About the Nebraska Journeyman Electrician license
Nebraska licenses electricians through the Nebraska State Electrical Division. The Journeyman Electrician license authorizes you to perform electrical work, generally under the responsibility of a master, supervising, or administrator electrician. You earn it by meeting the experience-and-education requirement — a combination of documented on-the-job hours and approved classroom instruction, or completion of an approved apprenticeship — and passing the trade exam.
The exam is National Electrical Code (NEC) based, because Nebraska adopts the NEC as its electrical code. It is normally open book: you may bring a clean, bound copy of the adopted NEC edition. Tabs and highlighting are usually permitted; loose or handwritten notes usually are not — confirm the current rule with the vendor. Plan to tab and index your code book before test day, because the exam is as much a test of how fast you can locate a section as it is of what you have memorized.
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 Nebraska licensing works
- Experience: at least four years (8,000 hours) of verifiable, board-acceptable experience in the electrical trade; registered apprentice hours count with board approval. A two-year associate's degree in electrical technology can credit up to one year of that experience, and qualifying military electrical experience may also count. If your verifiable Nebraska experience is under 4,000 hours, you receive a Restricted license that does not reciprocate with other states.
- Application: submit the application, a $90 application fee, and proof of experience (often signed off by a supervising/master electrician or employer) to the Nebraska State Electrical Division before you are approved to sit. The license fee itself is $37.50 in even years or $75.00 in odd years — confirm current fees on the NSED site.
- Exam vendor: PSI (Nebraska moved Journeyman, Contractor, and Residential Wireman testing from ICC to PSI on October 1, 2023). PSI bulletin 11653, dated 3/11/2025, sets this journeyman exam at 80 scored questions, 240 minutes, and 75 percent. Sixty correct is the cut. Confirm you are still on that bulletin the morning you schedule.
- Renewal: licenses renew on a two-year cycle ending December 31 of even-numbered years and require 12 hours of continuing education per cycle, with at least 6 hours covering the NEC.
Nebraska adopted the 2023 NEC effective August 1, 2024 (five sections — 210.8(A), 210.8(A)(3), 210.8(A)(5), 230.67(A), and 230.85 — were held to 2017 language). Before you rely on any value in this guide, confirm the currently adopted NEC edition on the board and PSI bulletin, since editions can change again. Ampacities, GFCI/AFCI scope, working-clearance distances, and receptacle-spacing rules all change between editions, and the exam is written to the edition your state has adopted — not necessarily the newest one published.
This is the opening of the full study guide. The complete guide continues into code navigation, worked calculations and solved exam questions.
