Nevada trade license reciprocity

Nevada has no statewide journeyman electrician license. The Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB) licenses electrical contractors under classification C-2 (NRS/NAC 624) and states that it does not issue licenses to individual journeymen, so an out-of-state journeyman license has nothing to transfer to at the state level and is not required for employment by a licensed C-2 contractor in most of the state. Journeyman cards are instead required by local building codes in the urban jurisdictions: Clark County, the City of Las Vegas, the City of Henderson and the City of Reno all require a master electrician, electrical qualified individual or journeyman electrician to be on site for permitted electrical work, and their journeyman credential is a Nevada Electrical Qualifications Card obtained by passing the ICC national G17 Journeyman Electrician (or G18 Residential Electrician) exam at 70% and applying to Electrical Safety Professionals (ESP), the third-party card administrator, with 2,000 documented hours of electrical work or apprenticeship (a requirement added January 1, 2024). No jurisdiction publishes a waiver of the ICC exam for an out-of-state license; Clark County recognizes only certificates from its accepted testing agency or from other Nevada political subdivisions within the county, and Reno lets holders of a reciprocal license from another city, county, state or country work for 12 months inside the city before obtaining the Reno certification. Cards are valid three years and renewed with ESP continuing education.

Nevada does not issue a master electrician license. The state-level electrical credential is a classification C-2 Electrical Contracting license from the Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB), which is a business license issued to a sole proprietor, partnership, corporation or LLC and qualified by a named individual, not a license held by the electrician personally. A master-level personal card exists only at the local level: Clark County, the City of Las Vegas and the City of Reno recognize a 'Master Electrician' category, obtained by passing the ICC G16 Master Electrician exam at 75% and holding an ESP-issued Nevada Electrical Qualifications Card, and Clark County code allows a master electrician or electrical qualified individual to satisfy the contractor's on-site supervision duty. None of these jurisdictions publish reciprocity for an out-of-state master license. To contract independently, an arriving master electrician must obtain a C-2 license: the qualifying individual needs four years of experience as a journeyman, foreman, supervising employee or contractor within the past 15 years, must pass the PSI-administered Nevada Business and Law exam and the C-2 trade exam, and the business must pay the $300 application fee and $600 biennial license fee, submit a financial statement and background check, and post a bond of $1,000 to $500,000 set by the Board. Under licensure by endorsement (NAC 624.600 and 624.615) the C-2 trade exam and experience certification are waived for a qualified individual who has held an active electrical contractor license with no discipline for the past four years in Arizona (CR-11), California (C-10), Connecticut (E1), Louisiana (9 Electrical Work), North Carolina (Unlimited Electrical) or Tennessee (CE Electrical), while Florida (EC) and West Virginia (A Electrical) licensees get experience credit but must take the Nevada trade exam; the Business and Law exam is never waived.

Nevada has no statewide journeyman or technician license for heating, air-conditioning or refrigeration work. The Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB) licenses refrigeration and air-conditioning contractors under classification C-21 (NRS/NAC 624), issues licenses only to businesses with a qualifying individual, and its FAQ confirms it does not license individual journeymen, so an out-of-state HVAC journeyman license has nothing to transfer to at the state level and is not needed to work for a licensed C-21 contractor in most of the state. A personal credential exists only under local building codes in the Las Vegas valley: Clark County Code §22.02.250 and the City of Las Vegas Administrative Code §306 both require a mechanical qualified individual or a journeyman HVAC mechanic to be present in a supervisory capacity whenever permitted mechanical work of residential or light-frame construction is under way, and Clark County Code §22.02.260 defines the Journeyman HVAC Mechanic category. The credential is a county photo certificate earned by passing the journeyman HVAC exam accepted by the Building Official, historically ICC exam 459 (80 open-book questions on the Uniform Mechanical Code, 4 hours, $100) followed by a $10 ID card valid three years and renewed for $30 with 15 hours of UMC continuing education. Neither jurisdiction publishes a waiver or equivalency for an out-of-state license; Clark County's only equivalency is for a certificate from its accepted testing agency or another Nevada political subdivision within the county. Reno requires journeyman cards for electrical and plumbing work only, and the rural counties were not surveyed. EPA Section 608 certification applies federally to anyone handling refrigerants.

Nevada does not issue a master HVAC or master refrigeration license, and no county or city was found to issue a master-level HVAC card (Clark County and Las Vegas recognize a 'mechanical qualified individual', which is simply the person who qualifies a contractor's C-21 license with the State Board). The state-level credential is a classification C-21 Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning 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 mechanic personally, with subclassifications for refrigeration (C-21a), air-conditioning (C-21b), sheet metal, maintenance, solar, chilled and hot water systems and industrial piping. An out-of-state master HVAC licensee who only wants to work for an employer needs no Nevada license at all (apart from the local journeyman card in Clark County and Las Vegas). 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-21 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 if it does residential work. Under licensure by endorsement (NAC 624.600 and 624.615) the C-21 trade exam and the experience certification are waived for a qualified individual who has held an active license with no discipline for the past four years in Arizona (CR-79 Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Including Solar, as the Board prints it), California (C-20 together with C-38), Connecticut (S-1 Unlimited Heating, Piping and Cooling), Louisiana (10 Mechanical Work statewide) or Tennessee (CMC Full Mechanical Contractor), documented with a License Verification Form from that state; the Business and Law exam is never waived, and no other state's chart contains an HVAC row. EPA Section 608 certification is a separate federal requirement for anyone who handles refrigerants.

