About the New Hampshire Master Electrician license
New Hampshire licenses electricians through the New Hampshire Electricians' Board. The Master Electrician is the senior credential. It requires you to first hold a New Hampshire journeyman license, then accumulate at least 2,000 hours of additional documented field experience as a licensed journeyman (roughly a year of full-time work) before you are eligible to sit for the Master exam, which adds heavier load-calculation, design, and code-application content. A holder at this level can typically pull permits, supervise journeymen and apprentices, design installations, and serve as the qualifying individual for a licensed contracting business.
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 documented on-the-job training as an apprentice under a licensed journeyman or master, then at least 2,000 hours of additional field experience as a licensed journeyman before you may sit for the Master exam.
- Education: at least 600 hours of board-approved electrical schooling (or an equivalent approved apprenticeship/associate-degree path) satisfies the education route toward the journeyman level that underlies the master credential; up to 2,000 hours of approved school time can also count toward the practical-experience requirement.
- 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, Inc. (provexam.com), under contract with the NH Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC) — not PSI, despite older references you may still see elsewhere. The Master exam is 125 questions with a 5-hour time limit; the cut score is 70 percent. Confirm current details on the Prov candidate information bulletin.
- Renewal: Journeyman and Master licenses generally renew every two years and require 15 hours of board-approved continuing education per renewal/code cycle, including code-update hours each time a new NEC edition is adopted — confirm your specific renewal date and current CE rule with the board.
Before you rely on any value in this guide, confirm the currently adopted NEC edition on the board and PSI bulletin. 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.
