California to Alabama: master electrician license reciprocity

Alabama's highest person-held electrical credential is the statewide Electrical Contractor license, which the Board's own page says 'may also be interchanged with Master Electrician'. Under Ala. Code §34-36-7(c) it is issued only to a person (never to a firm), and the licensee then qualifies a business through the EC-2 business information form, so it is treated here as the master level. A new applicant must document 8,000 hours (four years) of experience designing, planning, laying out and directly supervising electrical construction, or 8,000 hours as a journeyman in charge of jobs, and pass the Alabama Electrical Contractor exam or the NASCLA Electrical Contractors exam through Prov ($165); the license fee is $150, renewal is $150 per year, the license is unlimited in voltage and bid amount, and 14 hours of continuing education are required every two years. The Board has electrical contractor reciprocity with Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Louisiana and Texas, accepts the NASCLA Electrical Contractors exam as a basis for reciprocal licensing, and ended reciprocity with Georgia. Counties and municipalities may also license electrical contractors for work within their boundaries, but a statewide license is deemed qualifying everywhere in the state.

California does not issue a master electrician license or any personal electrician credential above the DIR General Electrician certification. The state-level credential above that is a C-10 Electrical Contractor license from the Contractors State License Board (CSLB), which is issued to a business (sole owner, partnership, corporation or LLC) and qualified by a named individual rather than held by the electrician personally, so an out-of-state master electrician has nothing to transfer to unless they intend to contract. A master electrician who only wants to work for an employer needs the DIR electrician certification described at the journeyman level. To contract independently the qualifying individual must document at least four years of journeyman-level or higher experience within the past 10 years, pay the $450 application fee, pass both the CSLB Law and Business exam and the C-10 trade exam through PSI within 18 months, be fingerprinted, post a $25,000 contractor's bond (plus a $25,000 bond of qualifying individual where applicable), carry workers' compensation or file an exemption, and pay the initial license fee of $200 (sole owner) or $350 (non-sole owner) for a two-year license. CSLB's reciprocity program covers contractors licensed for the previous five years in good standing in Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada or North Carolina, but only classifications on the Reciprocal Classifications List: for electrical work the only mapped classifications are Arizona C-11, K-11 and L-11 Electrical, which map to California C-10; Nevada's C-2 Electrical is not mapped (only Nevada C-2d Low Voltage maps to C-7), and the Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina entries cover only general building. Where reciprocity is granted CSLB may waive the C-10 trade exam but retains the right to require it, staff determine comparability case by case, and the Law and Business exam, bond, fingerprinting and all other licensure requirements still apply. A DIR electrician certification is not required for a licensed contractor's own work, only for electricians employed by C-10 contractors.