About the North Dakota Master Electrician license
North Dakota licenses electricians through the North Dakota State Electrical Board (NDSEB). The Master Electrician is the senior credential. It requires you to first hold a journeyman license, then complete at least one year (a minimum of 2,000 hours) of experience as a licensed journeyman working under a contracting master electrician or master of record, and pass a more demanding exam that adds heavier load-calculation, design, and code-application content. A holder at this level can be licensed as a Contracting Master (responsible for a business's compliance and carries liability insurance), a Master of Record (covers work only on property owned or leased by one specific organization), or a Non-Contracting Master working under another master's supervision.
The exam is National Electrical Code (NEC) based, because North Dakota adopts the NEC (currently the 2023 edition, effective July 1, 2024) plus its own Laws, Rules, and Wiring Standards. The Master exam has two parts: a 1-hour closed-book portion (fundamentals, laws, and rules) and a 3.5-hour open-book portion covering the NEC. NDSEB administers the exam directly — it is not outsourced to a third-party testing vendor — and the board provides the code book, a calculator, and pencils for the open-book portion. Confirm directly with NDSEB whether you may also bring and use your own annotated or tabbed copy; do not assume you can. Plan to be fast in a clean, unmarked code book, because the exam is as much a test of how fast you can locate a section using the index and table of contents 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 North Dakota licensing works
- Experience: Master applicants must complete at least 1 year (minimum 2,000 hours) as a licensed journeyman electrician working under a contracting master electrician or master of record, on top of the journeyman-level experience already completed.
- Education: approved instruction hours or completion of an approved apprenticeship program count toward the journeyman experience that underlies the master credential. NDSEB may also grant 2,000 hours of experience credit to graduates of a board-accepted two-year (or longer) electrical school program.
- 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 administration: NDSEB administers the exam directly — there is no third-party testing vendor. The passing score is 70 percent. The Master exam runs 1 hour closed-book plus 3.5 hours open-book; confirm the current question count and format on the board's exam-dates page or your invitation letter.
- Renewal: licenses renew annually — the Master license expires April 30 each year. Renewal requires 8 hours of board-approved continuing education, of which at least 4 hours must be code-related.
Before you rely on any value in this guide, confirm the currently adopted NEC edition on the NDSEB website (North Dakota is currently on the 2023 NEC, effective July 1, 2024; continuing-education courses shift to the 2026 NEC starting May 1, 2026, and the exam edition can change independently, so verify before you test). 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.
