LSIT certification is the surveyor-in-training credential a state licensing board issues to candidates who pass the NCEES Fundamentals of Surveying (FS) exam and meet the state's education or experience route.
You apply to the board, which sets what the application needs — Texas, for example, asks for transcripts, references and an application fee — and it issues a certificate the NCEES Model Law calls a surveyor intern enrollment.
It is not a license: it does not authorize practice as a professional surveyor.
What is LSIT certification?
LSIT stands for land surveyor-in-training.
It is the intern-level credential on the way to a land surveying license: you meet your state's route, pass the NCEES FS exam, and the board certifies you as a surveyor in training.
Under the NCEES Model Law, the step is the surveyor intern certificate; the Model Law's language for the record itself is the surveyor intern enrollment document.
Its requirements are a qualifying surveying education and a passed FS exam.
The Model Law is equally plain about the limit: the enrollment document does not authorize the holder to practice as a professional surveyor.
NCEES writes the FS exam and the Model Law, but it licenses no one.
Licenses and intern certificates are issued by the state and territory licensing boards.
It is also not the engineer credential.
Surveyor intern certification is its own certification on its own exam, separate from the engineer intern (EIT/EI) path and the FE exam.
What the job looks like while you hold the certificate — crew work, office work, the rungs after it — is the role, and our surveyor in training career guide covers it.
This page stays on the certificate itself.
How do you get it after the FS exam?
Start from the NCEES Model Law's baseline.
Its surveyor intern certificate asks for graduation from an ABET-accredited surveying bachelor's program, a surveying-related bachelor's with 30 or more semester hours of core surveying topics, or a degree meeting the NCEES Surveying Education Standard — plus a passed FS exam.
States depart from that baseline.
Texas keeps five routes to its Surveyor-in-Training certificate, including a high school diploma plus four years of experience with evidence of self-education in surveying.
California pairs the FS with two years of postsecondary land-surveying education, two years of land-surveying work experience, or a combination totaling two years.
The order of paperwork differs too.
In Texas, you must pass the FS before applying, and the certificate is issued only after the FS pass and an approved application.
In Florida, the sequence runs the other way: the board's approval of your Surveyor in Training application is what allows you to sit for the FS exam.
Under the NCEES Model Rules, an applicant may register for the FS directly with NCEES — or apply to the board first, where the board requires it.
Eligibility to sit for the exam is set by each state licensing board, not by NCEES, and some boards require a separate board application and fee before you can sit, on top of the NCEES exam fee.
Confirm your state's route and sequence
Ask your licensing board which education or experience route you qualify under, and whether the FS exam comes before the application or after it.Register for the FS exam
Register directly with NCEES where your board allows it, or file the board's own application first where it requires one.Pass the FS
A pass alone is not the credential — the board's application completes the step, whether it comes before the exam or after it.Apply to the state board
Ask your board what the application needs and whether it charges a fee. Texas asks for transcripts, at least three references from an RPLS or LSLS and a $15 SIT application fee; California's LSIT application fee is $100, effective July 1, 2026.Start logging qualifying experience
The Model Rules' experience criteria are the record to build: progressive experience, gained where possible under a licensed professional surveyor's supervision or mentorship. Ask your board when the clock starts — Oregon's board says LSI enrollment is not required to start gaining surveying experience.
Routes, fees and sequences change — confirm with your board
What are the state titles (LSIT, SIT, LSI, SMI)?
There is no single national title.
The states that issue an intern credential name it in their own statute and rules, and the abbreviations differ even where the idea is the same.
| State | Intern title the state uses |
|---|---|
| California | Land Surveyor-in-Training (LSIT). |
| Minnesota | Land Surveyor-in-Training. |
| Texas | Surveyor-in-Training (SIT). |
| Virginia | Surveyor-in-Training (SIT). |
| Arkansas | Surveyor Intern (SI). |
| Illinois | Surveyor Intern (S.I.). |
| Colorado | Land Surveyor-Intern (LSI). |
| Louisiana | Land Surveyor Intern (LSI). |
| Missouri | Land Surveyor-Intern (LSI) — renamed from Land Surveyor-in-Training effective August 28, 2022. |
| Florida | Surveyor and Mapper Intern, which includes surveyor-mapper-in-training. |
| New York | An intern land surveyor identification card, not a certificate. |
The SMI search traces to Florida, whose statute calls the intern a surveyor and mapper intern, a title that includes surveyor-mapper-in-training.
The board rule we reviewed does not abbreviate the title to SMI, so Florida candidates see Surveyor in Training (SIT) or the title spelled out.
Abbreviations are strictly local.
Arkansas titles its intern credential Surveyor Intern (SI) — the state uses neither PLS nor LSIT.
Missouri renamed its credential from Land Surveyor-in-Training to Land Surveyor-Intern (LSI) effective August 28, 2022, so material written before that date describes the same credential under its old name.
