Checked against primary sources 2026-09-07
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Colorado Electrician License: The Full Path, Cited
Colorado licenses people, not just companies, so the card is yours and it moves with you. This page walks the whole ladder from apprentice registration to the contractor record, with the hours, the exam and the dates that fall inside the next few months.
Test yourself: thirty free questions, timed
On this page
What Colorado licenses
Colorado issues licenses to individual electricians. C.R.S. 12-115-109(1) says no person shall engage in or work at the business, trade, or calling of a journeyman electrician, master electrician, or residential wireman in this state until the person has received a license from the division upon written notice from the board or the program director, acting as the agent thereof, or a temporary permit.
The licensing body is the State Electrical Board, inside the Division of Professions and Occupations at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. The Board sits at 1560 Broadway, Suite 1350, Denver, CO 80202, on 303-894-7800, at dora_electricalboard@state.co.us.
The law behind all of it is Title 12, Article 115 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, sections 12-115-101 through 12-115-124. The rules that carry it out are 3 CCR 710-1, and the current version of those rules took effect on July 15, 2026.
The ladder, in order
Six credentials exist and they are not all the same kind of thing. Four are held by a person, one is held by a business, and the newest one is held by a company that installs solar.
- Electrical apprentice. A registration, filed by your employer within 30 days of hire, that lets you work under direct supervision.
- Residential wireman. A license to wire one, two, three and four family dwellings.
- Journeyman electrician. A license to wire, install and repair, with no dwelling size limit.
- Master electrician. Adds planning, laying out and supervising the work.
- Electrical contractor. A business registration that has to hold or employ a master electrician.
- Photovoltaic installer. A new registration under Senate Bill 25-165, due by December 31, 2026.
DORA's own roster tool also lists work permits for each grade and a master electrician temporary permit for emergency situations. Those come from C.R.S. 12-115-114. The license types page sets out the codes.
The hours behind each license
The Board prints its hour requirements on one page, and they are short enough to quote in full.
Residential wireman: 4,000 hours of residential only experience earned in no less than 2 years. Journeyman: 8,000 hours of experience earned in no less than 4 years, 2,000 hours of which must be in commercial or industrial work, plus 288 hours of classroom education that the Board says is required for all applicants with no grandfathering of any apprentice registration.
Master electrician has four routes. The plain one is 10,000 hours earned in no less than 5 years. There is also a degree route, a trade school or community college route, and a route that builds 2,000 more hours on top of the journeyman requirements.
The hours page prints each route with its statute and its rule, including the place where the statute and the rule disagree about the classroom window.
The exam sits in the middle, not at the end
PSI Services administers every Colorado State Electrical Board examination. The Board's own journeyman application preview tells you to have achieved a passing score before you file, and the master preview says the same in stronger words.
Every one of the four papers has the same shape: 90 scored items, 240 minutes, and 70 percent or 63 items correct to pass. Each one adds 30 more minutes for unscored items, up to 7 of them on the residential wireman paper and up to 10 on the other three, so plan for four and a half hours in the chair.
The fee is $78, the retest fee is $73, and PSI prints that examination fees are not refundable or transferable and that the fee is valid for one year from the date of payment.
Since August 1, 2026 the questions are written to the 2026 National Electrical Code. The edition page carries the PSI sentence in full.
The dates inside this cycle
Three deadlines land in the next few months and they belong to three different bodies.
September 30, 2026. All electrician licenses and electrical contractor registrations expire on September 30 every three years. The Board's homepage says licenses expire on 9/30/2026 and can be renewed through 11/30/2026.
November 1, 2026. PSI stops providing the 2023 code book on request. The deadline page covers what that means if you studied on the older book.
December 31, 2026. Photovoltaic installers have to be registered with the Board. Applications are not open yet, and the Board says they will be available in late 2026.
