South Carolina to Texas: journeyman HVAC technician license reciprocity

Texas has no journeyman HVAC license in the usual sense; the person-held credential for an employee who does air conditioning and refrigeration work is the Registered ACR Technician registration issued by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). Anyone who assists a licensed ACR contractor with non-exempt maintenance or repair work must register: the applicant must be at least 16, file a one-page application with a $20 fee and answer a criminal history questionnaire, and there is no exam, no experience requirement and no continuing education. The registration is valid one year and is renewed for $20. TDLR also offers a voluntary Certified ACR Technician credential for technicians with 24 months of supervised experience or a TDLR-approved 2,000-hour training program who pass a PSI exam ($50 application, $60 exam, renewed for $35); it is not required to work. Because the registration is not an examined license, an out-of-state journeyman or technician license has nothing to transfer to: every technician must register with TDLR regardless of licenses held elsewhere, and all work must be performed under a Texas-licensed ACR contractor. Technicians who handle refrigerants also need federal EPA Section 608 certification.

South Carolina has no state journeyman HVAC license. The LLR Contractor's Licensing Board licenses mechanical contractors (entities qualified by an individual qualifying party) for air-conditioning, heating and refrigeration work over $10,000, and the Residential Builders Commission licenses Residential HVAC Installers and Repairers for residential work over $500; neither chapter of the contractor law creates a journeyman or technician credential, so an HVAC technician who is not a contractor works under one of those licensees with no state license. The journeyman-level credential that does exist is the trade certification card of the SC Mechanical Trades Certification Program, run since 1965 by the Municipal Association of South Carolina (the association of the state's cities) and, since January 1, 2026, by the Carolinas AGC Foundation; the program's own page says the card is not a license and must not be represented as one. No reciprocity or out-of-state acceptance is published for the journeyman card, so an arriving technician should expect to apply to CAGC ($35 application, PROV exam) if a local jurisdiction or employer requires a card. EPA Section 608 certification is federal and required of everyone handling refrigerants regardless of any South Carolina card.