Texas Journeyman PrepGetting licensed in Texas

Checked against primary sources 2026-08-24

Fourteen Texas electrical licenses, and the two that people confuse

TDLR issues fourteen electrical licenses. Four of them account for almost all the exam volume, five barely register, and the split between individual and business licenses is where people get their obligations wrong.

On this page
  1. Individual licenses and business licenses are different things
  2. All fourteen, and two more that sit outside the list
  3. The four that carry the volume
  4. The five that barely register
  5. The sign licenses are their own world
  6. Apprentices
  7. The three you apply for and never sit
  8. What renewal looks like across all of them
  9. What this page cites

Individual licenses and business licenses are different things

The Texas electrical licenses stack, and each rung is unlocked by logged hours rather than by time served An apprentice is licensed first and works under supervision while hours are logged. Enough logged hours makes the journeyman examination available. Journeyman time then unlocks the master examination. A master license is what a contractor license is built on. The gate at each step is documented on-the-job hours under a licensed electrician, not calendar time and not a course certificate. APPRENTICE licensed, then log hours JOURNEYMAN exam unlocks at hours MASTER journeyman time first CONTRACTOR built on a master each rung is unlocked by LOGGED SUPERVISED HOURS, not by calendar time and not by a course certificate a contractor license names one master, and a master may be named by only one
Every step is gated by logged supervised hours. A course does not move you up a rung. Shape per Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1305 and 16 TAC Chapter 73. Hour counts are on the page below.

This distinction runs through everything else on this page, so it goes first.

An individual license attaches to a person. It says this human is qualified to perform electrical work. A business license attaches to a company. It says this entity may contract for electrical work.

A one-person shop usually holds both, and that is where the confusion starts. The four hours of continuing education attach to the individual license and never to the contractor license.

The tempting explanation is that a contractor license is a business license and business licenses owe no continuing education. That explanation does not survive contact with the list in 16 TAC 73.25(b), which also leaves out the residential appliance installer, an individual license held by a person.

Someone who holds a master license and an electrical contractor license owes four hours a year on the master license and nothing on the contractor license. Someone who reads only the contractor rules concludes they owe nothing, and they are wrong.

All fourteen, and two more that sit outside the list

Fourteen license types exist under Chapter 1305 and 16 TAC Chapter 73. Eleven attach to a person and three attach to a business.

The eleven individual licenses

The three business licenses

The fee schedule at 16 TAC 73.80(a) carries a fifteenth entry, the apprentice training program registration at ninety-five dollars. That one registers a program rather than licensing a person, so it does not belong on the count.

Two further licenses sit outside the fourteen because neither is a standing credential. The temporary apprentice license under Tex. Occ. Code 1305.161(c) expires on the twenty-first day after issuance and bridges the wait for the real one. The emergency electrician license under Tex. Occ. Code 1305.1615 goes to an electrician licensed in another state after a declared disaster, and it expires on the ninetieth day.

The four that carry the volume

By exam attempts in fiscal year 2025, four license types dominate, and neither of the big two occupies a single row. TDLR reports the master and journeyman exams by scored portion, and fiscal 2025 also carries a legacy row for the single journeyman exam that the two-part format replaced in March 2025.

Exam, as TDLR reports itTested FY2025PassedPass rate
Journeyman Calculations6,3281,30120.6 percent
Journeyman NEC5,7311,40224.5 percent
Journeyman, legacy single exam5,0501,39027.5 percent
Master Calculations3,94675319.1 percent
Master NEC3,47277122.2 percent
Residential Wireman1,09833130.2 percent
Appliance Installer48017235.8 percent

The first three rows are all one license. They add to 17,109 of the 26,303 attempts TDLR recorded across every exam that year, which is where the journeyman license really sits in the volume, and no single row shows it. Those are attempts and not people, because a candidate under the two-part format sits two of them.

No row is a pass rate for a whole license either. A master candidate sits both portions, at 19.1 percent and 22.2 percent, so anyone quoting 19.1 percent as the Texas master electrician pass rate has taken one portion and called it the whole thing.

