Journeyman electrician practice test: free NEC questions

Journeyman electrician exam at a glance, with the source for every line

Every row below is quoted from a document published by the licensing authority and carries the date we checked it. Where the licensing authority publishes nothing, the row says so instead of quoting a number from somewhere else.

Texas: who must be licensed

With the exception of certain allowed exemptions, anyone who performs electrical work in the state of Texas must be licensed. A Journeyman Electrician is licensed to perform electrical work under the general supervision of a Master Electrician.Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Apply for a New Journeyman Electrician License — Texas only, verified 7 August 2026

Texas: questions and time

The Journeyman Electrician written examination is two portions. NEC Knowledge Portion: 59 items (including 3 non-scored), 130 minutes. Calculations Portion: 26 items (including 2 non-scored), 110 minutes. If you finish your first portion the time does NOT roll over into your next administration.Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Electrician Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, updated 7/9/2026) — Texas only, verified 7 August 2026

Texas: passing score

Both portions of the written examination are multiple choice. You will need to pass each portion with a minimum score of 70%.Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Electrician Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, updated 7/9/2026) — Texas only, verified 7 August 2026Read out of the TDLR bulletin on 2026-08-07 and cross-checked against tdlr.texas.gov/electricians/elecexam.htm, which states the same 70 percent. It is not the app’s 70 percent practice threshold, which is a separate in-app readiness target.

Texas: examination fee

The Journeyman Electrician examination fee is $78 for both portions. If you fail a portion or both portions, the retake examination fee is $78.Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Electrician Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, updated 7/9/2026) — Texas only, verified 7 August 2026

Texas: open book and code edition

The examinations are OPEN BOOK. The reference allowed in the examination site is the National Electrical Code, 2023 Edition, and effective September 1, 2026 the examinations will be referenced to the 2026 NEC. Loose-leaf, spiral-bound and ring-bound copies are not allowed, and neither is the NEC Handbook.Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Electrician Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, updated 7/9/2026) — Texas only, verified 7 August 2026

Texas: experience to sit

To apply for a Journeyman Electrician license, you must have completed at least 7,000 hours of on-the-job training under the supervision of a Master Electrician licensed in Texas. Submitting at least 7,000 hours will simply allow you to take the examination before reaching the full 8,000 hours required for licensure.Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Apply for a New Journeyman Electrician License — Texas only, verified 7 August 2026

Washington: questions and time

The 01-General Electrician examination is three sections: NEC & Theory, 80 questions, 4 hours; Washington Codes, 20 questions, 1 hour; Major Load Calculations, 10 questions, 2 hours. The number of questions in any individual knowledge area is approximate.Source: Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, Electrical Examinations Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, 10/30/2025) — Washington only, verified 7 August 2026

Washington: passing score

You must score 70% to pass. Your score will be given to you immediately following completion of the examination.Source: Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, Electrical Examinations Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, 10/30/2025) — Washington only, verified 7 August 2026Read out of the Washington L&I bulletin on 2026-08-07. It is Washington’s own published standard, not the app’s 70 percent practice threshold, which is a separate in-app readiness target. Texas independently publishes the same figure.

Washington: unscored questions

In addition to the number of questions per examination, 10 experimental questions may be administered to candidates during the examinations. These questions will not be scored and the time taken to answer them will not count against examination time.Source: Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, Electrical Examinations Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, 10/30/2025) — Washington only, verified 7 August 2026

Washington: open book and code edition

All examinations are open book. All law, rule and code questions are based on the current version of the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 19.28 and Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 296-46B, and the 2020 National Electrical Code. References may not be written in.Source: Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, Electrical Examinations Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, 10/30/2025) — Washington only, verified 7 August 2026

Washington: examination fee

Examination fees are set by exam time: 1 hour $45.00, 2 hours $55.00, 3 hours $65.00, 4 hours $75.00, 5 hours $85.00, 6 hours $95.00, 7 hours $105.00. Examination fees are valid for one year.Source: Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, Electrical Examinations Candidate Information Bulletin (PSI, 10/30/2025) — Washington only, verified 7 August 2026

Washington: experience to sit

Hours of work experience: for a 01 journey level exam, 8,000 hours, no more than 4,000 of which can be worked in 4,000 hour specialties. Hours of education: Basic Classroom Instruction, 96 for 01 journey level exams.Source: Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, Electrician licensing and exam qualification — Washington only, verified 7 August 2026

