New Hampshire Journeyman Electrician Exam Prep

About the New Hampshire Journeyman Electrician license

New Hampshire licenses electricians through the New Hampshire Electricians' Board (part of the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, OPLC). The Journeyman Electrician license authorizes you to perform electrical work while employed by a licensed Master Electrician or a licensed electrical business — a journeyman cannot pull permits or take on work independently. You earn it by completing 8,000 hours of supervised on-the-job apprentice experience plus 600 hours of board-approved electrical education, and passing the trade exam.

The exam is National Electrical Code (NEC) based, because New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire licensing works

• Experience: 8,000 hours of supervised on-the-job apprentice experience (RSA 319-C:7). Advancing to Master Electrician requires first passing the journeyman exam, then documented journeyman-level experience on top of that base.
• Education: 600 hours of board-approved electrical instruction (delivered in annual blocks) is required for the journeyman license; the master license requires additional approved coursework.
• 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: Prov (ProV), under contract to the board. The Journeyman exam is commonly 110 questions (about 50 NEC-based, 50 on practical installations) with roughly a 4.5-hour time limit, and is open-book with approved references (the NEC, a permitted handbook, and NH law/rules). The passing score is 70 percent — confirm the current fee, question count, and time limit on the Prov candidate information bulletin published by the board.
• Renewal: licenses renew every three years, by the last day of the licensee's birth month, and require 15 hours of board-approved continuing education per code cycle, including code-update hours each time a new NEC edition is adopted.

Before you rely on any value in this guide, confirm the currently adopted NEC edition on the board and Prov bulletin — The Prov bulletin dated August 6, 2026 prints a 2017 journeyman form on the 2017 NEC and a 2020 journeyman form on the 2020 NEC. It does not print a 2023 journeyman form. 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.