Mississippi to Georgia: journeyman plumber license reciprocity

Georgia issues a statewide Journeyman Plumber license through the Construction Industry Licensing Board's Division of Master and Journeyman Plumbers. Rule 121-3-.02 is the only CILB licensing rule that creates both master and journeyman credentials (electrical and conditioned-air rules license contractors only). Senate Bill 553 (2026) repealed and re-enacted the licensing statute, O.C.G.A. Title 43, Chapter 14, effective July 1, 2026, and the qualifications are now set in law: a journeyman applicant documents one year of full-time plumbing experience (2,000 documented hours) of a type covered by the state plumbing code, supervised by a licensed Master Plumber and attested by a signed affidavit from each supervising master, scores at least 70 on the Board-approved examination, consents to a criminal background check, and pays the Board's published application fee. The Division's application checklist still also asks for three licensed-plumber references, and Rule 121-3-.02 still lists secondary experience such as county water or public-works maintenance and full-time plumbing inspection, so confirm with the Division how it applies the new statute. Medical-gas piping is a separate statewide certificate (Rule 121-2-.11) available only to a current Georgia master or journeyman. O.C.G.A. § 43-14-23 lets the Division, in its discretion, license without examination someone who has practiced for at least two years under a license from a state with substantially equal requirements that gives Georgia licensees equivalent privileges; Rule 121-2-.03 still frames this as a formal written agreement, and the Division's FAQ states that Georgia has no reciprocity with any other state for master or journeyman plumbers. In practice everyone therefore applies by examination, with out-of-state plumbing work counting toward the experience minimum. Exams are given by PSI, and licenses renew every two years by November 30 of even-numbered years with 8 hours of continuing education.

Mississippi does not issue a journeyman plumber license. The Mississippi State Board of Contractors (MSBOC) licenses contracting businesses - commercial contractors and subcontractors on jobs over $50,000 and residential contractors and residential plumbing subcontractors above the residential thresholds - through a Certificate of Responsibility held by the company with a tested qualifying party, and its FAQ states that it does not license individual journeymen; none of its Plumbing, Mechanical or Residential Plumbing classifications, exams or reciprocity agreements apply to a plumber who only wants to work for an employer. Individual plumbers are licensed, where they are licensed at all, by cities under their own ordinances: Southaven's Building Department issues apprentice, journeyman and master trade licenses and accepts a current journeyman license from another jurisdiction or a passed ICC journeyman exam in place of its own testing, while coastal cities such as Gulfport license only the contractor's qualifying party and have no journeyman card. An out-of-state journeyman plumber license therefore has no state-level recognition in Mississippi; the plumber must check the ordinance of each city where they will work and apply locally, and Southaven-style acceptance of another jurisdiction's card or an ICC score is the closest thing to reciprocity that exists.