Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Bureau of Construction Codes (Electrical Administrative Board)
Michigan licenses individual electricians. You need a state license in your own name to do this work here, whoever you work for.
Every requirement on this page belongs to a license class the state names itself. Each one has its own experience requirements, fees and exam rules. There are four of them here, so read the one you are aiming at rather than the page as a whole.
What Michigan licenses
Both answers come directly from the state licensing authority.
| Electrical journeyman's license | 8,000 hours on the job |
|---|---|
| Master electrician's license | 12,000 hours on the job |
| The exam fee | $100 |
We use the state's published licensing requirements throughout this page. If the state doesn't publish a requirement, we don't guess.
There are two different licensing paths here: one for people working as electricians, and one for the contracting business. If you're starting your career, focus on the worker license first. You may need the one for the business later, if you decide to run the contracting business yourself.
Each license class below has its own experience requirements, fees and exam rules. Start with the class you're working toward: everything below depends on it. We use the state's official license names, so you'll see the same terms on its forms.
The experience requirements for each license are quoted below exactly as the state publishes them. The licensing authority decides whether your experience qualifies, so keep your own record from day one and make sure your employer can verify your hours.
If your license requires an exam, the exam name and its fee are listed under that license class. The licensing authority and the testing company are often different organizations, so the exam fee is often paid to the testing company. That's why the exam fee may appear in the candidate bulletin instead of the fee schedule.
Each license class below lists the fees the state publishes for it. Renewal varies by class too, so check the renewal period and fee for the class you are working toward rather than for the trade as a whole.
Three of Michigan's licenses are held by the worker. Each is a separate license with its own experience requirements, fees and exam rules.
Not published for any class here: classroom hours or states that recognize it.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
$15 to apply.8 You renew this every year. The published renewal requirements do not list any additional hours requirement.3
Apprentice electrician registration
You need to be employed by a Master Electrician and Electrical Contractor. You need to be enrolled in a related technical instruction (RTI) program.2
The state doesn't list job hours, an exam name, who runs it, an exam fee or a license fee.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
8,000 hours on the job.2 $40 for the license itself.1 $100 to take the exam.3 PSI administers the exam.2 You renew this every year, for $40. The published renewal requirements do not list any additional hours requirement.3
Worth knowingYou send this $40 in with your application, and it is the license fee. There is no second charge to apply.
Worth knowingThe law sets $100. You pay PSI, the state's testing vendor, rather than the state.
The state doesn't list an application fee.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
12,000 hours on the job.2 $50 for the license itself.1 $100 to take the exam.3 PSI administers the exam.2 You renew this every year, for $50. The published renewal requirements do not list any additional hours requirement.3
Worth knowingYou send this $50 in with your application, and it is the license fee. There is no second charge to apply.
Worth knowingThe law sets $100. You pay PSI, the state's testing vendor, rather than the state.
The state doesn't list an application fee.
There are two license levels here, and each is a separate license. The hours below are totals for each license, not additional hours on top of the last one. The hours here are on-the-job hours, not classroom hours.
Electrical journeyman's license
You need to have completed 8,000 hours AND 4 years as an electrical apprentice.2
Master electrician's license
You need have completed 4,000 hours as an electrical journey AND have held that license for at least 2 years. To be a Master Electrician in Michigan, you must have at least 12,000 hours of experience over AT LEAST 6 years.2
281 registered apprenticeships train Michigan electricians. People who finished one recently left at a median of $35.20 an hour.
See every program and what they payAmong the electricians on a payroll in Michigan, half earn more than $36.67 an hour and half earn less. The federal wage survey puts the annual figure at $76,270.6
These figures cover every experience level, from first-year apprentices to workers with decades on the job, so this is not what an apprentice earns. The survey counts 23,530 of these jobs. Self-employed workers are not included in the survey.6
The yearly figure assumes 2,080 paid hours, which is full time with no long gaps. Actual earnings can be lower where work is interrupted or seasonal.
Figures from the federal wage survey for May 2025, read 2026-08-16. The survey’s state file is a spreadsheet in a zip, not a web page.
This credential applies if you plan to take work in your own name. It is issued to the business itself rather than to any one person.