What nobody publishes: the state fees
We can price the exam and nothing else. PSI prints $78 and $73. The state prints no application fee, no license fee, no renewal fee, no delinquency fee, no apprentice registration fee and no contractor registration fee on any page that would load for us.
C.R.S. 12-115-117(1) lists thirteen fee categories and sets no amounts, delegating them to section 12-20-105. The Board's fee page returns a 404 and its licensing services page returns a 403.
Third party sites publish figures that contradict each other and contradict PSI, so we do not repeat them. Ask the Board or read the amount on the application screen. The fees page lists every page we checked.
How many people hold each one
Colorado publishes its license records as open data, so the counts are checkable. As of the September 2026 pull: 12,549 active journeyman electricians, 7,441 active master electricians, 2,032 active residential wiremen, 4,789 active electrical contractor registrations and 15,520 active apprentice registrations.
Two of those numbers say something useful. Active licensed individuals across the three grades total 22,022, against 15,520 registered apprentices behind them. And 321 contractor registrations sit in the status Need Master Hire, Cannot Practice, which is what happens when the responsible master electrician walks.
Your next step
If you have no hours yet, the first move is a job with a registered electrical contractor, because the apprentice registration is filed by the employer and not by you.
If you have the hours, work out which paper you are sitting and start practicing lookups in a book you have not marked, because that is the room Colorado puts you in. Try the free practice test and the topic sets with the book closed to tabs.
Questions people ask
Does Colorado license individual electricians?
Yes. Colorado issues residential wireman, journeyman and master electrician licenses to people, registers apprentices, and registers electrical contractor businesses on top. C.R.S. 12-115-109(1) makes the individual license mandatory before you work at the trade.
How long does it take to get a journeyman license in Colorado?
At least four years, because the Board asks for 8,000 hours earned in no less than 4 years. Two thousand of those hours have to be commercial or industrial work, and 288 classroom hours sit on top of the job time.
Do I take the exam before or after I apply?
Before. The Board's journeyman application preview asks you to have achieved a passing score on the PSI examination, and the master preview says you must have taken and passed it before submitting the application.
What does a Colorado electrician license cost?
The exam is $78 and a retest is $73, both from PSI. The state publishes no application, license or renewal fee on any page we could reach, and C.R.S. 12-115-117 lists the fee categories without setting amounts.
Who runs the Colorado electrician exam?
PSI Services LLC. The bulletin is what names the vendor: the Board has contracted with PSI Services LLC to conduct its examination program. Board rule 3 CCR 710-1.8.E names no vendor, only that the Board designates the Division to secure such means to conduct and grade examinations pursuant to their authority in section 12-115-110(4)(a), C.R.S. There are four Colorado papers, each 90 scored items in 240 minutes with 63 correct to pass.
When do Colorado electrician licenses expire?
September 30, every three years. The Board's homepage says the current licenses expire on 9/30/2026 and can be renewed through 11/30/2026, and the rule adds a 60 day grace period with a delinquency fee.
Thirty free questions, timed, with the working shown
Every miss comes back with the arithmetic worked out and the code section named, so you learn the trap and not just the answer. No account.
All questions here are original. They are not actual exam questions, and no question bank can promise you a pass.
What this page cites
- State Electrical Board applications page The Board's own list of hour requirements, master routes, reciprocity states and renewal cycle. Read 7 September 2026. source
- C.R.S. 12-115-109 Makes the individual license mandatory before working at the trade as a journeyman, master or residential wireman. source
- PSI candidate information bulletin 3395 Bulletin updated 6/18/2026. Source for the four exams, the 90 item format, the 70 percent pass mark, the $78 fee and the code book rules. source
- C.R.S. 12-115-117, fees Lists thirteen fee categories for the Board and sets no dollar amount for any of them. source
- Colorado open data, professional and occupational licenses The state dataset behind the active and expired counts for each license type. Read 5 September 2026. source
The 2023 to 2026 section crosswalk maps every section that moved, both directions, $29 once.