Arizona to Michigan: master plumber license reciprocity

Michigan issues a statewide, person-held Master Plumber license through LARA's Bureau of Construction Codes under MCL 339.6113; the Plumbing Contractor license (Form BCC-329, $300, MCL 339.6111) is the separate business credential that must be represented by a master plumber, and a master may represent only one contractor at a time. Local plumber licensing is preempted by MCL 339.6125(1). A new master applicant must be at least 18, hold a journey plumber license and have gained 4,000 hours of experience as a journey plumber over at least two years immediately preceding the application with no lapse in licensure, document that experience with notarized employer letters, pay the license fee at application ($300 for a licence term of up to three years, prorated outside the April 30-June 30 renewal window), be approved by LARA, and pass the PSI Master Plumber exam (130 questions, 180 minutes, 75% to pass, open book on the 2021 Michigan Plumbing Code, available in person or online; $100 fee). The license renews every three years for $300, and renewal requires a board-approved code-update course within 12 months after each state construction code change. Michigan has no reciprocity with any state; an out-of-state master must pass the Michigan exam, with out-of-state experience credited only after State Plumbing Board review.

Arizona does not issue a master plumber licence. A master plumber arriving from another state who only wants to work for an employer needs no Arizona licence (except a Phoenix journeyman card for permitted work in that city). To run a plumbing business the qualifying party must show four years of practical or management trade experience (at least two within the last ten years; up to two years creditable from accredited technical training), pass the open-book Arizona Statutes and Rules Exam (SRE, $61 through Gmetrix) and the plumbing trade exam ($66 through PSI) with at least 70% within two years of applying, complete a background check for every person named on the application, register the entity if an LLC, corporation or partnership, post a licence bond or recovery-fund assessment, and pay application and licence fees ($580 for C-37, $720 for R-37, $850 for CR-37 including the $370 Residential Recovery Fund assessment, before exam fees). The ROC pages verified for this entry describe no state-to-state reciprocity agreement; under A.A.C. R4-9-106(E) the Registrar may waive the trade exam when the qualifying party 'is currently or has previously been a qualifying party for a licensee in this state or another state in the same classification, or a comparable classification as determined by the Registrar, within the preceding five years' (Application to Waive a Trade Examination filed with the licence application, not pre-approved), and out-of-state experience counts toward the four-year requirement, but the SRE is never waived for out-of-state applicants. Individual master plumber licences from other states are not, by themselves, a waiver basis: the waiver turns on having qualified a contractor licence in a comparable classification.