Methodology and sources

Electrician, plumber, HVAC and general contractor credentials in the six New England states and the large states listed below, read from each licensing board's own page or the state statute on the checked date. All 45 trade and state records were read on 2026-10-20. Raw notes from each fetch are kept with the site's source code.

Method

1. One record per trade and state. Each record names the issuing authority, the credential type (license, registration or certification), every level with its experience, classroom hours, exam and fees as printed, reciprocity, and the law cited. Each level links to the page or statute it came from.
2. Only official sources. Board pages, board application forms, state statutes and administrative rules. No figure comes from a commercial licensing guide or exam-prep site. Where an official page did not print a value (often fees), the page says "not printed".
3. Time to each level. A level's figure counts either from the start of the trade ("total") or from the date of the previous license ("at the prior level"). Hours become full-time years at 2,000 hours a year, the convention printed on the Georgia electrical contractor application. When a level states several figures, the largest implied time counts, because all of them must be met. Statutes that cap the experience a board may require (North Carolina) are shown as "up to" and are not ranked. When an earlier level's time is not stated, the later figure is marked as partial ("+" or "after the prior level").
4. Reciprocity. Only partners a source names are counted. The reverse view on each page ("listed by") comes from other states' own records.
5. Tests. The engine that does these calculations is unit-tested against worked examples from the sources (for example, Texas master electrician: 12,000 hours and 2 years as a journeyman give 6 years).

Sources

Exclusions and gaps

• New York (all four trades). New York has no statewide page or statute we could fetch that sets electrician, plumber, HVAC or general contractor licensing; licensing there is run by cities and counties. Not built rather than guessed.
• Pennsylvania electrician, plumber and HVAC. No statewide license page or statute was found for these trades; only the Attorney General's home improvement registration was verified.
• Illinois electrician, HVAC and general contractor. No statewide license page or statute was found for these trades; only the Illinois Department of Public Health plumber license was verified.
• Maine and Vermont HVAC and general contractor; New Hampshire and Maine general contractor. Not fetched and verified in this run (Maine and Vermont regulate oil and gas burner work through separate boards). Left out rather than summarised from secondary sites.
• Georgia and Texas general contractor. Georgia's residential and general contractor division and Texas (which has no state general contractor license per secondary sources) could not be confirmed from an official page in this run.
• Fee amounts for Connecticut, Massachusetts plumbing, New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan. The board pages and statute sections read did not print dollar amounts. Pages say so instead of quoting secondary sites.

The production plan called for all 50 states. This first build is a verified slice: New England plus the largest states, 45 pairs. Separate reciprocity pages per pair were not built; reciprocity sits in a section on each pair's page because most sources name no partners and the pages would be thin.

Refresh

Boards change fees and rules without notice. Each record is re-read from its source at least every six months and whenever a board announces a rule change; the checked date on each page updates when it is. Report a change to hello@licensebytrade.com.

General information, not legal advice.