NH-JE Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 12 Content Areas

How the New Hampshire Journeyman Exam Is Built

The New Hampshire Journeyman Electrician License Exam is a computer-delivered, multiple-choice written examination overseen by the New Hampshire Electricians' Board within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC). Prov, Inc. administers it. You sit for 110 questions over 270 minutes, which works out to roughly two and a half minutes per question, a pace that favors candidates who can locate code articles quickly. A 70% score passes. Delivery is available at Prov testing centers or remotely through Examroom.ai.

Twelve subject headings organize the content. These headings come from the official examination subject lists in two State of New Hampshire Electrician Board Examinations Candidate Information Bulletins (CIBs) published by Prov. They are exam headings, not a preparation curriculum, which matters: a commercial course may group topics differently, and the heading names below are the ones the state's candidate bulletins use. If you want the broader strategy around these domains, our NH-JE study guide covers how to turn them into a plan.

Here is the full list, in official order: General Electrical Knowledge; Equipment for General Use; Motors and Generators; Control Devices; Special Conditions; Special Equipment; Special Occupancies; Services and Service Equipment; Branch Circuits and Conductors (the source prints this heading with a trailing colon, and we preserve it); Feeders; Wiring Methods & Materials; and Administrative.

Question Allocations by Domain

The bulletins publish question counts, not percentage weights, and we have not converted one into the other. The table below reproduces the counts from both retrieved documents so you can see exactly where they agree and where they diverge.

Ten of the twelve domains carry identical counts in both bulletins. Only General Electrical Knowledge (22 versus 21) and Administrative (9 versus 10) differ, and the two shifts offset each other so the total stays at 110.

The Version Conflict You Need to Know About

This is the single most important caveat in any domain guide for this exam. Do not assume that because 2026 is the current year, the exam tests a 2026 NEC. Neither an article date nor the state's installation-code adoption establishes the edition used for exam questions. The bulletins also allow candidates to bring older or newer reference editions in general terms, but that permission does not tell you which edition the questions are written against. Until the conflict is resolved, treat any commercial claim about a specific code year as unverified, and prefer the bulletins themselves as your source.

Practical response: download the most recent bulletin from Prov, read its reference list line by line, and contact OPLC to ask which edition and which allocation apply to your scheduled date. Our exam dates and scheduling guide explains how the eligibility window interacts with that timing.

The Heavy Domains: Where Most Points Live

Four domains account for most of the exam. Adding the counts, General Electrical Knowledge, Motors and Generators, Wiring Methods & Materials, and Services and Service Equipment together contribute roughly 66 to 67 of 110 questions depending on the bulletin. Weakness in any one of them is difficult to offset elsewhere.

The Mid-Weight Domains

Equipment for General Use (9), Feeders (8), and Branch Circuits and Conductors (6) sit in the middle of the allocation. Together they total 23 questions, and they overlap heavily with the heavy domains. A candidate who understands conductor sizing, ampacity adjustment, and overcurrent protection in Domain 1 will find these three domains a natural extension.

Small Domains That Still Cost Points

Control Devices carries 5 questions. Special Conditions, Special Equipment, and Special Occupancies carry 2 each. That is 11 questions combined, or 10 percent of the exam by count, which is a figure we state only as arithmetic from the published counts, not as an official weight. These domains reward targeted memorization rather than broad calculation skill.

• Control Devices (5): think switching, control circuits, and the devices that start, stop, and sequence loads, with obvious ties to motor control.
• Special Conditions (2): typically emergency, standby, and similar systems that operate under distinct rules.
• Special Equipment (2): equipment categories that carry their own articles outside the general chapters.
• Special Occupancies (2): locations with elevated hazard or use rules, where the occupancy determines the wiring requirement.

With only two questions each, you cannot afford to study these in depth. Learn how to find the right article quickly using the index and tabs, and let the exam's open-reference format do the rest. Our NH-JE cheat sheet is a good place to consolidate this quick-lookup material.

