Division of Master and Journeyman Plumbers
Georgia licenses individual plumbers. 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 fees and exam rules. There are three of them here, so read the one you are aiming at rather than the page as a whole.
What Georgia licenses
Both answers come directly from the state licensing authority.
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 plumbers, 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 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.
One of Georgia's license is held by the worker. Each is a separate license with its own fees and exam rules.
Not published for any class here: job hours, classroom hours, an exam fee, a license fee or states that recognize it.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
$110 to apply.6 PSI administers the exam.3 You renew this every two years, for $100, with 8 hours of approved continuing education.2
Worth knowingThat $110 is $100 for the application plus the $10 the board adds to process it. An older fee schedule still on the board's site says $30, and it is the out-of-date one.
Journeyman Plumber
One year of experience in plumbing work of a kind covered by the Georgia State Plumbing Code3
Nothing on this page counts your time in hours. Where a board states the requirement in years instead, the years are in its own wording with each class, and turning them into hours would need a working week no board here publishes.
16 registered apprenticeships train Georgia plumbers. At the largest, recent apprentices started at a recorded median of $18.65 an hour.
See every program and what they payAmong the plumbers on a payroll in Georgia, half earn more than $27.50 an hour and half earn less. The federal wage survey puts the annual figure at $57,200.4
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 8,930 of these jobs. Self-employed workers are not included in the survey.4
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.
These credentials apply if you plan to take work in your own name. Each is issued to the business itself rather than to any one person.
Held by the business · issued by the state
$110 to apply.6 PSI administers the exam.3 You renew this every two years, for $100, with 8 hours of approved continuing education.2
Worth knowingThat $110 is $100 for the application plus the $10 the board adds to process it. An older fee schedule still on the board's site says $30, and it is the out-of-date one.
Master Plumber Class I (Restricted)
Five years of experience in plumbing work of a kind covered by the Georgia State Plumbing Code, at least two of the five spent licensed as a Journeyman Plumber3
Held by the business · issued by the state
$110 to apply.6 PSI administers the exam.3 You renew this every two years, for $100, with 8 hours of approved continuing education.2
Worth knowingThat $110 is $100 for the application plus the $10 the board adds to process it. An older fee schedule still on the board's site says $30, and it is the out-of-date one.
Master Plumber Class II (Unrestricted)
Five years of experience in plumbing work of a kind covered by the Georgia State Plumbing Code, at least two of the five spent licensed as a Journeyman Plumber, and documented experience in commercial or industrial plumbing3
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. No page here prices the exam. The fee belongs to whoever administers it and is published in a candidate bulletin rather than in a fee schedule.
The Division of Master and Journeyman Plumbers issues all worker and contractor credentials covered on this page.
Division of Master and Journeyman Plumbers1
https://sos.ga.gov/page/about-division-master-and-journeyman-plumbers
Georgia 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 Georgia? Contact Division of Master and Journeyman Plumbers and ask whether your current license will be recognized. Leaving? Contact the licensing authority in the state where you plan to work.
Georgia licenses individual plumbers. You need a state license in your own name to do this work here, whoever you work for. Georgia licenses plumber contractors as well. Taking work in your own name, rather than working for somebody who holds that license, needs a second and different one.
Not as a number: Georgia doesn't publish an hours figure for any license on this page. Several states on these pages state the requirement in years instead, and turning years into hours needs a working week nobody publishes. So this page prints what was published. The experience wording with each class is where the answer is.
The middle half of the plumbers on a payroll in Georgia earn between $21.70 and $33 an hour, and half of all of them earn more than $27.50. 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.4
The top tenth of plumbers on a payroll in Georgia earn above $38.82 an hour, which over a 2,080-hour year comes to more than $80,740. 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. So at these rates, at most one in ten reach $100,000 on straight time.4
The state publishes these: $110 to apply for Journeyman Plumber, $110 to apply for Master Plumber Class I (Restricted) and $110 to apply for Master Plumber Class II (Unrestricted). 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. Georgia 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.
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.