharmacist
Pennsylvaniano fixed ratio (professional judgment)all settings49 Pa. Code § 27.12
Tennessee6:1all settingsRatio may be removed (no cap) if additional technicians beyond 6:1 are certified pharmacy technicians; pharmacist-in-charge may request further modification from the Board.Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 1140-02-.02(7)
Virginia6:1cannabis dispensing3VAC10-40-110
California3:1community/retailCal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 4115(g)(1)
Nevada3:1community/retailmay supervise more if not more than three are performing technician duties as set forth in NAC 639.245, and the pharmacy record identifies which technicians are performing those dutiesNAC 639.250(2)1 technician plus 2 trainees
Texas6:1community/retail22 TAC § 291.32(d)(3)max 3 trainees per pharmacist; ratio of pharmacists to trainees may not exceed 1:3
Washington1:1community/retailHigher ratio allowed with commission-approved pharmacy services planRCW 18.64A.040
Californiaboard-determined ratioinstitutional/hospitalCal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 4115(g)(2)
Washington1:1institutional/hospital (dispensing to non-patients)Higher ratio allowed with commission-approved pharmacy services planRCW 18.64A.040
Washington3:1institutional/hospital (internal use)Higher ratio allowed with commission-approved pharmacy services planRCW 18.64A.040
Nevada3:1institutional/hospitalmay supervise more if not more than three are performing technician duties as set forth in NAC 639.245, and the pharmacy record identifies which technicians are performing those dutiesNAC 639.250(1)2 technicians plus 1 trainee when supervising distributive functions
Nevada8:1nondispensing pharmacyNAC 639.250(4)6 technicians plus 2 trainees
Nevada3:1telepharmacy/remote site/satellite consultation siteNAC 639.250(3)

Where this came from

Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 15 sources this dataset was assembled from.

Machine-readable

From your own code

Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.

pip install refsource
refsource lookup pharmacy-technician-supervision-ratios jurisdiction=Florida

npx -y refsource lookup pharmacy-technician-supervision-ratios jurisdiction=Florida

Set your AI assistant up to use this

Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "referencesource": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project

Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:

When a question needs "State pharmacy technician-to-pharmacist supervision ratios", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `pharmacy-technician-supervision-ratios`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.

What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.

21 records. last verified against source . due for re-check by .

Licence. State administrative codes and statutes are government works. Facts are not copyrightable (Feist, 1991); each record quotes a short attributed span and links back to the state's own regulatory text.