About the Hawaii C-13 Electrical license
Hawaii runs electrical licensing through two separate boards under the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA). Individual trade licenses — Journey Worker Electrician (roughly 5 years / 10,000 hours of documented wiring experience) and Supervising Electrician (an additional 4 years working as a licensed Journey Worker Electrician) — are issued by the DCCA's Board of Electricians and Plumbers (HRS Chapter 448E), each gated by its own exam. The C-13 Electrical Contractor license is a separate business license issued by the DCCA Contractors License Board: it is held by the contracting entity (sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation) through a qualifying Responsible Managing Employee (RME), who must personally document roughly 4 years of full-time supervisory electrical experience within the prior 10 years and pass the required exams. A C-13 license lets the business pull permits, bid and contract electrical work directly, and supervise journey workers and apprentices on the job — confirm the current RME experience and licensing pathway with the Contractors License Board, since equivalency provisions can apply.
The exam is National Electrical Code (NEC) based, because Hawaii adopts the NEC as its electrical code. Per the current PSI candidate bulletin, the C-13 trade exam is closed book — you may not bring your own code book, notes, or reference material into the test center. Instead, PSI provides a clean, unmarked copy of the NEC (currently the 2020 edition, per the bulletin in effect as of early 2026) at your seat, and no highlighting, tabs, or notes of any kind may be added to it during the exam. That changes the prep strategy: you cannot rely on a personally tabbed book, so the skill to build is fast navigation of an unmarked code book using only its table of contents and index.
Know these scope facts cold, because the exam asks them in plain-language form: the license is held by the individual, not the company; most installations require a permit and inspection before concealment (rough-in) and again at final; you must work within the classification you hold; and performing electrical work without the required license, or beyond your scope, is a violation that can cost you the license and carry civil penalties.
How Hawaii licensing works
- Experience: the C-13 Contractor license's Responsible Managing Employee (RME) must document roughly 4 years of full-time supervisory electrical experience within the past 10 years; the Journey Worker Electrician and Supervising Electrician trade credentials that typically underlie that experience carry their own separate hour requirements (see above).
- Education: approved instruction hours or an accepted community-college electrical program can count toward the documented experience required at the Journey Worker Electrician stage.
- Application: submit the application, fees, and proof of experience (often signed off by a supervising/master electrician or employer) to the board before you are approved to sit.
- Exam vendor and format: PSI Services LLC administers the Hawaii contractor examinations. Per the current candidate bulletin, the C-13 Electrical trade exam is 40 questions, 120 minutes, closed book (NEC copy provided at the test center), with a minimum passing score of 75 percent. First-time applicants must also separately pass the Business and Law exam (80 questions, 180 minutes, 75 percent, also closed book) — that content is covered in this course's companion Law & Business guide, not here. Confirm current figures on the PSI candidate information bulletin, since they can change.
- Renewal: contractor licenses renew on a fixed biennial cycle and require continuing education hours set by the Contractors License Board. Confirm the current hour count and any Hawaii-law-specific component with the board before your renewal date — don't assume it is pegged to NEC edition changes.
Two different "current editions" matter and they are not the same thing: Hawaii's statewide electrical code for actual field work has moved to the 2023 NEC (effective September 1, 2024), while the PSI candidate bulletin for the C-13 exam currently references the 2020 NEC as the reference copy provided at the test center. Exam content can lag the field code by an edition or more. Ampacities, GFCI/AFCI scope, working-clearance distances, and receptacle-spacing rules all change between editions — before you rely on any specific number in this guide, confirm which edition your approval letter and PSI bulletin specify for test day, and separately confirm the field-code edition with the board for on-the-job work.
About the Hawaii C-13 Electrical license
Hawaii runs electrical licensing through two separate boards under the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA). Individual trade licenses — Journey Worker Electrician (roughly 5 years / 10,000 hours of documented wiring experience) and Supervising Electrician (an additional 4 years working as a licensed Journey Worker Electrician) — are issued by the DCCA's Board of Electricians and Plumbers (HRS Chapter 448E), each gated by its own exam. The C-13 Electrical Contractor license is a separate business license issued by the DCCA Contractors License Board: it is held by the contracting entity (sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation) through a qualifying Responsible Managing Employee (RME), who must personally document roughly 4 years of full-time supervisory electrical experience within the prior 10 years and pass the required exams. A C-13 license lets the business pull permits, bid and contract electrical work directly, and supervise journey workers and apprentices on the job — confirm the current RME experience and licensing pathway with the Contractors License Board, since equivalency provisions can apply.
The exam is National Electrical Code (NEC) based, because Hawaii adopts the NEC as its electrical code. Per the current PSI candidate bulletin, the C-13 trade exam is closed book — you may not bring your own code book, notes, or reference material into the test center. Instead, PSI provides a clean, unmarked copy of the NEC (currently the 2020 edition, per the bulletin in effect as of early 2026) at your seat, and no highlighting, tabs, or notes of any kind may be added to it during the exam. That changes the prep strategy: you cannot rely on a personally tabbed book, so the skill to build is fast navigation of an unmarked code book using only its table of contents and index.
Know these scope facts cold, because the exam asks them in plain-language form: the license is held by the individual, not the company; most installations require a permit and inspection before concealment (rough-in) and again at final; you must work within the classification you hold; and performing electrical work without the required license, or beyond your scope, is a violation that can cost you the license and carry civil penalties.
This is the opening of the full study guide. The complete guide continues into code navigation, worked calculations and solved exam questions.
