Arizona to South Carolina: master electrician license reciprocity

South Carolina has no 'master electrician' license. The highest person-held electrical credential is the Contractor's Licensing Board's Qualifying Party certification in the Electrical (EL) classification of the Mechanical Contractor license: the individual passes the South Carolina electrical technical exam (or the NASCLA Accredited Electrical exam) and the South Carolina Business Management & Law for Commercial Contractors exam, documents two years of experience within the past five, and is certified as the primary qualifying party for a licensed entity (which may be a sole proprietorship); the certification stays with the person and can be transferred to another licensee. The license itself is issued to the business, with a $350 licensure fee and a financial statement or surety bond sized by license group (Mechanical Group 2, jobs to $50,000: working capital $10,000 or net worth $15,000, or a $15,000 bond). A residential-only alternative is the Residential Builders Commission's Residential Electrician license ($135 application, $220 license), issued to the individual after one year of residential experience and the residential technical plus Business Management and Law exams. South Carolina has technical-exam waiver agreements, listed in the Board's Reciprocity/Waiver Agreements document, that cover the electrical classification for Alabama, Georgia (Un-Restricted), Mississippi, North Carolina (Limited, Intermediate and Unlimited with matching group limits), Ohio, Reading (Pennsylvania), Tennessee (CE) and Utah (Master Electrician exams passed before May 2017), plus the MASC/CAGC Master Electrician card and the NASCLA Accredited Electrical exam; every waiver applicant must still pass the South Carolina Business Management & Law exam. Licensees from other states take the South Carolina (or NASCLA) technical exam.

Arizona does not issue a master electrician license. The state-level credential for electrical work is a contractor license from the Arizona Registrar of Contractors (ROC) in the R-11 Electrical (residential), C-11 Electrical (commercial, under 600 volts) or CR-11 Electrical (dual) classification; the license is issued to a business (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC or corporation) and is qualified by a named qualifying party rather than to the electrician personally. A master electrician arriving from another state who only wants to work for an employer needs no Arizona license at all. To run their own electrical business they must apply for an ROC license: the qualifying party must show 4 years of practical or management trade experience (at least 2 within the last 10 years, with up to 2 years creditable from accredited technical training), pass the open-book Arizona Statutes and Rules Exam (SRE, $61 via Gmetrix) and the classification trade exam with at least 70% ($66 via PSI, or the NASCLA Electrical exam for $116, accepted for R-11, C-11 and CR-11), complete a background check, register the entity with the Arizona Corporation Commission if an LLC or corporation, post a continuous license bond sized by classification and annual volume (commercial specialty $2,500 to $50,000, residential specialty $4,250 to $7,500, dual licenses combine both), and pay application and license fees plus the residential recovery fund assessment ($720 total for R-11, $580 for C-11, $850 for CR-11, before exam fees). Arizona has no direct reciprocity agreement with any state; under A.A.C. R4-9-106(E) the Registrar may waive the trade exam and experience documentation when the qualifying party held a comparable contractor license in another state within the preceding 5 years and obtained it by trade examination (Out-of-State Waiver Request Form RC-L-200G submitted with the application), but the SRE cannot be waived.