Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners
Texas 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 experience requirements, fees and exam rules. There are six of them here, so read the one you are aiming at rather than the page as a whole.
What Texas licenses
Both answers come directly from the state licensing authority.
| Plumbing Inspector | 500 hours on the job |
|---|---|
| Journeyman Plumber | 8,000 hours on the job |
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 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.
Five of Texas's licenses are held by the worker. Each is a separate license with its own experience requirements, fees and exam rules.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
$15 to apply.5 You renew this every year, for $15. The published renewal requirements do not list any additional hours requirement.1
TSBPE doesn't list job hours, classroom hours, an experience bar, an exam name, who runs it, an exam fee, a license fee or a reciprocity list either way.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
4,000 hours on the job.6 24 hours in a classroom.6 $35 for the license itself.6 $36 to take the exam.6 Pearson VUE administers the exam.8 You renew this every year, for $35, with 6 hours of approved continuing education.1
TSBPE doesn't list an application fee or a reciprocity list either way.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
8,000 hours on the job.9 48 hours in a classroom.9 $40 for the license itself.9 $40 to take the exam.9 Pearson VUE administers the exam.8 You renew this every year, for $40, with 6 hours of approved continuing education.1
TSBPE doesn't list an application fee.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
$25 to apply.12 $75 for the license itself.12 $175 to take the exam.13 Pearson VUE administers the exam.12 You renew this every year, for $75, with 6 hours of approved continuing education.1
Worth knowingThe board calls this an exam processing fee. It is what you pay the board to process your application to take it, and it is separate from what the test vendor charges.
Worth knowing$175 is the figure in the board's adopted rule. The board's web page splits the same exam into $25 to the board and $128.50 to Pearson VUE, which comes to $153.50. Nothing we read explains the difference.
Master Plumber
a Journeyman Plumber in Texas or another state and have held your license for at least two years; a Journeyman Plumber in Texas or another state, have held your license for at least one year, and have successfully completed a training program approved by the United States Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship; a Master Plumber in another state and previously held a Journeyman Plumber License for at least two years; a Master Plumber license in another state, previously held a Journeyman Plumber License for at least one year, and have successfully completed a training program approved by the United States Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship.12
TSBPE doesn't list job hours, classroom hours or a reciprocity list either way.
Held by the worker · issued by the state
500 hours on the job.14 $55 for the license itself.14 $55 to take the exam.14 Pearson VUE administers the exam.8 You renew this every year, for $55, with 6 hours of approved continuing education.1
Worth knowing500 hours is one of two routes, not a floor. Hold a Texas master, journeyman, engineer or architect license and you skip the hours entirely.
TSBPE doesn't list classroom hours, an application fee or a reciprocity list either way.
There are three 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. Two of them also count classroom hours, and those are counted apart from the job.
Tradesman Plumber-Limited
you have at least 4,000 hours of experience working in the plumbing trade; and you have completed a 24-hour training course* approved by the TSBPE or you are enrolled and in or have completed a training program approved by the United States Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship.6
Journeyman Plumber
you are currently registered as a Plumber’s Apprentice or currently licensed as a Tradesman Plumber-Limited in Texas or currently licensed as Journeyman Plumber or Master Plumber in another state; you have at least 8,000 hours of experience working in the plumbing trade; and you have completed a 48-hour training course* approved by the TSBPE or you are enrolled and in or have completed a training program approved by the United States Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship.9
Plumbing Inspector
you have a high school diploma or General Equivalency Diploma (GED); and you have completed 500 hours of training and experience in the plumbing industry; or you are currently licensed as: a Master Plumber in Texas; a Journeyman Plumber in Texas; a Professional Engineer in Texas; an Architect in Texas; or a Plumbing Inspector in another state that has licensing requirements substantially equivalent to the licensing requirements of the TSBPE.14
TSBPE does say whether the hours it requires can be earned online.
Tradesman Plumber-Limited
Applicants for the Tradesman Plumber-Limited Examination must complete 24 hours of classroom training as follows:7
Journeyman Plumber
Applicants for the Journeyman Examination must complete 48 hours of classroom training as follows:7
83 registered apprenticeships train Texas plumbers. People who finished one recently left at a median of $29.24 an hour.
See every program and what they payAmong the plumbers on a payroll in Texas, half earn more than $28.77 an hour and half earn less. The federal wage survey puts the annual figure at $59,840.4
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 44,090 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.
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
$225 to apply.15 $300 for the license itself.13 You renew this every year, for $300, with 6 hours of approved continuing education.15
Worth knowing$300 is the fee in the rule for the license itself. The $225 application fee is separate, so the first year costs $525 and every year after costs $300.
Responsible Master Plumber
you are currently licensed as a Master Plumber in Texas; you are in good standing with the TSBPE; and you have submitted proof that you have obtained a minimum of $300,000 of commercial liability insurance coverage15
TSBPE doesn't list job hours, classroom hours, an exam name, who runs it, an exam fee or a reciprocity list either way.
Pearson VUE 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. Exam fees are listed with each class above.
Continuing education is training you take after you are licensed, to keep it. Here it rides with the renewal rather than standing on its own, so the term and the hours are one requirement and a license renewed every year needs its hours every year. Every class on this page carries hours with its renewal. Each class above states its own renewal terms.
The Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners issues all worker and contractor credentials covered on this page.
Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners1
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://vo.licensing.hpc.texas.gov/datamart/selSearchType.do3
Texas publishes a list of the states whose licenses it recognizes, class by class, and the lists are below. It does not publish the other direction: whether another state recognizes a license from Texas is that state's decision. Moving to Texas? Contact Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners and ask whether your current license will be recognized. Leaving? Contact the licensing authority in the state where you plan to work.
Journeyman Plumber: Texas accepts a license toward it from Arkansas and Louisiana10
Journeyman Plumber: accepted the other way by Louisiana11
Texas licenses individual plumbers. You need a state license in your own name to do this work here, whoever you work for. Texas 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.
Texas publishes an hours figure for three of the six license classes here: Plumbing Inspector, 500 hours on the job, Tradesman Plumber-Limited, 4,000 hours on the job and Journeyman Plumber, 8,000 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 plumbers on a payroll in Texas earn between $22.78 and $35.63 an hour, and half of all of them earn more than $28.77. 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 Texas earn above $39.37 an hour, which over a 2,080-hour year comes to more than $81,890. 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: $15 to apply for Plumber's Apprentice, $25 to apply for Master Plumber, $225 to apply for Responsible Master Plumber, $35 to be issued Tradesman Plumber-Limited, $40 to be issued Journeyman Plumber, $75 to be issued Master Plumber, $55 to be issued Plumbing Inspector and $300 to be issued Responsible Master Plumber. 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.
Yes, for some. Texas recognizes a license toward Journeyman Plumber from Arkansas and Louisiana. This is the inbound direction only, and it says nothing about taking a license from here somewhere else. The conditions attached, such as how long you have held yours, are published by the state rather than in the list.
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.