Journeyman is the working license. Master is the supervisory one and the one an electrical contractor license is typically built on. A residential wireman may only perform electrical installations in single-family and multifamily dwellings not exceeding four stories (Tex. Occ. Code 1305.002(13)).

The five that barely register

Five license types produce almost no exam volume, and it is worth knowing why before you build a career plan around one.

LicenseExam attempts FY2025Pass rate
Journeyman Sign Electrician5525.5 percent
Master Sign Electrician5442.6 percent
Journeyman Industrial Electrician5115.7 percent
Journeyman Lineman2040.0 percent
Maintenance Electrician1844.4 percent

Those five together produced 198 exam attempts in a year, against 26,303 across every row of the FY2025 table. They are real licenses with real work behind them, and almost nobody is testing into them.

Journeyman industrial is the hardest exam TDLR administers by pass rate, at 15.7 percent, and eight people passed it in a year. The smallest sample is somewhere else. Maintenance electrician drew 18 attempts and journeyman lineman drew 20, against 51 for journeyman industrial.

The sign licenses are their own world

Sign electricians hold a separate license track with a separate exam, and the exam is weighted heavily toward the electric signs article. On the master sign exam, 36 of the 100 scored items sit in the electric signs and outline lighting subject area, which is more than a third of it. The journeyman sign version is 31 of 80.

That concentration cuts both ways. The material is narrow, and master sign passed at 42.6 percent in fiscal year 2025 against 23.5 percent across every Texas electrical exam. Narrow is also why general electrical study material does not prepare you for it.

Master sign is not the highest pass rate in the state, which is a thing people say. Maintenance electrician passed eight of its 18 candidates in the same year, at 44.4 percent.

Apprentices

Electrical apprentice and electrical sign apprentice are licenses, not registrations. Chapter 1305 uses the word license throughout (Tex. Occ. Code 1305.161), and 16 TAC 73.80(a) charges a license application fee for each.

They are also the only two individual licenses that ask for neither an examination nor documented on-the-job training. PSI runs an examination for each of the other nine individual licenses, and 16 TAC 73.20(a)(1) names eight license types that file training documentation with the application. Neither apprentice license appears on either list.

Apprentices still owe continuing education, and they have one option nobody else has. Enrolling in a department-registered apprenticeship training program satisfies the requirement for that renewal in place of the four hours (16 TAC 73.25(c)).

How many apprentices there are is not something TDLR breaks out. Its Electricians at a Glance sheet gives a single figure for the whole program, 227,117 licensees in fiscal year 2025, against 26,303 exam attempts in the same year. The exam statistics are not a headcount and reading them as one will mislead you about which licenses people actually hold.

The three you apply for and never sit

Electrical Contractor is a license you apply for, not one you sit for. There is no electrical contractor examination in Texas, and none for the electrical sign contractor or the residential appliance installation contractor either. PSI lists nine Texas electrician examinations and every one of them belongs to an individual license.

Anyone selling Texas electrical contractor exam preparation is selling master electrician preparation under a name that does not correspond to a test. The master exam is the one that gates the path.

What renewal looks like across all of them

Every license issued under the chapter runs one year and renews annually (16 TAC 73.22(a)), business licenses included. There is no scaling by license level, and the four hours are the same at every rung.

Continuing education is not universal, though, and that is the detail this page used to get wrong. 16 TAC 73.25(b) applies the four hours to exactly ten license types.

Four license types are off that list. Three of them are the contractor licenses. The fourth is the residential appliance installer, which is an individual license held by a person and still owes nothing.

A journeyman lineman with twenty years in and an apprentice in month three have identical continuing education obligations.

What this page cites

NEC and National Electrical Code are registered trademarks of the National Fire Protection Association.

Trojan Digital Marketing is an independent company. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NFPA, TDLR, PSI Services, or any licensing authority.

Bring your own current copy of the National Electrical Code. The Texas exam is open book.

All practice questions are original. They are not actual exam questions.

Built and maintained by Jeff Clerisier, Trojan Digital Marketing.

Every rule here is cited to the section it comes from, and corrections are logged in public with the date. This is study material rather than electrical advice, and it does not replace your own code book or your inspector.