Two dates come out of the same pile of hours: the day they open the examination, and the day they let you hold the license. Every hour figure here is one the Texas Occupations Code or 16 TAC Chapter 73 sets, cited on the line that uses it.
The journeyman carries two hour figures and both are real. You may sit the journeyman examination at 7,000 hours of on-the-job training under 16 TAC 73.21(b), a threshold that had been department practice for years and became a written rule on 1 July 2026. You cannot hold the license until 8,000 hours under Tex. Occ. Code 1305.155.
So the calculator prints two dates for that license and about a thousand hours sits between them. Planning around one number and finding out about the other late is the ordinary way people lose months here.
What an hour has to be is settled in 16 TAC 73.10: training or experience gained under the supervision of an appropriate licensee while performing electrical work. Both halves have to hold at once, which is why time under a licensee doing something other than electrical work does not count, and why classroom instruction does not count on the wording alone.
The one route that turns school into hours is 16 TAC 73.112, the accelerated journeyman electrician education program, effective 1 July 2026. Completing a program the department has approved credits 4,000 hours of on-the-job training under subsection (l), and 16 TAC 73.21(b) opens the examination on completion rather than on an hour count. The two examination routes are alternatives, so nobody does both.
Two cautions on that credit. The figure was 3,000 in the proposal and was raised to 4,000 on adoption, so anything written in the spring of 2026 carries the lower number. Subsection (l) also lets the executive director award more than 4,000 where the circumstances justify it, so this calculator uses 4,000 as the baseline and your own award may be higher.
Any other school credits nothing toward the journeyman hours, however good it is. That is why the classroom hours box on this page credits zero unless you also mark the approved program, and why marking it credits the flat 4,000 rather than the hours you sat. Ask a school in writing whether it holds an approval under 16 TAC 73.112 and what the approval date is.
The residential wireman is the simpler case. Tex. Occ. Code 1305.157 takes 4,000 hours under a master electrician or a residential wireman, or an approved career and technology education program instead of the hours, and both routes end at the same examination. So this calculator shows one date for that license, and Tex. Occ. Code 1305.1575(g) is the reason the education route credits no hours toward anything else.
The master has a gate that hours cannot open. Tex. Occ. Code 1305.153 asks for 12,000 hours under a master electrician and, separately, at least two years holding a journeyman license. Enter the date your journeyman license was issued and the calculator reports the later of the two dates, because that is the first day both are satisfied.
One thing is deliberately left out. The earlier examination threshold at 16 TAC 73.21(b) is written for the journeyman electrician, and the pages behind this tool state no equivalent for the residential wireman or the master. So those two licenses get one hours date here rather than two, instead of a number we would have had to invent.
The date arithmetic itself is plain. Hours still to work divided by hours per week, rounded up to a whole week, added to your start date. It treats every week the same, so overtime, layoffs and weather are yours to adjust, and it says nothing about whether a verifying licensee will sign for the hours.
Start with nothing logged, 40 hours a week, from Monday 7 September 2026, working toward the journeyman. 7,000 hours divided by 40 is 175 weeks, which lands on 14 January 2030, and that is the day the hours open the examination under 16 TAC 73.21(b).
The license figure of 8,000 needs 200 weeks from the same start, which lands on 8 July 2030. The 25 weeks between the two dates is the thousand hour gap that Tex. Occ. Code 1305.155 puts between passing and holding.
Mark the accelerated program instead and the shape changes. The examination opens on completing the program rather than on an hour count, and the 4,000 hour credit at 16 TAC 73.112(l) leaves 4,000 hours to work toward the 8,000, which is 100 weeks at 40 hours a week, or 7 August 2028.
| License | On-the-job training | Citation | In this tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential wireman | 4,000 hours under a master electrician or a residential wireman, or an approved career and technology education program instead | 1305.157 | Yes |
| Journeyman electrician | 8,000 hours under a master electrician to hold the license, 7,000 to sit the examination | 1305.155, 73.21(b) | Yes |
| Master electrician | 12,000 hours under a master electrician, and separately at least two years holding a journeyman license | 1305.153 | Yes |
| Journeyman sign electrician | 8,000 hours under a master sign electrician | 1305.156 | No |
| Maintenance electrician | 8,000 hours under a master electrician or a maintenance electrician | 1305.158 | No |
| Journeyman industrial electrician | 8,000 hours as a licensed electrical apprentice, under a master electrician | 1305.1601 | No |
| Journeyman lineman | No on-the-job training figure. 7,000 hours in a United States Department of Labor apprenticeship program, or three and a half years of experience as a journeyman lineman | 1305.1605 | No |
| Electrical apprentice | No hours and no examination | 1305.161 | No |
Citations in the table are Texas Occupations Code sections except 73.21(b), which is 16 TAC. The accelerated program credit sits at 16 TAC 73.112(l).
Both, and they answer different questions. You may sit the journeyman examination at 7,000 hours of on-the-job training under 16 TAC 73.21(b), which became a written rule on 1 July 2026. You cannot hold the license until 8,000 hours under Tex. Occ. Code 1305.155. This calculator prints both dates because about a thousand hours of work sits between them.
Only through one door. Classroom and lab hours count if you complete a program TDLR has approved under 16 TAC 73.112, which took effect on 1 July 2026 and is generally worth 4,000 hours of on-the-job training credit. Any other school credits nothing toward the journeyman hours, however good it is. That is why the classroom hours you enter here are credited at zero unless you mark the approved program.
16 TAC 73.112(l) awards 4,000 hours of on-the-job training credit on completion of an approved program, and 16 TAC 73.21(b) opens the journeyman examination on completion rather than on an hour count. The two examination routes are alternatives, so nobody does both. The other 4,000 hours toward the 8,000 in Tex. Occ. Code 1305.155 is still work done under supervision.
4,000 hours under a master electrician or a residential wireman, or an approved career and technology education program instead of the hours, under Tex. Occ. Code 1305.157. Both routes end at the same examination, so this calculator shows one date for that license. Tex. Occ. Code 1305.1575(g) bars hours spent completing that education program from counting toward on-the-job training for any license under the chapter.
No. Tex. Occ. Code 1305.153 asks for 12,000 hours under a master electrician and, separately, at least two years holding a journeyman license. Hours do not satisfy the two years, so this calculator compares the two dates and reports the later one. The pages behind this tool state no earlier examination threshold for the master, so it prints one hours date rather than two.
A licensee the statute authorizes, not whoever paid you. 16 TAC 73.26 puts the hours on the department experience verification form, and Tex. Occ. Code 1305.153(b)(3) gives a master electrician that authority for the master, master sign, journeyman and journeyman sign licenses. The licensee verifies only training within their own knowledge and has 30 calendar days from the request under 16 TAC 73.26(b).
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