What Is A NH-JE?

What the NH-JE Actually Is

On this site, "NH-JE" means one thing: the New Hampshire Journeyman Electrician License Exam. It is the written examination a candidate must pass, after Board approval, to become a licensed journeyman electrician in New Hampshire. It is not a voluntary industry credential, a manufacturer certificate, or a national designation. It is a state licensing gate, and the license it unlocks is what lets you perform electrical work under your own authority in the state, rather than only as a supervised apprentice.

If you have seen the same letters attached to other credentials, set those aside. Everything here concerns the New Hampshire licensing exam alone. For a shorter definitional take, see What Is NH-JE? and What Does NH-JE Stand For?.

The exam is a computer-delivered, multiple-choice written test. There is no practical wiring component in the exam described here; the hands-on side of your qualification is documented through your apprenticeship hours, which are reviewed as part of your application rather than tested on exam day.

Who Runs the Exam: OPLC and Prov

Two organizations matter. The New Hampshire Electricians' Board, which sits within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC), is the regulatory authority. It decides who is eligible, who is approved to test, and who is licensed. The Board's page is the issuer reference: oplc.nh.gov electricians board.

The testing vendor is Prov, Inc. Prov publishes the Candidate Information Bulletins (CIBs) that list the exam's subject headings and question allocations, and it delivers the test at its centers or remotely. In practice you deal with both: the Board for approval and licensing, Prov for scheduling and the exam itself. Searching for "nh PROV electrician exam" is really a search for the testing side of this two-party process.

Format, Timing and Passing Score

Do the arithmetic on the clock: 270 minutes across 110 questions is roughly two and a half minutes per question on average. That is generous compared with many licensing exams, but it is not unlimited. The slow part of this exam is rarely reading the question; it is locating the right article, table or rule in the code book. Candidates who have not practiced fast lookup are the ones who feel time pressure.

A 70% passing score on 110 questions means you can miss a meaningful number of items and still pass, but because the allocations are uneven across subjects (more on that below), a weak showing in the biggest areas can sink you quickly. For the full scoring discussion, see NH-JE Passing Score 2026. Note that a passing score is a threshold you must reach, not a statistic about how many candidates succeed; for outcome data, see NH-JE Pass Rate 2026.

The Twelve Subject Headings

The exam is organized under twelve official subject headings that appear in both of the retrieved Prov bulletins. These are exam headings, not a preparation curriculum, so how you study them is up to you. In order:

1. General Electrical Knowledge
2. Equipment for General Use
3. Motors and Generators
4. Control Devices
5. Special Conditions
6. Special Equipment
7. Special Occupancies
8. Services and Service Equipment
9. Branch Circuits and Conductors
10. Feeders
11. Wiring Methods & Materials
12. Administrative

The published question allocations are uneven, and the unevenness should drive your time budget. General Electrical Knowledge is the largest heading in both bulletins. Motors and Generators holds steady at 19 questions in both versions, which makes it the second-largest block by the figures printed in both bulletins, and a reliable place to invest. Wiring Methods & Materials carries 14 questions in both, and Services and Service Equipment carries 12. At the other end, Control Devices, Special Conditions, Special Equipment and Special Occupancies are single-digit headings, with several as small as 2 questions.

For a heading-by-heading walkthrough, see NH-JE Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 12 Content Areas. One more detail: the official heading for domain nine is printed with a trailing colon in the source ("Branch Circuits and Conductors:"), a harmless typographical quirk.

The Version Conflict You Need to Know About

Here is something most prep sites gloss over, and you should not. Two Prov bulletins describe the exam slightly differently:

Both bulletins total 110 questions, and the other ten headings carry identical allocations. The difference is a one-question swap between General Electrical Knowledge and Administrative, plus the "2023" versus "2020" label. The 2025 bulletin's reference list includes both a 2023 NEC entry and a separate 2020 NEC entry, while the 2026 bulletin specifies the 2020 NEC.

Percentage weights are not published, so any article quoting precise percentages for these domains is inventing them. Work from the raw question counts instead. This is exactly the sort of detail that makes a commercial "complete" course worth scrutinizing; ask any provider which bulletin and code edition its material targets.

Who Can Sit for It

You cannot simply register and test. Board approval is required, and the qualification rule is Elec 304.01. Its core requirement is 8,000 hours of practical, field apprenticeship experience under a Board-licensed journeyman or master electrician, combined with one of several education or experience alternatives:

• Electrical schooling: 600 hours of electrical schooling, including 24 hours of safety training. A qualifying electrical associate degree or higher is recognized within that schooling provision.
• Out-of-state licensure: ten years licensed as a journeyman or master elsewhere.
• Prior New Hampshire licensure: a previous New Hampshire journeyman or master examination.

