Mississippi to Louisiana: journeyman plumber license reciprocity

Louisiana licenses Journeyman Plumbers statewide through the State Plumbing Board of Louisiana (SPBLA), which also registers apprentices and licenses Residential Plumbers, Master Plumbers, natural gas fitters and medical gas and WSPS endorsements. A new in-state applicant must be a registered apprentice with 7,000 hours (indentured, in a Louisiana Workforce Commission-approved program) or 8,000 hours (unindentured) of supervised plumbing work documented by payroll records or W-2s, file a notarized application with $135 ($125 exam + $10 processing), and pass a Board-administered 80-question, 3-hour written exam on the 2021 IPC/IRC plus a 1-hour practical, scoring at least 70% in each category. The first license costs $50; licenses expire December 31 each year and renewal requires annual continuing education (hours for journeymen are not stated on the pages reviewed). A journeyman works under a licensed Louisiana Master Plumber and must be employed by a licensed master company for the license to be 'workable'. The Board has signed journeyman reciprocity agreements only with Texas and Arkansas; a plumbing license from any other state qualifies the holder to sit the Louisiana journeyman exam without Louisiana apprentice registration, provided the origin state required at least 8,000 on-the-job hours. Act 908 of the 2026 session transfers plumbing licensing to the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors; the transition was under public discussion in late 2026 and no changed requirements had been published.

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.