Nevada has no statewide journeyman plumber license. The Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB) licenses plumbing and heating contractors under classification C-1 (NRS/NAC 624), issues licenses only to businesses with a qualifying individual, and its FAQ says it does not license individual journeymen, so an out-of-state journeyman plumber license has nothing to transfer to at the state level and is not needed to work for a licensed C-1 contractor in most of the state. A personal credential exists only under local building codes: Clark County Code Chapter 22.02 requires a plumbing qualified individual or a journeyman plumber on site for permitted plumbing work and issues a renewable county journeyman plumber certificate to people who pass the journeyman exam accepted by the Building Official (plumbing is the one trade for which the county code publishes an experience prerequisite for the exam), and the City of Reno requires anyone installing, altering or adding to a plumbing system to hold a valid journeyman certificate under Reno Municipal Code Title 14. Neither jurisdiction publishes a waiver of its exam for an out-of-state license: Clark County's only equivalency is for a certificate from its accepted testing agency or another Nevada political subdivision within the county, while Reno lets contractors with a reciprocal license from another city, county, state or country work inside the city for 12 months before they must obtain the Reno certification. The City of Las Vegas, Henderson and the rural counties were not surveyed for plumbing cards.

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.

Nevada licenses residential builders statewide through the Nevada State Contractors Board, and the homes tier is subclassification B-2, Residential and Small Commercial, which sits inside classification B, General Building. NAC 624.170(2) defines it as the construction and remodeling of houses and other structures that support, shelter or enclose people, animals or chattels and do not extend more than three stories above the ground and one story below, and the same classification B also carries the narrower B-1 Premanufactured Housing, B-3 Speculative Building and B-7 Residential Remodeling subclassifications. The license is held by the business rather than the person: it is issued to an individual, partnership, corporation, limited-liability company or joint venture and qualified by named individuals, a management qualified individual who passes the Business and Law examination and a trade qualified individual who shows four full years of experience as a journeyman, foreman, supervising employee or contractor within the past 15 years, and one person may do both jobs. Every Nevada license also carries a monetary limit, the largest contract it may undertake on one construction site or subdivision site for a single client, and the Board sets that limit from a financial statement whose required standard rises with the limit requested, so financial strength rather than classification decides how large a job the license permits. A contractor doing residential work also pays into the Residential Recovery Fund, and the Board fixes a bond of between $1,000 and $500,000 at approval. Classification A, General Engineering, is a separate and mutually exclusive branch for fixed works such as highways, bridges and pipelines, and the 42 C-series subclassifications cover the specialty trades.

Nevada's unlimited building tier is classification B, General Building, issued statewide by the Nevada State Contractors Board. NRS 624.215(3) defines a general building contractor as one whose principal business is the construction or remodeling of buildings that require more than two unrelated building trades or crafts and on which the contractor is the prime contractor; a B contractor may perform specialty work only as prime contractor unless it also holds the specialty license. General building and general engineering are mutually exclusive branches, so classification A, General Engineering, covers fixed works such as highways, bridges, pipelines and power plants rather than buildings, and classification AB is granted only to applicants qualified in both who can support an unlimited license in each. The license belongs to the business, an individual, partnership, corporation, limited-liability company or joint venture, and is qualified by a management qualified individual who passes the Business and Law examination and a trade qualified individual with four full years of experience as a journeyman, foreman, supervising employee or contractor within the past 15 years. What limits a B license in practice is not the classification but the monetary limit the Board places on it, the largest contract it may undertake on a single construction site or subdivision site for a single client, which the Board sets from the financial statement filed with the application; an applicant wanting a high or unlimited limit files a reviewed or audited statement from an independent CPA. A bond of between $1,000 and $500,000 is fixed at approval, and a B contractor who also builds or remodels homes pays the Residential Recovery Fund assessment.

Nevada certifies home inspectors statewide and calls them inspectors of structures. The Real Estate Division of the Department of Business and Industry issues the certificate under NRS chapter 645D, and working as an inspector without one is a misdemeanor. Nevada genuinely tiers the credential. A certified residential inspector, which is the home inspector's certificate and the one an inbound inspector applies for, may inspect residential buildings of up to four units and commercial buildings of up to 10,000 square feet on their own; above that, a certified general or certified master inspector may inspect any structure, and a residential inspector may only assist on a larger building under the direct, on-site supervision of one of them. The two upper tiers are earned in Nevada rather than applied for on arrival, because they require 200 and 400 fee-paid inspections already performed as a Nevada certified inspector. Below the residential certificate there is no junior certificate at all, but there is a junior stage: before you may be certified you must observe 25 inspections performed for a fee by a certified general or master inspector, or take the Division's approved 25-inspection course. Every certificate holder carries $100,000 of errors and omissions cover and $100,000 of general liability cover, and the certificate expires by law 60 days after that cover lapses.