Virginia Electrical Journeyman Exam Prep

About the Virginia Electrical Journeyman license

Virginia licenses electricians through the Virginia Board for Contractors (DPOR). The Electrical Journeyman 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 open book and the code questions are based on the 2020 NEC. You may also carry NFPA 70E 2024 and the DPOR Individual License and Certification Regulations. References may be highlighted, underlined, and indexed with permanent tabs. Otherwise they stay unmarked. Do not write in the books. Do not bring a study guide, a sample exam, or removable tabs. Plan to tab the 2020 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 Virginia licensing works

• Experience and education (18VAC50-30-39 B, one path): a related engineering bachelor’s degree plus 1 year of practical experience; an associate degree or a certificate from at least a two-year tradesman program plus 2 years; 240 hours of formal vocational training plus 4 years; 160 hours plus 5 years; 80 hours plus 6 years; 40 hours plus 7 years; or no formal vocational training plus 8 years. Those rows are the journeyman electrician, plumber, and HVAC examination table. They are not the residential HVAC and residential plumber table in subsection A, and they are not a 10-year letter path. 18VAC50-30-40 is repealed.
• 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: The Board approves the application. PSI then schedules the exam. Bulletin 481 prints 70 questions, 210 minutes, and a passing score of 49 (70 percent). This is not the master paper (90 items, passing score 63, 270 minutes).
• Renewal (18VAC50-30-120 A and C; Code of Virginia § 54.1-1132 and § 54.1-1133): an electrician license expires three years from the last day of the month in which it was issued. Renewal or reinstatement requires three hours of continuing education for the electrical designation, relating to applicable building-code changes, from a board-approved provider. The two-year expiration in 18VAC50-30-120 B is for other licenses and certifications in that chapter, not this electrician card.

Code questions are graded to the 2020 NEC, the edition bulletin 481 lists for electricians. You may carry another edition into the room. A code question is still based only on the listed edition. Ampacity, GFCI and AFCI scope, working clearances, and receptacle rules are read from that 2020 text, not from a 2023 or 2017 reprint.