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).
The data
| State | Maximum ratio (tech:pharmacist) | Practice setting | Conditional increase | Citation | Trainee limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 1:1 (statutory default; board guidelines may permit higher ratio) | all settings | board may adopt guidelines permitting pharmacist to supervise more than one technician; actual ratio set by Board of Pharmacy guidelines | Fla. Stat. § 465.014(1) | |
| Georgia | 4:1 | all settings | At 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) | |
| Illinois | no fixed ratio (professional judgment) | all settings | 225 ILCS 85/9 | ||
| Massachusetts | 4:1 | all settings | 4:1 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 tech | 247 CMR 8.06(3) | |
| Minnesota | 2:1 | all settings | 3:1 for intravenous admixture preparation, unit dose packaging, prepackaging, and compounding | Minn. R. 6800.3850, Subp. 6 | |
| New Jersey | 2:1 | all settings | ratio 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 component | N.J.A.C. 13:39-6.15 | 2 trainees maximum; trainees excluded from the 1:2 ratio during in-service training (not to exceed 210 days) |
| New York | 2:1 (registered technicians) or 4:1 (unlicensed), max 4 total | all settings | Pharmacy interns and unit-dose cart-fill staff in institutional settings are exempt from the ratio | N.Y. Educ. Law § 6841 | |
| Ohio | no fixed ratio (professional judgment) | all settings | OAC 4729:3-3-01 | 3 trainees per pharmacist | |
| Pennsylvania | no fixed ratio (professional judgment) | all settings | 49 Pa. Code § 27.12 | ||
| Tennessee | 6:1 | all settings | Ratio 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) | |
| Virginia | 6:1 | cannabis dispensing | 3VAC10-40-110 | ||
| California | 3:1 | community/retail | Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 4115(g)(1) | ||
| Nevada | 3:1 | community/retail | may 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 duties | NAC 639.250(2) | 1 technician plus 2 trainees |
| Texas | 6:1 | community/retail | 22 TAC § 291.32(d)(3) | max 3 trainees per pharmacist; ratio of pharmacists to trainees may not exceed 1:3 | |
| Washington | 1:1 | community/retail | Higher ratio allowed with commission-approved pharmacy services plan | RCW 18.64A.040 | |
| California | board-determined ratio | institutional/hospital | Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 4115(g)(2) | ||
| Washington | 1:1 | institutional/hospital (dispensing to non-patients) | Higher ratio allowed with commission-approved pharmacy services plan | RCW 18.64A.040 | |
| Washington | 3:1 | institutional/hospital (internal use) | Higher ratio allowed with commission-approved pharmacy services plan | RCW 18.64A.040 | |
| Nevada | 3:1 | institutional/hospital | may 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 duties | NAC 639.250(1) | 2 technicians plus 1 trainee when supervising distributive functions |
| Nevada | 8:1 | nondispensing pharmacy | NAC 639.250(4) | 6 technicians plus 2 trainees | |
| Nevada | 3:1 | telepharmacy/remote site/satellite consultation site | NAC 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.
- flsenate.govhttps://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/465.014
- law.cornell.eduhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/georgia/Ga-Comp-R-Regs-R-480-15-.03
- ilga.govhttps://ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/documents/022500850K9.htm
- law.cornell.eduhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/massachusetts/247-CMR-8-06
- revisor.mn.govhttps://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/6800.3850/
- law.cornell.eduhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/new-jersey/N-J-A-C-13-39-6-15
- op.nysed.govhttps://www.op.nysed.gov/professions/registered-pharmacy-technicians/laws-rules-regulations/article-137a
- codes.ohio.govhttps://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-administrative-code/rule-4729:3-3-01
- pacodeandbulletin.govhttps://www.pacodeandbulletin.gov/Display/pacode?file=%2Fsecure%2Fpacode%2Fdata%2F049%2Fchapter27%2Fs27.12.html
- publications.tnsosfiles.comhttps://publications.tnsosfiles.com/rules/1140/1140-02.20251016.pdf
- law.lis.virginia.govhttps://law.lis.virginia.gov/admincode/title3/agency10/chapter40/section110/
- pharmacy.ca.govhttps://www.pharmacy.ca.gov/laws_regs/lawbook.pdf
- leg.state.nv.ushttps://www.leg.state.nv.us/nac/nac-639.html
- txrules.elaws.ushttp://txrules.elaws.us/rule/title22_chapter291_sec.291.32
- apps.leg.wa.govhttps://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=18.64A.040
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- data.csvThe same records as one flat table, for a spreadsheet or a dataframe. The last four columns are the source URL, the quoted sentence it was read from, the date we last checked it, and which columns are our reading rather than the page's words.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
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.