Hiring electricians in states with no journeyman license

About a dozen states have no journeyman electrician license, including Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Florida license electrical contractors at the state level but issue no state journeyman card. In those states the contractor's license or the city decides who can work, and nobody has checked your hands' skills for you.

That's where "journeymen" who can't bend pipe slip through. Everything below is as of 2026, from state board pages. Rules change, and cities add their own, so confirm with the board and the local building department before you hire. This fits into the bigger plan for staffing a job in a state where you have no crew.

01Which states have no statewide journeyman card

The South Dakota Electrical Commission keeps one of the clearest public maps, and it lists 12 states with "no state licenses" for electricians.

Its reciprocity page names Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee, lists Nevada as having "no similar licenses," and notes Florida varies by county or city. North Carolina's board licenses contracting companies through a qualified person, and Georgia's licenses contractors by class. Neither issues a state journeyman card.

02Who licenses what, state by state

In these states the license that matters is usually the company's, and sometimes the city's.

Two of these states do local cards in a way that travels inside the state. Under Florida Statutes 489.5335, a county or city can issue a journeyman card to a hand who scored at least 75% on an approved exam and finished a registered, state-approved apprenticeship or 12,000 hours of on-the-job training, and every Florida county and city must honor a card issued by any other Florida county or city. In Kansas, K.S.A. 12-1526 makes a certificate of competency earned on the designated exam valid proof of competency, without another exam, in any Kansas county or city that requires a license.

03Why "so-called journeymen" turn up here

With no state card, "journeyman" is whatever the man says he is.

One national electrical contractor told us they kept getting "so-called journeymen that can't bend conduit," some holding only apprentice licenses, and that they were "basically laborers." In a licensing state, a two-minute lookup catches the apprentice card. Where there's no state card, there's nothing to look up, so the check has to come from somewhere else.

It also cuts the other way. A real journeyman who spent 10 years in Ohio or Pennsylvania may never have held a card. He's still a journeyman. You just have to see the work to know it.

04What to ask for instead of a state card

Ask for paper that proves hours and a test, then watch him work.

1. A local card, if the city issues one. Ask which city or county issued it and look it up there. A Florida county card counts statewide in Florida. A card from one Ohio city tells you he passed that city's test.
2. Apprenticeship completion papers. A certificate of completion from a registered apprenticeship, union or open shop, proves years of supervised hours and classroom. Ask for the program name and call it.
3. A card from a licensing state. Plenty of hands in no-license states carry a card from a state they used to work in. It won't transfer to your job, but it proves he passed a state exam and logged the hours. Look it up on that state's board; the steps are in how to verify an electrician's license.
4. A third-party assessment. NCCER lists a journey-level Commercial Electrician assessment, and its assessment program pairs knowledge tests with hands-on performance verifications.
5. Two foremen he worked under. Not the office. Ask what he ran, what size pipe he bent, and whether they'd take him back.

05Screen on skills, because the card can't do it

In a no-license state the skills check is the license check, so make it short, the same for everyone, and hands-on.

A 30-minute bench test covers most of it: bend an offset and a 90 in 1/2" EMT, troubleshoot a fault you planted on a small control board, land and torque a few conductors, and answer five questions off one print sheet. The full station-by-station version is in our 30-minute electrician skills test. Score it on a sheet, and give the same test to every applicant.

If you're hiring by phone first, ask questions a laborer can't answer: what's the multiplier for a 30-degree offset, how he'd find an open on a 3-way, what he checks before he energizes a panel. A real journeyman answers in a sentence. A laborer talks around it.

06What changes when you bring hands in from out of state

Hiring into a no-license state is faster on paper, and hiring out of one into a licensing state is slower.

Into a no-license state: no reciprocity to wait on, but the company license in that state and any city registration still come first. Out of one: a hand from Ohio or Pennsylvania with no state card has nothing to reciprocate, and most licensing states won't take a city card. Minnesota, for one, refuses a license "obtained through a reciprocal agreement with a city." Expect him to apply and test in the job state. The full board-by-board picture is in our reciprocity guide.

If you need hands who can do the work on day one, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

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