Short Answer:  If you mean your placement agency, no.  Your homestudy agency, however, must be licensed in the state in which you reside.

Longer Answer and Explanation:

An adoption placement agency is the agency that will match you with a child you’ve said you would accept for adoption.  Ideally, that agency is looking to place children needing families with the best family matches for them and not the other way around, but that’s a topic for another post.  Your placement agency can be anywhere in the country of which you are a citizen.

If you enroll in an international adoption program, your placement agency should have reputable contacts in that country to facilitate the legal process there.  Always check on an agency and what you can find out about their reputation in-country before signing with them!

For both of our adoptions, our placement agencies have been out-of-state.  It’s a little weird not knowing what the people with whom you’re talking on the phone look like, but with a good agency you get used to it, and it doesn’t matter.

You should look for an agency with a good reputation who offers the adoption program to which you feel called.  For example, amidst the current crisis in Haiti, there is renewed interest in adopting orphans from that country.  If that describes you, find a reputable agency who offers a Haitian adoption program.

That agency can provide you with a list of agencies in your own state with whom they are willing to work in order to meet your homestudy requirements.

Once you select a homestudy agency, the two will sign a legal agreement to cooperate for your adoption process.  A homestudy agency does all the background-checking and in-home visitations required to compile a homestudy report, and then they write it.  Depending on the length of your adoption process, your homestudy agency will also provide annual updates when your reports “expire.”  Additionally, the homestudy agency you select will be responsible for any post-placement follow-up visits required by your placement agency or by the country from which you’re adopting.

For domestic adoptions in the U.S., your homestudy agency usually is capable of sending your paperwork between states to make sure you are considered as potential adoptive parents for children in other states who might be well-matched to your family.  Some states are better than others at inter-state relations, but you should be able to complete a domestic adoption using just one agency.  In that case, yes, you should find an agency in the state in which you primarily reside.