Texas Electrician License Requirements: Hours, Fees and the Path

Start with the number you came for

Most people arrive with the same three questions: how many hours do I need, what does it cost, and when can I sit the exam. The hours calculator answers the timing from the hours you have logged and the hours you work in a week, and it names the rule behind each date.

Hour counts, fees and eligibility rules get quoted confidently from sources that were wrong when they were written or have moved since. Every requirement here is cited to the rule it comes from, and where sources contradict each other the page names the contradiction instead of picking the more common number.

What people come here for

The pages people open most, and what each one settles.

• Texas Journeyman Electrician Hours - 7,000 or 8,000?

  7,000 hours of on-the-job training to sit the exam, 8,000 to hold the license. Both are real and they answer different questions.

• Texas Electrical License Types - All 14, What Each Allows

  Fourteen license types, eleven individual and three business, and what each one lets you do.

• How to Become an Electrician in Texas - No Experience

  Starting with no experience: the apprentice license, the 8,000 hours, every published fee and the wage data.

• Texas Electrical Apprentice License - Age, Fee, How to Apply

  Issued at 16, no exam, a fee set by 16 TAC 73.80, and a 21 day temporary license while the card comes.

• Texas JEEP: What 16 TAC 73.112 Credits, and What It Does Not

  An approved accelerated program credits 4,000 hours of on-the-job training. The license still rests on 8,000.

• Documenting Texas Electrician Hours - What Counts, Who Signs

  An hour counts only where a licensee supervised it and electrical work was performed. The verifying licensee has 30 days to answer.

• Texas Electrician Supervision Rules - No Apprentice Ratio

  General supervision and on-site supervision are two different things in 16 TAC 73.10, and there is no numeric apprentice ratio.

• Texas Residential Wireman License - 4,000 Hours or School

  4,000 hours under a master or a residential wireman, or an approved school program. The scope stops at four stories.

• How to Apply for a Texas Electrician License - Steps

  The order is fixed by rule, two fees go to two organizations, and a one year clock starts the day you file.

• Texas Electrician License Reciprocity - States List 2026

  Ten states recognized for a journeyman license and six for a master. No other Texas license type has an agreement.

• Texas Electrical License Renewal - Late Fees and Lapse

  Late renewal costs 1.5 times the fee inside 90 days and 2 times beyond it. At 18 months it needs approval.

• Texas Electrician Continuing Education - Hours and Deadline

  Four hours a year for ten of the fourteen license types, from a TDLR registered provider, on the NEC and NFPA 70E.

• Texas Electrical Contractor License Requirements - TECL

  What a TECL takes: a master electrician of record, the 16 TAC 73.40 insurance minimums, and one master per contractor.

• Texas Electrical License Rules - Lending and Revocation

  No transferring, altering or lending a license, no using a number that is not yours, and what 16 TAC 73.70 says it costs.

• Texas Electrical Contractor Vehicle Marking Requirements

  Business name and the TECL, TSCL or TICL number on both sides of every vehicle, two inches high, plus the ad rules.

• Texas Electrician License Questions, Answered With Citations

  The questions people ask most, each answered with the rule number sitting next to it.

The path, roughly

You start as a registered apprentice working under supervision. You accumulate documented on-the-job hours over a period of years. At the point the rules allow it you sit the journeyman exam. Later, with more hours behind you and time held as a journeyman, you can sit for master.

Each of those steps has a number attached, and those numbers are where the bad information lives. Each one here comes with the rule it sits in, so you can check it yourself.

Separately from any individual license there is a contractor license, which is a business registration rather than a personal credential and works differently.

The license is annual, which is unusual

A Texas electrical license runs one year and is renewed annually (16 TAC 73.22(a)).

That matters for your planning and your money, because continuing education attaches to every renewal rather than to a longer cycle. Renewal and lapse has the late fees and the point where a lapsed license needs approval.

How it works

1. Get your dates. Put your logged hours, your weekly hours and a start date into the hours calculator. It gives you the day you may sit the exam and the day you may hold the license, each tied to the rule that sets it. Free, and nothing leaves your browser.
2. Check the application before you file it. The readiness check asks three questions, then counts your own situation: the lines your application carries, how many of them are traps, and one of those traps in full. Free.
3. Open the rest if you want it. $19 once opens the whole of your checklist and the other 29 situations with it, 559 lines with a rule cited on every one. One payment, no subscription, no account.

The free tools, and the exam prep

Three free tools live here: the hours calculator gives you the day you can sit the exam and the day you can hold the license, the license lookup guide reads a TDLR search result for you, and the readiness check starts your own application checklist from three questions.

• Exam prepFree Texas journeyman practice exam

  Thirty free timed questions on the published format, 1,350 more by topic with the answer worked, a daily question with a streak, and calculators with the tables built in. The full 500-question bank and the calculation ladder are $79 once.

• Hands-onHands-on electrician labs

  Four labs you work with your hands: bend a stick of EMT and read the marks, wire a three way and flip it until the light behaves, drop conductors in a box until it runs out of room, and put electrodes in the ground and bond them into one system. Free, and no account.

• Code changes2023 to 2026 NEC crosswalk

  What moved between the 2023 and 2026 editions, section by section, with four of the moves free to read. All 50 moves, each one sourced, are $29 once.

One rule on every page: cite the source and log the corrections in public. Sign up below and you get one short note when a rule or a number changes.

What it will not tell you

Whether your own hours qualify, whether your out-of-state experience counts, or where your application sits today. Those are determinations, and only the licensing authority makes them.

What you get here instead is the rule each of those determinations is made under, so you know what you're being measured against before you file.

What this page cites

• 16 TAC 73.22(a) License term and annual renewal.