Tennessee to North Carolina: master plumber license reciprocity

North Carolina has no license titled master plumber. Its highest plumbing credential is the person-held Plumbing Contractor license issued by the State Board of Examiners of Plumbing, Heating and Fire Sprinkler Contractors under G.S. The individual who passes the two-part examination (technical plus business and law) is the licensee, may list the license in a firm name, and pays an annual license fee after activation. A first-time applicant needs 4,000 hours of on-site plumbing experience (up to half academic or technical training), and out-of-state hours are accepted. The Board states it has no license reciprocity with any state; the only technical-exam waiver is with South Carolina (NC business-law exam still required). North Carolina residents licensed in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia may seek licensure without examination under the Neighbor State License Recognition Act (G.S. 93B-15.3). Restricted Limited Plumbing Contractor (1,500 hours, 2-inch and smaller exterior water/sewer/irrigation backflow) is a narrower contracting class, not a master equivalent.

Tennessee does not issue a master plumber license. The state-level plumbing credentials are (1) the Limited Licensed Plumber (LLP), a personal license for work under $25,000 where the Division of Fire Prevention inspects, which the Board does not treat as a master equivalent and for which it has no exam-waiver agreements, and (2) a contractor license with the CMC-A (plumbing) or CMC (full mechanical: plumbing and HVAC) classification, issued to a business that names a qualifying agent and required for plumbing projects of $25,000 or more. CMC-A and CMC candidates need Board pre-approval ($50) before the plumbing or full-mechanical trade exam; every contractor also takes the Tennessee Business and Law exam (Prov from 2026-07-01; scores typically valid two years). Initial contractor application fee $250. The Board's trade-exam-waiver form lets a contractor whose origin board verifies a comparable plumbing or mechanical exam skip the Tennessee trade exam but not Business and Law, and it cannot be used for the LLP: Ohio plumbing maps to CMC-A, South Carolina plumbing to CMC-A, and Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia mechanical licenses to CMC. That waiver is contractor-to-contractor only (Ohio's OCILB listing of Tennessee as a plumbing-contractor partner is the same relationship from Ohio's side). Master plumber licenses proper exist only locally; Nashville's MPE Board issues a master plumber certificate. An out-of-state master plumber has no statewide personal recognition: to contract for $25,000 or more they need the CMC-A or CMC contractor license; to pull small-job permits they need the LLP where it is accepted, or the local master card where it is not.