The title does not change the credential's place on the road to licensure.
The limit the Model Law states for the enrollment document — no authorization to practice as a professional surveyor — is restated in state words by the boards quoted in the section below.
Do all states issue it?
Our research found no national registry of which boards issue an intern credential, so the honest answer is: the states decide, and the boards we researched decide differently.
The boards we researched fall into three patterns — certificates that are optional, certificates that are a required rung, and states that use different paperwork entirely.
Four of the boards we researched treat the certificate as optional.
California calls LSIT certification optional.
Massachusetts issues the SIT certificate but does not require it for PLS licensure.
Georgia's Land Surveyor-in-Training certificate is optional after the education requirement and the FS exam, with a $20 application fee.
North Carolina's Surveyor Intern certificate is optional, with FS-exam routes that include a surveying B.S. plus one year of experience, an associate degree plus two years, and a high school diploma plus five years.
A high school diploma plus three years of experience under a PLS is the apprenticeship route, and each route requires three references, one a PLS.
Elsewhere the credential is a required step.
In Ohio, every Professional Surveyor applicant must first be certified as an Ohio Surveyor Intern.
Pennsylvania requires surveyor-in-training certification plus four years of progressive surveying experience under a professional land surveyor before a candidate can apply for the PS exam.
Two states replace the certificate outright.
Vermont has no surveyor-in-training certificate: an intern files a Land Surveyor Notice of Internship instead, and the supervising licensee must have been licensed as a land surveyor for more than three years.
New York issues an intern land surveyor identification card after the FS exam rather than an LSIT or SIT certificate.
And our research did not find a surveyor-in-training or intern certificate in Wisconsin.
If you are licensing there, ask the Wisconsin board how it documents the intern stage.
Where a state issues one of these credentials, confirm with the board what it records and when it is required.
What does LSIT let you do (and not do)?
Start with the Model Law's limit: the surveyor intern enrollment document does not authorize the holder to practice as a professional surveyor.
State rules say the same thing in their own words.
Ohio's Surveyor Intern certificate does not allow the holder to practice or to use the P.S. title.
An Oregon Land Surveying Intern may not sign or seal documents and may practice only under a licensee's direct supervision.
Nevada certifies interns who may practice only as subordinates.
Tennessee's Professional Land Surveyor in Training (PLSIT) certificate is not a license to practice — it lets the holder do surveying work under the direct supervision of a licensed PLS.
The permitted side is work under supervision.
Maine states it directly: its land surveyor-in-training license lets the holder perform land surveying under the responsible charge of a professional land surveyor.
The Model Rules' experience criteria tell interns what to record: the experience should be progressive, gained where possible under the supervision or mentorship of a licensed professional surveyor, and demonstrate both property-conveyance and boundary-determination work and technical field work.
Keeping that record current is what the later professional-surveyor application draws on.
The certificate itself adds no signing authority — Oregon's rule, which bars interns from signing or sealing documents, is one board that says so explicitly.
This page describes what the rules say, not a ruling on any specific job or employer.
Where a task sits on the licensed side of the line, your board decides.
Does it expire?
There is no single answer, because expiration is a state-by-state rule.
The boards we researched run from certificates that never lapse to certificates that expire after as little as two years.
Several of the boards we researched issue intern certificates that do not expire.
Alabama's land surveyor intern certifications do not expire.
Indiana's surveyor-in-training certification never expires and does not need renewal.
Illinois's surveyor intern license does not expire, and neither do FS exam scores there.
Kentucky's land surveyor in training certificate is valid indefinitely with no renewal fees.
North Carolina's Surveyor Intern certificate does not expire and needs no renewal.
Rhode Island's Land Surveyor-in-Training designation does not expire, and North Dakota's land surveyor intern certificate carries no expiration date.
Others put a clock on it.
A Texas SIT certificate is valid for eight years and can be renewed for further eight-year periods on proof of 32 hours of board-approved coursework or continuing education.
West Virginia's Surveyor Intern certificate expires ten years after the FS pass date and cannot be renewed — an intern who has not passed the PS and West Virginia's exams within that window must retake the FS.
Connecticut's SIT license is valid for ten years from first issuance and needs no renewal.
Montana's Land Surveyor Intern certificate expires after two years, on June 30, and renews.
California handles it differently still: the LSIT certificate carries no renewal fee and becomes invalid once the holder is licensed as a land surveyor.
Because these terms are set board by board and boards amend them, confirm your certificate's term — and what happens if it lapses — with your state licensing board before you plan your path to the PS exam.
Career information, not legal, tax or licensing advice. Titles, routes, fees, sequences and expiration rules on this page are set by each state's licensing board — confirm the current rules with your board before you apply, sit for an exam or renew.