Approved school-based practical credit can cover up to 2,000 hours of the field requirement, but it requires documentation and cannot be double counted with concurrent work. Field experience is evidenced through employment dates, type of work and the supervising master electrician's signature. Keep clean records from your first day as an apprentice; reconstructing signatures years later is painful.

Note that these provisions were checked through regulatory republications rather than state-hosted rule files, so verify current text with the Board before you apply. The qualification source is the Elec 304.01 text published by Cornell LII. For the broader eligibility picture, read NH-JE Requirements 2026.

Coming from Another State

Candidates arriving from Massachusetts or elsewhere often ask about reciprocity. The ten-years-licensed-elsewhere pathway in Elec 304.01 is the relevant provision to examine, but whether your specific out-of-state license qualifies is a Board determination. Do not assume a reciprocal arrangement exists; ask OPLC what documentation they will accept before you plan around it.

Test Day Rules, References and Calculators

This is an open-reference exam in a controlled way, and the rules are specific enough to trip up unprepared candidates.

• Allowed: prior highlighting, pen underlining, and permanent tabs in your books; authorized printed state reference documents.
• Prohibited: handwritten notes, movable tabs or sticky notes, and practice tests brought into the exam.
• Calculator: a simple four-function calculator is permitted at test centers. Remote proctoring has its own system and equipment instructions, so read those separately.

The listed references include the American Electrician's Handbook (17th edition), Ugly's Electrical References (2020), NH Elec 300-400 and RSA 319-C, and named 2017 state amendments, alongside the NEC. Because permanent tabs and highlighting are allowed but handwriting is not, the smart move is to tab your code book by chapter and key tables well before exam week, then practice navigating with only those tabs.

Remote testing runs through Examroom.ai; test centers are Prov locations. Pick based on where you perform best: a remote setup removes travel but adds technical and room-compliance requirements.

Fees, Retakes and Eligibility Windows

The exam fee is $90 per attempt, including retakes, effective February 1, 2025. That is the verified testing charge. Separate state licensing charges exist but were not verified here, so check the Board for current amounts rather than relying on a total quoted elsewhere. For a fuller budgeting view, see NH-JE Certification Cost 2026.

Two timing rules shape your strategy. First, once the Board approves you, your testing eligibility lasts 365 days. Second, if you fail, retakes require a two-day interval. That short gap is not a license to re-sit casually: each attempt costs $90, and two days is not enough to fix a structural knowledge gap. Use the retake interval to diagnose which headings cost you points, not to re-read everything. For scheduling specifics, see NH-JE Exam Dates 2026.

After You Pass: Renewal and Code-Cycle Hours

Passing the exam is not the end of your regulatory obligations. Under Elec 401.01, amended effective May 4, 2024, license renewal occurs two years from issuance. If you have seen older descriptions mentioning a three-year cycle, treat them as outdated.

Separately, Elec 403.01 requires 15 hours of education on the changes in the latest NEC, including at least one hour on New Hampshire laws, rules and installation concerns. The hours must be completed by the end of the calendar year following the NEC edition's publication. This code-cycle requirement is independent of your biennial renewal, so track both clocks. Both provisions were verified through regulatory republications: Elec 401.01 and Elec 403.01.

Journeyman Versus Master

The journeyman license is the stage before the master electrician license. Journeymen work under a master's supervision structure, while masters carry broader authority and can supervise others. Elec 304.01 itself references both journeyman and master licensure as qualifying routes, which shows how the two tiers interlock. If you are weighing the career value of the step, see Is the NH-JE Certification Worth It? and NH-JE Salary Guide 2026; note that reliable salary figures were not verified for this article, so treat any headline number with caution.

Sequencing Your Prep Around the Domains

Rather than a generic schedule, build your plan from the question counts. Study the heavyweight headings first and longest, because they carry the most points and because skills in them (calculations, code navigation) transfer to the rest. A sample sequence over eight weeks:

For a deeper plan, see the NH-JE Study Guide 2026 and the one-page NH-JE Cheat Sheet. To gauge how demanding the exam feels in practice, read How Hard Is the NH-JE Exam?. When you are ready to test yourself, start with the NH-JE practice tests, which use original questions rather than recalled exam items, and revisit the main practice site as your weak headings improve.

Frequently Asked Questions