Nevada to Virginia: master HVAC technician license reciprocity

Virginia issues a statewide Master HVAC tradesman license to individuals through the Board for Contractors' Tradesmen Program at DPOR. Under 18VAC50-30-39 a first-time applicant qualifies for the PSI master exam ($125) with one year of practical experience as a licensed journeyman, three years as a Virginia residential HVAC tradesman, or nine years of verified practical experience in the trade; the application fee on the 2026 form is $171.75 including the technology fee. A current journeyman or master HVAC license from another state is itself an accepted qualification to sit the master exam, and a licensee who has held an out-of-state license for at least one year may apply through Universal License Recognition and receive the master license without the Virginia trade exam. The Board's only HVAC reciprocity agreement is an examination reciprocity agreement with the Maryland HVACR Board covering journeyman and master licenses; the electrical agreements with Alabama, DC, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia do not extend to HVAC. The master tradesman license is a personal qualification; contracting for work over $1,000 requires a separate Class A, B or C contractor business license from the same Board. EPA Section 608 certification is required federally to handle refrigerants.

Nevada does not issue a master HVAC or master refrigeration license, and no county or city was found to issue a master-level HVAC card (Clark County and Las Vegas recognize a 'mechanical qualified individual', which is simply the person who qualifies a contractor's C-21 license with the State Board). The state-level credential is a classification C-21 Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Contracting license from the Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB), issued to a sole proprietor, partnership, corporation or LLC and qualified by a named individual rather than held by the mechanic personally, with subclassifications for refrigeration (C-21a), air-conditioning (C-21b), sheet metal, maintenance, solar, chilled and hot water systems and industrial piping. An out-of-state master HVAC licensee who only wants to work for an employer needs no Nevada license at all (apart from the local journeyman card in Clark County and Las Vegas). To contract, the qualifying individual must show four years of experience as a journeyman, foreman, supervising employee or contractor within the past 15 years (NRS 624.260), pass the PSI-administered Nevada Business and Law exam and the C-21 trade exam within six months of filing (three attempts each), and the business must pay the $300 application fee and $600 biennial license fee, submit a financial statement, fingerprints and background check, and post a bond of $1,000 to $500,000 set by the Board, plus the Residential Recovery Fund assessment if it does residential work. Under licensure by endorsement (NAC 624.600 and 624.615) the C-21 trade exam and the experience certification are waived for a qualified individual who has held an active license with no discipline for the past four years in Arizona (CR-79 Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Including Solar, as the Board prints it), California (C-20 together with C-38), Connecticut (S-1 Unlimited Heating, Piping and Cooling), Louisiana (10 Mechanical Work statewide) or Tennessee (CMC Full Mechanical Contractor), documented with a License Verification Form from that state; the Business and Law exam is never waived, and no other state's chart contains an HVAC row. EPA Section 608 certification is a separate federal requirement for anyone who handles refrigerants.