Administrative: The Domain Commercial Courses Skip

Domain 12 is Administrative, with 9 questions in the 2025 bulletin and 10 in the 2026 bulletin. It is worth treating carefully because at least one commercial provider says plainly that its public New Hampshire exam prep page excludes Administrative topics. We verified that public coverage statement for JADE Learning; we did not access paid course contents, so we cannot say what any other provider includes. Whatever you buy, check whether it covers this domain before relying on it.

The bulletin's reference list points to New Hampshire-specific materials: NH Elec 300-400, RSA 319-C, and named 2017 state amendments, alongside general references. That tells you Administrative questions draw on New Hampshire rules and statutes rather than national code alone. Expect topics tied to how licensing and electrical work are governed in the state, such as the scope of licensure, supervision, and rules found in the Elec chapters.

Do not assume the Administrative questions you see in a generic practice bank match the live bank. Practice questions are for building recall, not predicting items, and any you write for yourself should be original rather than reproduced from memory of a test.

Reference Books, Tabs, and Calculator Rules

This is an open-reference exam with specific rules, and getting them wrong can cost you time on test day. Per the bulletins:

• Allowed: prior highlighting, pen underlining, and permanent tabs in your references; authorized printed state reference documents.
• Prohibited: handwritten notes, movable tabs or sticky notes, and practice tests.
• Calculator: a simple four-function calculator is permitted at test centers. Remote candidates must follow separate system and equipment instructions.

Listed references include the NEC (with the edition question discussed above), American Electrician's Handbook, 17th edition, Ugly's Electrical References (2020), NH Elec 300-400 and RSA 319-C, and named 2017 state amendments. A four-function calculator means you will not have square-root or trigonometric keys for three-phase work, so practice those calculations in a form you can do with basic operations. Tab your code book with permanent tabs ahead of time, and test your tabbing by timing how quickly you can reach Table 430.250 or a service-conductor article from a cold start.

Eligibility, Fees, and Test-Day Logistics

You cannot simply book a seat. Board approval is required first, and once approved your testing eligibility lasts 365 days. The exam fee is $90 per attempt, including retakes, effective February 1, 2025. Separate state licensing charges exist but are not quantified here because they were not verified; check the issuer page for current amounts and see our certification cost breakdown for context. If you do not pass, retakes require a two-day interval.

On qualifications, the retrieved text of Elec 304.01 requires 8,000 practical field apprenticeship hours under a Board-licensed journeyman or master, plus one of several alternatives: 600 hours of electrical schooling including 24 safety hours (with a qualifying electrical associate or higher degree recognized within that provision), ten years licensed as a journeyman or master elsewhere, or a previous New Hampshire journeyman or master examination. Approved school-based practical credit can cover up to 2,000 hours, with documentation and no concurrent double counting. Field-experience evidence includes employment dates, type of work, and the supervising master's signature. These provisions were checked in a regulatory republication rather than a state-hosted rule file, so confirm with the Board. Our requirements guide walks through the pathways in more detail.

After you pass, licensure is not permanent. Elec 401.01, amended effective May 4, 2024, sets renewal at two years from issuance. Separately, Elec 403.01 requires 15 hours on the latest NEC changes, including at least one hour on New Hampshire laws, rules, and installation concerns, completed by the end of the calendar year following the NEC edition's publication. That code-cycle obligation is distinct from the biennial renewal. Candidates holding a license from Massachusetts or another state who are considering reciprocity should verify current Board rules directly instead of relying on summaries.

Sequencing the Twelve Domains

One short plan, tied directly to the counts above. The logic is to build foundations first, attack the big domains while you have the most time, and leave the quick-lookup domains for the end when tab speed matters most.

If you want to practice under realistic conditions while you work through this order, the question bank at the main practice test site lets you drill by topic. For a grounded sense of what a passing outcome requires, review our passing score explainer, and note that passing score requirements are not the same thing as pass rates; we have not verified official cohort pass-rate figures.

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