How to Transfer an Electrician License to Another State: Journeyman or Master
Electrician license transfer has no interstate compact. Journeyman reciprocity runs on partner-state agreements: 24 states publish a journeyman partner list, many through NERA — the National Electrical Reciprocal Alliance, a voluntary group of member state boards that waive each other's journeyman exam for an electrician who passed a state-administered exam, has held the license at least a year, and meets the experience-hour requirement (commonly 8,000 hours). Master licenses move on separate terms — some boards keep their own, often shorter, master reciprocity lists and others review a master license individually; 13 states issue no statewide journeyman or master electrician license at all (individual electricians there are licensed locally, if at all, so there is nothing to transfer at state level); and everywhere else you apply on the destination board's own terms.
Check your exact transfer pathway
Pathway, requirements, fees, and board links for your specific state pair.
Electrician licensing has no interstate compact, and its transfer map is more fragmented than most trades'. The nearest thing to portability is NERA — the National Electrical Reciprocal Alliance — a voluntary set of state electrical boards that waive each other's journeyman exam for electricians who qualified by exam, held the license at least a year, and logged the required hours. But NERA is bilateral: each member decides which other members it accepts, the lists are not identical, and a license that ports cleanly into one member state can be turned away by the next.
Two things shape almost every electrician move. Direction and provenance matter more than seniority — reciprocity keys off whether the destination names your origin state and whether your license came from an exam rather than a grandfather clause, and years on the tools substitute for neither. And some states have no statewide license to transfer at all: 13 states (Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee) issue no statewide journeyman or master electrician license — individual electricians there are licensed by cities or counties where they are licensed at all, and some of these states license only the electrical contractor (the business) — so "reciprocity" there is a category error — the questions that matter are which local jurisdiction covers your jobsite and what it requires. Every list on this site comes from the state boards and NERA, not the aggregator maps that routinely overstate them.
The four transfer pathways
NERA journeyman reciprocity
The alliance is the backbone of electrician portability. A member state waives its journeyman exam for an electrician who qualified by exam in another member state, held the license at least a year, and meets the experience-hour minimum. Membership is not a blanket pass, though — each member keeps its own partner list, so what matters is whether the destination names your origin state specifically. Grandfathered, non-exam licenses are generally excluded.
Licensure by endorsement
Where no partner list covers you — or where you hold a master license and the board keeps no master list covering your state — states fall back to endorsement: the board reviews your license and experience individually and decides what, if anything, it will waive. It resembles reciprocity on paper but offers less certainty, and it is the usual route for master electricians, whose experience minimums run higher. Get any exam waiver or experience credit confirmed by the board in writing.
Full application and state exam
Some states recognize no outside electrician license and treat every applicant as new. Your out-of-state hours generally still count toward the experience minimum, but you sit the state's exam. The honest playbook is to pull the board's current requirements early, document your hours, and treat your years on the job as a study advantage rather than a credential that transfers.
No statewide license (municipal licensing)
13 states (Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee) issue no state journeyman or master license to transfer: individual electricians there are licensed by city and county building departments where they are licensed at all, and some of these states license only electrical contractors statewide. Your move is governed by the local authority for your jobsite — its exam, its fee, its rules — not a state board.
Definitions in depth: how electrician transfer works· full reciprocity overview
Every state, one table
Sorted A-Z. Each state links to its full transfer guide with requirements, fees, steps, and board links. For how electrician (journeyman/master) compares with every other licensed profession — median transfer fees, the share of moves that go to an honor-all state or through a compact, and the hardest states to enter — see the license reciprocity statistics.
Frequently asked questions
Does my electrician license transfer to another state?
Electrician license transfer has no interstate compact. Journeyman reciprocity runs on partner-state agreements: 24 states publish a journeyman partner list, many through NERA — the National Electrical Reciprocal Alliance, a voluntary group of member state boards that waive each other's journeyman exam for an electrician who passed a state-administered exam, has held the license at least a year, and meets the experience-hour requirement (commonly 8,000 hours). Master licenses move on separate terms — some boards keep their own, often shorter, master reciprocity lists and others review a master license individually; 13 states issue no statewide journeyman or master electrician license at all (individual electricians there are licensed locally, if at all, so there is nothing to transfer at state level); and everywhere else you apply on the destination board's own terms.
Which states have journeyman electrician reciprocity lists?
Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming publish journeyman reciprocity lists as of 2026-07-21, some through NERA and some under a board's own bilateral agreements. Either way each of these states names its own partner states — being on a list is not a blanket pass, so check that your destination lists your origin state specifically.
Which states have no statewide journeyman electrician license?
Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee issue no statewide journeyman or master electrician license as of 2026-07-21 — individual electricians are licensed by cities or counties where they are licensed at all, so there is no state journeyman credential to transfer in or out. Where one of these states licenses anything statewide, it is the electrical contractor (the business), a separate credential; each state page says which.
Does NERA reciprocity cover master electricians?
No. NERA is built around the journeyman license. Master licenses move on separate terms: some boards keep their own master reciprocity lists (often shorter than the journeyman list), and others review the master license and its higher experience minimum individually. This site's grids track the journeyman path.
Is a grandfathered (non-exam) license eligible for reciprocity?
Generally not. NERA waivers require that your original license came from a state-administered exam; a license you were grandfathered into without testing is usually excluded, even from a partner state.
Why do online electrician reciprocity lists disagree so much?
Because NERA lists are bilateral and differ between members, aggregator maps flatten and inflate them into a single 'reciprocity' count. Every list on this site is verified against the destination state's electrical board and NERA, and carries the date it was last confirmed.
Sources
Primary sources only — official boards and compact commissions. Data last verified 2026-10-29.
Per-state sources are listed on each state's page — this hub cites the national bodies; the full source registry is at /sources/.
Reviewed by the License Reciprocity Editorial Team · verified against primary sources 2026-10-29
How we verify · All sources · Corrections log · spot an error? hello@licensereciprocity.com