Nevada to Michigan: journeyman electrician license reciprocity

Under MCL 339.5733 a municipality that adopts an examination and licensing ordinance at least as stringent as the state's may license journeymen who reside in it, and both state and qualifying municipal licenses must be recognized by all municipalities. The City of Detroit's Board of Electrical Examiners examines and licenses Electrical Journeypersons who are Detroit residents (same 8,000-hour / four-year standard); Detroit licenses are valid throughout Michigan and equivalent to state licenses. Non-residents of Detroit apply to LARA. Other municipalities may require registration of state licensees under local inspection ordinances but do not issue their own journeyman licenses per the pages reviewed.

How local licensing works. NRS Chapter 624 licenses only contractors; a C-2 Electrical Contracting license is issued to a business and qualified by an individual with four years of journeyman-or-higher experience, and the NSCB's own FAQ says Nevada does not license individual journeymen. Whether a working electrician needs a personal credential is decided by each county's or city's building administrative code. The southern Nevada jurisdictions and Reno run a common program: exams are the ICC National Electrician exams (G17 Journeyman Electrician, G18 Residential Electrician, G16 Master Electrician) taken through Pearson VUE, and photo ID cards are issued by Electrical Safety Professionals (ESP), the Nevada non-profit that took over the Clark County ID card program on September 1, 2019.

Clark County (unincorporated Las Vegas valley, Laughlin, Mesquite area). Clark County Code §22.02.250 requires the contractor to have a master electrician or electrical qualified individual, or a journeyman electrician, present in a supervisory capacity whenever permitted electrical work is under way. §22.02.255 defines a journeyman as someone who has passed the journeyman examination accepted by the Building Official; §22.02.260 lists Journeyman Electrician (all electrical work), Journeyman Residential Electrician (one- and two-family dwellings), Journeyman Sign Electrician and Technician (low voltage) categories and requires certificates to be kept current with the county's accepted third-party testing agency. The only equivalency in the code is for a current certificate from an accepted independent testing agency or from a political subdivision of Nevada within Clark County; there is no provision for other states' licenses. Since 2019 the accepted exam is the ICC G17/G18 and the card comes from ESP.

City of Las Vegas. The City of Las Vegas Administrative Code (2019 edition) §306 carries the same on-site supervision rule (master electrician or electrical qualified individual, or a journeyman electrician). The ICC G17 or G18 exam needs no pre-approval; the applicant then sends the score report to ESP for a card valid three years.

ESP card requirements (all of the above). Pass the ICC exam (70% journeyman, 75% master); since January 1, 2024 a new card also needs 2,000 documented hours of electrical work or apprenticeship; renewal every three years with 15 CEU hours for journeymen (30 for masters) including an 8-hour NEC update class; a card expired more than one year requires re-examination. ESP's card and exam fees are not published on the official jurisdiction pages and were not verified.

Out-of-state holders. None of these jurisdictions publish a reciprocity or endorsement path for a journeyman license from another state. Reno's 12-month grace period for reciprocal licenses is the only accommodation found. In practice an arriving journeyman takes the ICC G17 exam once and obtains the ESP card, which is honored by Clark County, Las Vegas, Henderson and Reno. Rural counties and Carson City were not surveyed.