03
Apprenticeship and hours
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.
DPOR does say whether the hours it requires can be earned online.
Residential Plumber Tradesman (PLB) license · Journeyman Plumbing (PLB) tradesman license
"Formal vocational training" means courses in the trade administered at an accredited educational facility; or formal training, approved by the board, conducted by trade associations, businesses, the military, correspondence schools, or other similar training organizations.6
Class A contractor license, Plumbing (PLB) classification · Class B contractor license, Plumbing (PLB) classification · Class C contractor license, Plumbing (PLB) classification
All courses offered by prelicense education providers must be approved by the board prior to the initial offering of the course and cover business principles related to the standards of conduct found in 18VAC50-22-260 B and other applicable requirements of continued licensure set forth in this chapter. Courses must be six hours in length. Correspondence and other distance learning courses must include appropriate testing procedures to verify completion of the course.12
04
What it pays
Among the plumbers on a payroll in Virginia, half earn more than $29.07 an hour and half earn less. The federal wage survey puts the annual figure at $60,470.3
- $21.14The bottom tenth earn this or less3
- $37.52The top tenth earn this or more3
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 13,780 of these jobs. Self-employed workers are not included in the survey.3
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.
09
Questions people ask
Do you need a license to be a plumber in Virginia?
Virginia licenses individual plumbers. You need a state license in your own name to do this work here, whoever you work for. Virginia 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.
How long does it take to become a plumber in Virginia?
Not as a number: Virginia 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.
How much do plumbers get paid in Virginia?
The middle half of the plumbers on a payroll in Virginia earn between $23.72 and $34.51 an hour, and half of all of them earn more than $29.07. 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.3
Do plumbers make 100k a year?
The top tenth of plumbers on a payroll in Virginia earn above $37.52 an hour, which over a 2,080-hour year comes to more than $78,050. 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.3
How much does a plumber license cost in Virginia?
The state publishes these: $150 to be issued Residential Plumber Tradesman (PLB) license, $150 to be issued Journeyman Plumbing (PLB) tradesman license, $150 to be issued Master Plumbing (PLB) tradesman license, $400 to be issued Class A contractor license, Plumbing (PLB) classification, $380 to be issued Class B contractor license, Plumbing (PLB) classification and $235 to be issued Class C contractor license, Plumbing (PLB) classification. 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.
Can I use a plumber license from another state in Virginia?
Not as a published rule: Virginia publishes no list of the states it recognizes. 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.
How long does it take to become a plumber?
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.
Can you become a plumber with no experience?
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.
Is 30 too late to become a plumber?
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.
How hard is the plumber licensing exam?
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.