Texas license validity

Electrician licenses are valid for one year from the date of issuance and must be renewed annually.Source: TDLR, Journeyman Electrician license page, verified 7 August 2026

Questions (outside Texas and Washington)

Not published by the licensing authority. There is no national journeyman exam and therefore no national question count. Texas and Washington publish theirs and both are quoted on this page. No other jurisdiction has been verified for this page.Checked against: No single awarding body exists to check, verified 7 August 2026

Passing score (outside Texas and Washington)

Not published by the licensing authority. There is no national cut score. Texas and Washington each publish 70 percent for their own exam and both are cited here. The same figure is repeated across prep sites as though it were universal; no national authority publishes it, because there is no national authority.Checked against: No single awarding body exists to check, verified 7 August 2026

Time limit (outside Texas and Washington)

Not published by the licensing authority. Texas and Washington publish theirs and both are quoted here. Every other jurisdiction sets its own and none has been verified for this page. Confirm it with the authority that will issue your license.Checked against: No single awarding body exists to check, verified 7 August 2026

Exam fee (outside Texas and Washington)

Not published by the licensing authority. Texas publishes a flat examination fee and Washington publishes a fee scaled to exam length; both are quoted here. No other jurisdiction and no other testing vendor has been verified for this page.Checked against: No single awarding body exists to check, verified 7 August 2026

Experience hours (outside Texas and Washington)

Not published by the licensing authority. Texas and Washington publish their on-the-job and classroom hour requirements and both are quoted here. Other jurisdictions differ widely and none has been verified for this page. Check eligibility before you start studying.Checked against: No single awarding body exists to check, verified 7 August 2026

Pass rate

Not published by the licensing authority. There is no single journeyman exam to have a national pass rate, and neither the Texas nor the Washington bulletin publishes one for its own exam. No pass rate is quoted on this page.Checked against: Texas and Washington candidate information bulletins, verified 7 August 2026

Always verify with the authority that will license you. Texas and Washington are on this page because those two publish their specs. Every other jurisdiction sets its own question count, time limit, passing score, fee and NEC edition, and none of those is verified here.

What our Journeyman electrician exam question bank covers

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

What actually trips up journeyman candidates

Conduit fill has three numbers and you will be given the wrong one

Chapter 9, Table 1 gives a different maximum fill percentage for one conductor, for two, and for three or more, and they do not run in the order your intuition expects: two is the odd one out, lowest of the three rather than the middle. Look the row up rather than trusting the number you remember, in the NEC edition your jurisdiction has adopted.

Overcurrent percentages belong to device types, not to motors

Table 430.52 gives a different maximum for each protective device on the same motor: a non-time-delay fuse is allowed the largest multiple, an inverse-time breaker less, a dual-element time-delay fuse least of all. Candidates memorize one number and apply it to whatever device the stem names.

The equipment grounding conductor is sized from the breaker, not the conductor

Table 250.122 is indexed by the rating of the overcurrent device protecting the circuit. Sizing the EGC from the phase conductor is a habit from field practice that the code does not share, and it produces a plausible wrong answer.

Article 100 definitions are exam questions, not preamble

Accessible, readily accessible, concealed, identified, in sight from and labeled are distinct defined terms. A disconnect reached by a fixed ladder is accessible but not readily accessible, and the whole question turns on which word the stem used.

Open book only helps if you know where things live

Tab your code book by chapter: calculations in Article 220, grounding in 250, motors in 430, the Chapter 9 tables at the back. Candidates who look things up cold run out of time long before they run out of knowledge.

How long to study for the journeyman exam: four weeks

Four weeks, and the first one is not studying. Confirm which NEC edition your jurisdiction tests against before you buy a code book, because turning up with the wrong edition is a bad day.

Week 1: get the right code book and tab it

Confirm with your licensing authority which NEC edition your exam is written to, buy that edition, and spend the week tabbing it and learning where things live. Article 220 for calculations, 250 for grounding, 430 for motors, Chapter 9 for the raceway tables. This is the single highest-return week of the four and most candidates skip it.

