Michigan Journeyman PrepGetting licensed in Michigan
Registered in the first 30 days, licensed four years later

Michigan Electrician License Requirements: Hours, Fees and the Path

Tell the calculator the hours you have and the day you registered, and it gives you the first day you can sit the journeyman exam. Michigan counts hours and years at once, so the answer is later than the hours alone suggest. Every figure here names the page it came from.

Get my exam dateStart with the registration

Both of your dates, free

The hours calculator takes the hours you have logged, the hours you work in a week and the day you registered as an apprentice. It gives you the first day you can sit the journeyman exam and the first day the license can issue, with the rule beside each one. Michigan counts hours and years at the same time, so the two answers are rarely the same day.

Nothing is for sale on this site. The calculator runs in your browser, there is no account, and nothing you type leaves the page unless you email the summary to yourself.

The other free thing is the note. When LARA moves a fee, a renewal date or the code update requirement, you get one short message with the rule cited. Sign up at the bottom of any page.

Work out my two dates
8,000hours to the journeyman exam
4 yearsas a registered apprentice
12,000hours for the master license
$15a year, apprentice registration

Start with the number you came for

Most people arrive asking one of three things: how many hours do I need, what does it cost, and when can I sit the exam. Michigan answers the third one with two requirements at once, which is where the confusion starts.

The journeyman license takes 8,000 hours and four years as a registered apprentice electrician. Reaching 8,000 hours in three years of long weeks does not move your date, because the four years still has to run. The hours calculator works both out and reports the later of the two, which is the day that actually counts.

What people come here for

The pages people open most, and what each one settles.

The path, in order

You register with LARA as an electrical apprentice. LARA asks that you be employed by a master electrician working through a licensed electrical contractor, and that you be enrolled in a related technical instruction program. The job comes first: MCL 339.5717 gives you 30 days after your employment as an apprentice starts to register, and form BCC-0704 needs your employer's contractor license number and signature.

The registration renews every year by August 31 and costs $15. Miss it and there is a $100 late fee, which is the largest late fee in the whole Michigan electrical schedule and the one people meet first.

Four years and 8,000 hours later you apply for the journeyman exam. You have to be at least 20. The paper is graded at 75 percent, and the license that follows renews every year by December 31.

Master comes later: at least 22 years old, 12,000 hours of experience over at least six years, and inside that, 4,000 hours as a journeyman with the license held for at least two years.

Coming from another state

Michigan holds reciprocity with no other state and no other country. LARA says so in one sentence on its own licensing page, and that sentence is the whole answer.

What you do instead is send LARA your license and that state's requirements, and ask for a review. The page on this walks what goes in the envelope.

How it works

  1. Get your two dates. Put your logged hours, your weekly hours and the day you registered into the hours calculator. It gives you the day the exam opens and the day the license can issue, each tied to the requirement that sets it. Free, and nothing leaves your browser.
  2. Read the page behind the number. Every date the calculator prints has a page here that gives the rule and the source it came from, so you can check it rather than take it.
  3. Stay current for free. Fees and renewal dates move by rule. One short note when they do, cited every time. There is nothing to buy on this site.

The exam side of this

This site stops at the licensing counter. The exam itself, what the paper looks like, what you can carry into the room and which edition of the code the questions are written on, lives on the sister site.

What it will not tell you

Whether your own hours will be accepted, whether your out of state experience counts, or where your application sits today. Those are determinations, and only LARA makes them.

What you get here is the requirement each of those determinations is made against, with the page it came from named, so you know what you are being measured on before you file.

Your next step

See the exact day you can sit the exam

Type in the hours you have. You get your exam date and your license date, each tied to the rule that sets it. Free, no account.

Get my datesRead the exam side

Every figure is cited to the Occupational Code, the Part 8 rules or LARA's own pages. Nothing leaves your browser unless you email it to yourself.

What this page cites

NEC and National Electrical Code are registered trademarks of the National Fire Protection Association.

Trojan Digital Marketing is an independent company. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NFPA, LARA, the Michigan Bureau of Construction Codes, PSI Services, or any licensing authority.

Bring your own copy of the National Electrical Code. The Michigan exam is open book, on the edition the PSI bulletin names.

All practice questions are original. They are not actual exam questions.

Part of the electrician network with Michigan Electrician Exam (exam prep and code) and the Texas sites Texas Journeyman Prep, Texas Electrician Exam and Texas Electrical Code Prep.

Built and maintained by Jeff Clerisier, Trojan Digital Marketing.

Every rule here is cited to the section it comes from, and corrections are logged in public with the date. This is study material rather than electrical advice, and it does not replace your own code book or your inspector.

Free, when it changes

Michigan licensing rule changes, the week LARA makes them

Hours, fees, renewal dates and the code update requirement change by rule, and the rule is cited every time. One short note when something moves. Unsubscribe in one click.