Nevada to Colorado: master plumber license reciprocity

Colorado issues a statewide Master Plumber license through the State Plumbing Board in DORA's Division of Professions and Occupations. By examination an applicant must document five full-time years (8,500 hours) of practical plumbing experience on Affidavit of Experience forms, pay a $140 application fee, and score 75% on the PSI-administered Colorado master exam (120 multiple-choice questions, 270 minutes) based on the 2021 IPC/IRC adopted in 3 CCR 720-1. A master plumber may perform and supervise all plumbing work and is the responsible individual for a registered Plumbing Contractor, which is the separate business registration (with $100,000 property damage and $300,000 general liability insurance and workers' compensation compliance) needed to contract for plumbing work; a master may be responsible for only one company. Out-of-state master plumbers may be licensed by endorsement under Board Rule 1.4(B)(1)(a) without the Colorado exam; the Board has no reciprocal agreements. Licenses expire on the last day of February of odd-numbered years with eight CE hours per licence year.

Nevada does not issue a master plumber license to individuals, and no county or city was found to issue a master-level plumbing card; Clark County recognizes a 'plumbing qualified individual', which is simply the person who qualifies a contractor's C-1 license with the State Board. The state-level credential is a classification C-1 Plumbing and Heating 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 plumber personally. An out-of-state master plumber who only wants to work for an employer needs no Nevada license at all (apart from the local journeyman card in Clark County and Reno). 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-1 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 ($200 to $1,000) if it does residential work. Under licensure by endorsement (NAC 624.600 and 624.615) the C-1 trade exam and the experience certification are waived for a qualified individual who has held an active license, as the same qualified individual, with no discipline or pending action for the past four years in Arizona (CR-77 Plumbing Including Solar), California (C-36 Plumbing together with C-4 Boiler, Hot Water Heating and Steam Fitting) or Tennessee (CMC Full Mechanical Contractor); a Florida CF Plumbing Contractor gets experience credit but must pass the Nevada C-1 trade exam; the Business and Law exam is never waived. The NSCB equivalency charts contain no Utah chart and no C-1 row for Connecticut, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico, Hawaii, Alabama or West Virginia.