Held by the business · issued by the state
This class requires no exam. $300 for the license itself.11 You renew this every three years, for $300, with no continuing education required.3
Electrical contractor's license
You need to either hold a Master Electrician license or hire someone who holds a Master Electrician license. If you live outside of Michigan and are hiring a Master Electrician, they need to live in Michigan.2
The state doesn't list job hours or an application fee.
PSI administers every exam listed on this page. The exam provider sets the exam content, publishes the study material and sets retake fees. Use the official exam names below when you look for study material, application instructions or retake information. The electrical contractor's license does not require an exam. Exam fees are listed with each class above.
The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Bureau of Construction Codes (Electrical Administrative Board) issues all worker and contractor credentials covered on this page.
Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Bureau of Construction Codes (Electrical Administrative Board)12
Check a license
This is the state's own search, so what comes back is the register itself rather than somebody's copy of it.
the worker and the business: https://aca-prod.accela.com/LARA/GeneralProperty/PropertyLookUp.aspx?isLicensee=Y&TabName=APO5
Michigan recognizes no other state's license toward a license here, and the state says so. You know where you stand before you spend anything. Moving to Michigan? Contact Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Bureau of Construction Codes (Electrical Administrative Board) and ask whether your current license will be recognized. Leaving? Contact the licensing authority in the state where you plan to work.
Michigan licenses individual electricians. You need a state license in your own name to do this work here, whoever you work for. Michigan licenses electrician contractors as well. Taking work in your own name, rather than working for somebody who holds that license, needs a second and different one.
Michigan publishes an hours figure for two of the four license classes here: Electrical journeyman's license, 8,000 hours on the job and Master electrician's license, 12,000 hours on the job. Each figure belongs to the class it is named under and to no other. The state does not publish a working week, so nothing here turns hours into months. How fast you get there depends on how many you work in a year.
The middle half of the electricians on a payroll in Michigan earn between $24.21 and $44.38 an hour, and half of all of them earn more than $36.67. These are straight-time figures, before any overtime, at every experience level, counted by the federal wage survey in May 2025. Self-employed workers are not included in them.6
The top tenth of electricians on a payroll in Michigan earn above $49.58 an hour, which over a 2,080-hour year comes to more than $103,120. Those are straight-time figures: overtime pay is outside them, and so are self-employed workers. The federal wage survey counts what the top tenth earn above, not how many reach any figure past it.6
The state publishes these: $15 to apply for Apprentice electrician registration, $40 to be issued Electrical journeyman's license, $50 to be issued Master electrician's license and $300 to be issued Electrical contractor's license. Each is per class, not per trade. None of them is the exam: where a vendor administers the exam, that fee is the vendor's and lives in its own bulletin.
No. Michigan recognizes no other state's license toward a license here, and the state says so in as many words. Bringing a license in and taking one out are two separate agreements, signed and published separately. Contact the licensing authority in the state where you plan to work and ask what it will recognize.
Michigan licenses the worker, so the work itself is work a license covers. Working as an employee and taking a job in your own name are two different positions, and the second one puts you under the contractor license as well. What the state does about work done without one is not something these pages carry, and it is exactly the kind of thing worth five minutes on the phone before you accept anything.
There is no national answer. Any page that gives you one is averaging states whose requirements differ by thousands of hours. Licensing is set state by state, and in some states city by city, so the honest version of this question has a place in it. What is the same everywhere is the shape: you learn on the job, the hours that count are the ones somebody signs for, and the clock starts the day the work does.
Yes, and that is the ordinary way in. These trades are learned at work rather than before it, which is why boards mostly require time on the job. What you cannot skip is the paperwork: the hours that count are the ones somebody signs for, so the question to ask an employer is who signs, not whether they will train you.
No. Boards set a minimum age, not a maximum. No board on these pages sets an upper limit, and where age shows up at all it is a floor. The real question at 30 is money: an apprenticeship pays you while you learn and school charges you while you learn. That difference usually decides it.
None of the boards on these pages publishes a pass rate. The useful question is who administers the exam: that organization sells the reference material for it and sets what a retake costs.