Arizona to Alabama: journeyman electrician license reciprocity

Alabama issues a statewide Journeyman Electrician license through the Alabama Board of Electrical Contractors. A new applicant must document at least 8,000 hours of experience installing electrical wiring, apparatus or equipment (up to 2,000 hours may be substituted with approved education or apprenticeship) and pass the journeyman exam administered by Prov, either the Alabama exam or the NASCLA Portable Journeyman exam ($115 either way); the license fee is $35 and it renews annually for $35. Exams currently reference the 2023 NEC and will move to the 2026 NEC on January 1, 2027. Alabama law also lets counties and municipalities license and examine journeymen for work inside their boundaries, but a statewide Board license is deemed qualifying in every county and municipality, and journeymen employed by a Board licensee are exempt from local licensing. The Board's only journeyman reciprocity partner is Texas; every other out-of-state journeyman must qualify by documented experience and take the Alabama exam.

Arizona does not issue a journeyman electrician license. The Arizona Registrar of Contractors (ROC) licenses electrical contractors under the R-11 (residential), C-11 (commercial) and CR-11 (dual) classifications, and individual electricians work as employees of a licensed contractor without any personal state license; the largest city, Phoenix, likewise states that it does not issue an electrical journeyman or apprentice license. An out-of-state journeyman license therefore has nothing to transfer to in Arizona and is neither required nor recognized for employment. An electrician who wants to contract independently must instead obtain an ROC contractor license: the qualifying party needs 4 years of practical or management trade experience (at least 2 within the last 10 years), a passing score of 70% on the Arizona Statutes and Rules Exam (SRE, $61) and on the trade exam ($66 through PSI, or the NASCLA electrical exam for $116), a background check, a license bond (from $2,500 for commercial specialty and $4,250 for residential specialty, depending on volume), and application and license fees ($720 for R-11, $580 for C-11, $850 for CR-11 including the residential recovery fund assessment). Arizona has no direct reciprocity with any state, but the ROC may waive the trade exam and experience requirement for a qualifying party who held a comparable contractor license in another state within the past 5 years that was obtained by a trade examination; the SRE is never waived for out-of-state applicants.