Week 2: calculations

Load calculations, conductor sizing, ampacity adjustment and correction, voltage drop, box fill and conduit fill. Run Topic Drill on the calculation categories daily. These are the questions that take the longest, so they are where practice buys the most time back.

Week 3: grounding, motors and wiring methods

Three of the densest areas after calculations, and between them 293 of our 651 questions. Work them with the code book open, exactly as you will on test day, so lookup becomes reflex rather than search.

Week 4: definitions, special occupancies, then full simulations

Two days on Article 100 definitions and the special occupancy articles, which are cheap points people leave on the table. Then run the Exam Simulator under timed conditions until your readiness score stops climbing.

Is the journeyman electrician exam hard?

It is hard in a specific and slightly unusual way: the difficulty is lookup speed under time pressure, not conceptual depth. The calculations are arithmetic. The code language is dense but plain. What defeats people is the clock. Texas allows 240 minutes for 85 items and Washington seven hours for 110 questions, so you get roughly three minutes each, and one question can mean locating an article, reading a table, applying a modifier and doing the arithmetic. Do that from a cold code book and you will not finish.

The other genuine difficulty is scope: the NEC covers dwelling calculations, motors, grounding, hazardous locations, agricultural buildings, pools and low-voltage systems, and your day job has probably only exposed you to a slice of that. Our bank is built to that shape rather than to any one state’s exam, and 173 of its 651 questions are numeric-entry calculations rather than multiple choice, because conductor sizing and load calculation are where working electricians lose the most points.

We will not quote a pass rate. There is no single exam to have one, and neither the Texas nor the Washington bulletin publishes a pass rate for its own exam.

How the Journeyman electrician exam differs from the exams beside it

The journeyman exam is dozens of exams sharing one textbook. EPA 608 is a single federal rule and ServSafe is a single national exam; here every jurisdiction writes its own paper against the same National Electrical Code, which is why this page quotes Texas and Washington rather than a national spec. It is also usually open book, which sounds like a gift and is actually the hardest thing about it: when everyone has the code book, the exam stops testing whether you know the answer and starts testing whether you can find it before the clock runs out. That is a navigation skill, and it is trainable in a way that memorization is not.

Questions people actually ask about the Journeyman electrician exam

How many questions are on the journeyman electrician exam?

It depends where you are licensed. Texas runs two portions totaling 85 items, 59 in NEC Knowledge and 26 in Calculations. Washington runs three sections totaling 110 questions. There is no national count, so ask the authority that will license you.

What is the passing score for the journeyman electrician exam?

Set by your licensing jurisdiction. Texas and Washington both publish 70 percent, Texas on each of its two portions and Washington on the examination. That is two states rather than a national rule, so confirm the cut score with the authority that will license you.

Is the journeyman electrician exam open book?

In both jurisdictions verified here, yes. Texas states the examinations are OPEN BOOK and allows the NEC, 2023 Edition. Washington states all examinations are open book. Both bar writing in your references during the exam, and Texas bars the NEC Handbook outright.

Which NEC edition will my exam use?

Whichever your jurisdiction has adopted, which is often not the newest published. The two verified here disagree: Texas tests to the 2023 NEC and moves to the 2026 NEC on September 1, 2026, while Washington tests to the 2020 NEC. Confirm yours before you buy a code book.

How much experience do I need before I can sit it?

Jurisdictional, and substantial. Texas requires at least 7,000 hours of on-the-job training under a Texas-licensed Master Electrician to sit the exam, and 8,000 for the license. Washington requires 8,000 hours plus 96 hours of basic classroom instruction. Check yours before you start studying.

What is the difference between apprentice, journeyman and master?

Broadly: an apprentice works under supervision, a journeyman works unsupervised, and a master can pull permits and take legal responsibility for work. The exact privileges and the exam for each are defined by your jurisdiction, not nationally.

How much does the journeyman electrician exam cost?

It depends on your jurisdiction. Texas charges $78 for both portions, and the same $78 to retake either one. Washington prices by exam length, from $45 for one hour to $105 for seven. No national fee exists, so confirm yours with the authority that will license you.

Are these real questions from an actual journeyman licensing exam?

No. These are original questions written to the NEC articles and tables journeyman exams are built from, each with a full explanation. Reproducing live exam items would violate test security, and it would not help you anyway, because your jurisdiction’s exam is not the same as the next one’s.