Every topic on the Texas journeyman electrician exam

What this is

Eighty-eight pages covering what the Texas journeyman exam asks, how it asks it, and what the wrong answers are made of. Each page is built from three things: the section of the code the topic sits in, the way our five hundred question bank tests it including which distractor people pick, and what the topic costs you on a Texas job if you have it wrong.

This site publishes licensing research for Texas candidates. Everything here is sourced and dated, and the department has approved none of it.

The exam these pages are aimed at

The Texas journeyman exam is two separately scored papers taken in one sitting. NEC Knowledge is 56 scored items inside 59 sat, with 130 minutes on the clock. Calculations is 24 scored inside 26 sat, with 110 minutes. Each half passes at 70 percent on its own, so you can clear one and rebook the other. For fiscal 2025 TDLR reports 24.46 percent passing the knowledge portion and 20.56 percent passing calculations, out of 26,303 attempts across every Texas electrical exam that produced 6,181 passes.

Since March 2025 the two portions have been scored separately, which exposed something the combined score used to hide. More candidates sit calculations than sit knowledge, and fewer of them pass. The hardest part of becoming a licensed electrician in Texas is the arithmetic.

Where the items come from

Behind each portion the examination bulletin prints a content outline naming ten subject areas with an item count beside every one, and those counts sum to the scored total. On the journeyman knowledge portion three areas tie for heaviest at ten items each: branch circuits and conductors, wiring methods and materials, and equipment and devices. That is thirty of the fifty-six. Services and separately derived systems is six, and so is special occupancies.

On the calculations portion the shape is flatter. Services and separately derived systems is four, branch circuit calculations and conductors is four, feeders is three, special occupancies is three, motors and generators is two. Motors carry far more weight one license class up, where master calculations gives them six of thirty and services eight.

The eight areas

• Conductor Sizing and Ampacity. 68 of our 500 questions, 10 topics.
• Grounding and Bonding. 66 of our 500 questions, 8 topics.
• Conduit, Boxes and Raceways. 51 of our 500 questions, 8 topics.
• Motor and Transformer Circuits. 43 of our 500 questions, 6 topics.
• Load Calculations, Feeders and Services. 42 of our 500 questions, 9 topics.
• Electrical Theory and Exam Arithmetic. 39 of our 500 questions, 6 topics.
• Using the Code Book and Exam Day. 51 of our 500 questions, 11 topics.
• Wiring Methods and Installations. 140 of our 500 questions, 21 topics.

How to use these pages

Start with the area that matches the half you are weaker on, whichever that is. If you have sat the exam and failed, the score report names which portion you lost, and that is the fastest read available to you. If you have not sat it, work a timed set first. Thirty questions under a clock tells you more about your position than a week of reading.

Thirty free questions, timed mixes the areas the way the paper does. The full bank is five hundred questions with a worked explanation and a note on every wrong answer saying what a person who picked it did.

What a licence is worth getting right

The exam is the gate and the hours are the road to it. A Texas journeyman needs 7,000 hours of supervised on-the-job training to sit and 8,000 to hold the license, and those hours get verified by a licensed supervisor who has thirty calendar days to do it and can only attest to what they actually know. Hours that were never documented are hours that do not count, and that is the single most common reason a candidate who is ready cannot book.

The paper costs $78 and a retake costs $78 whether you lost one portion or both. The application fee is $30 and it does not come back. Against a 23.50 percent pass rate across every Texas electrical exam, a second and third attempt is the normal path, and each one spends a fee and a month. That is the arithmetic that makes preparation worth doing properly the first time.

Why some links leave this site

Every topic page here links once to the matching free question set on this site. The two answer different questions. The question set works the arithmetic step by step and shows the numbers. This page covers what a Texas candidate needs to know about the topic before test day, how it is tested, and what it costs to get wrong. Somebody who reads both should come away with two different things.

What makes these pages different

Every page here carries a section on how the topic is actually tested, built from a five hundred question bank where each item records what a person who picked each wrong answer did. That produces counts nobody else publishes: how many items touch a topic, which distractor repeats, and which subjects appear only as bait.

Some of those counts are worth study time back. Bench bending arithmetic earns no marks on this paper. Enclosure type appears three times and is the wrong answer all three. Four way switch wiring has no standalone item. Knowing where the exam does not go is worth as much as knowing where it does.

Before you sit

The licensing side matters as much as the code side and it is easier to get wrong. You need 7,000 hours to sit and 8,000 to hold the license. Approval opens a one-year window. The book has to be soft-bound with publisher tabs. The fee is $78 and a retake is $78. Those details live on hours required, applying, fees and exam day and code use.

Questions people ask

How is the Texas journeyman electrician exam structured?

Two separately scored portions taken in one sitting. NEC Knowledge is 56 scored items inside 59 sat, with 130 minutes. Calculations is 24 scored inside 26 sat, with 110 minutes. Each portion passes at 70 percent on its own, so a candidate can clear one and rebook the other. The split took effect in March 2025. Unscored pretest items are mixed in and do not count toward your result, and there is no way to tell which ones they are while you sit them.

What is the pass rate for the Texas electrician exam?

For fiscal year 2025, which ran September 1 2024 to August 31 2025, TDLR reports 20.56 percent passing journeyman calculations and 24.46 percent passing journeyman NEC Knowledge. Master calculations was 19.08 percent and master NEC Knowledge 22.21 percent. Across every Texas electrical exam, 26,303 attempts produced 6,181 passes, a rate of 23.50 percent, down from 26.37 percent the year before. More candidates sit calculations than sit knowledge, and fewer of them pass.

Which subject areas carry the most questions?

On the journeyman NEC Knowledge portion, three areas tie at ten of the fifty-six scored items each: branch circuits and conductors, electrical wiring methods and materials, and electrical equipment and devices. Together that is thirty of fifty-six. Services and separately derived systems is six and special occupancies is six. On the calculations portion the spread is flatter, with services at four, branch circuit calculations at four, feeders at three, special occupancies at three and motors at two.

How many questions should I practice before the exam?

Enough to find your method errors, which is a target measured in errors found. A method error repeats across every item that uses it, so thirty questions worked carefully under a clock will tell you more than three hundred worked casually. Start with a timed set, read the explanation on every item you missed including the note on the answer you chose, and work the area that produced the most misses. Then sit another timed set to confirm the fix held.

Which edition of the NEC does the Texas exam use?

Texas adopted the 2026 National Electrical Code under 16 TAC 73.100, effective 1 September 2026, and the examination edition change follows the same date. As read on 24 August 2026 there was a conflict in the published material: the PSI bulletin updated 9 July 2026 stated the 2026 edition in capitals, while the reference material list inside that same bulletin and the department examination page both still named the 2023 edition. Confirm against your own admission notice.