What Is NH-JE?

What the NH-JE Actually Is

On this site, "NH-JE" means one thing: the New Hampshire Journeyman Electrician License Exam, the written examination a candidate must pass to qualify for a journeyman electrician license in New Hampshire. It is a state licensing exam, not a voluntary industry credential. If you want to work as a journeyman electrician in the state, this is the gate you pass through after the board has approved your experience and education.

Because the acronym is used by other credentials in other fields, it is worth being explicit: nothing here describes any certification outside New Hampshire electrical licensing. If you are still sorting out terminology, our short explainers on what NH-JE stands for and the NH-JE meaning cover the naming, while this article walks through how the exam and its surrounding process actually work.

The exam tests whether you can apply the electrical code and related rules at the journeyman level. Think less about trivia and more about navigating a code book under time pressure, working through calculations with a basic calculator, and knowing the administrative rules that govern electrical work in the state.

Who Runs It and Who Delivers It

Licensing authority sits with the New Hampshire Electricians' Board, which operates under the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC). The board determines whether you are eligible to test. Test delivery is handled by a testing vendor, Prov, Inc., which publishes the Candidate Information Bulletins (CIBs) that describe the exam's structure and subject headings.

That division of labor matters in practice. Questions about eligibility, experience documentation, and licensing belong with the board. Questions about scheduling, test-center procedures, and remote proctoring belong with Prov. The board's page for the electricians' board is the starting point for official information: oplc.nh.gov electricians' board.

Exam Format at a Glance

The NH-JE is a computer-delivered, multiple-choice written examination. The core numbers are consistent across the official bulletins we reviewed:

Some commercial summaries describe shorter or different formats. Treat the official figures above as the baseline: 110 questions and 270 minutes. That works out to a little under two and a half minutes per question on average, which is generous for recall items but tight when a question sends you into the code book for a multi-step calculation. For a deeper look at the score threshold, see our explainer on the NH-JE passing score, and keep in mind that a passing score is a requirement, not a pass rate; for what is and is not known about outcomes, read what the data shows on NH-JE pass rates.

The Twelve Subject Headings

The official bulletins organize the exam into twelve subject headings. These are examination headings, not a preparation curriculum, so they tell you how the exam is sorted rather than how a course should be taught. In order, they are:

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 2025 bulletin allocates questions across these headings in this order: 22, 9, 19, 5, 2, 2, 2, 12, 6, 8, 14, and 9 (110 total). Two patterns stand out regardless of edition. First, General Electrical Knowledge is the largest block. Second, Motors and Generators holds steady at 19 questions, which is a lot for a single topic and signals that motor calculations and related code rules deserve serious attention. At the other end, Special Conditions, Special Equipment, and Special Occupancies are small blocks of just two questions each, so they are easy to under-study without a large penalty, though you cannot ignore them entirely.

Percentage weights are not published, and we do not infer them here. Question counts are the only official allocation information. For a domain-by-domain breakdown, see our complete guide to all 12 content areas.

The Administrative Heading

Administrative is the heading many candidates underestimate. It deals with the rules and legal framework around electrical work in the state rather than technical installation. The reference list includes NH Elec 300-400 and RSA 319-C, which is where those rules live. Note that at least one commercial prep provider states publicly that its New Hampshire product excludes Administrative topics, so if you rely on a commercial course, check whether you need to cover this heading separately from the official references.

The Edition and Allocation Conflict You Need to Know About

This is the part of the NH-JE picture where careful candidates separate themselves from careless ones. Two Prov bulletins describe the exam differently:

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. Allowing candidates to bring older or newer reference editions into the exam does not tell you which edition the question bank is written against. And the fact that a given year's article appears, or that the state has adopted a particular installation code, does not by itself mean the exam follows that edition.

The practical advice: build your fundamentals around skills that carry across editions (calculations, conductor and overcurrent logic, motor circuits, grounding and bonding concepts) and confirm the edition before you invest in an expensive code book or a course that bets on one year.

Qualifying to Sit for the Exam

You cannot simply register and test. Board approval comes first. Under Elec 304.01, as published in a regulatory republication by Cornell LII, a journeyman applicant needs 8,000 hours of practical field experience under a board-licensed journeyman or master electrician, plus one of the prescribed alternatives for the education/experience component:

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

Approved school-based practical credit can cover up to 2,000 of the field hours, with documentation, and the same hours cannot be counted twice concurrently. Field-experience evidence includes employment dates, the type of work performed, and the supervising master electrician's signature. Note the 600-hour schooling figure here: some commercial summaries cite a different number, so rely on the rule text and confirm with the board.

Because these rules were checked in regulatory republications rather than state-hosted rule files, confirm current requirements with the board before submitting an application. Our requirements guide walks through documentation in more depth.

A Note for Out-of-State Electricians

If you hold a Massachusetts license and are considering a move north, the ten-years-licensed-elsewhere pathway is the provision to examine, and you should confirm with the board how it applies to your situation before assuming reciprocity. Do not rely on informal advice; get the board's answer in writing.

Fees, Eligibility Window, and Retakes

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, so budget for them after checking the board's current fee schedule. Our certification cost breakdown goes into the budgeting side.

• Board approval first: you test only after the board approves you.
• 365-day eligibility: once approved, your testing eligibility lasts 365 days, so schedule with that clock in mind.
• Two-day retake interval: if you do not pass, you must wait two days before the next attempt.
• Delivery choice: test at a Prov center or take the exam remotely through Examroom.ai.

The two-day retake gap is short, but that does not make a quick retake a good idea. Use the interval to review your weakest headings, not to re-sit cold. For scheduling details and windows, see our guide to NH-JE exam dates.

Remote Testing Considerations

Remote delivery through Examroom.ai has its own system and equipment instructions that are separate from the test-center rules. If you choose remote, read those instructions well ahead of exam day, test your setup, and do not assume that what is allowed at a test center is automatically allowed at your desk at home.

Test-Day Rules: References, Tabbing, and Calculators

The NH-JE is a reference-assisted exam, which changes how you should study. Rather than memorizing code text, you are training to find it fast. The bulletins list the permitted references, including the NEC (with the edition question discussed above), 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.

Only a simple four-function calculator is permitted at test centers, so practice your multi-step calculations, such as conductor sizing adjustments and motor circuit computations, on that kind of device rather than a scientific model. Our one-page cheat sheet is a useful review tool before the exam, though remember that it cannot come into the room.

After the Exam: Renewal and Code-Cycle Education

Passing the exam is the start of an ongoing compliance cycle. Two separate obligations apply:

• Biennial renewal: under Elec 401.01, amended effective May 4, 2024, renewal is two years from issuance. Older materials describing a three-year cycle are out of date.
• Code-cycle education: under Elec 403.01, licensees need 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.

These are distinct requirements. The code-cycle education obligation follows the NEC publication schedule and is separate from the two-year licensing renewal. As with eligibility, these provisions were checked in regulatory republications, so verify against the board's current rules.

If you are weighing whether the investment of time and money makes sense, our analyses of whether the license is worth it and the earnings landscape treat salary as a research topic; no official earnings figures are verified here, so treat any salary headline as an estimate to check against current job postings.

Sequencing Your Preparation by Domain

Rather than a generic study schedule, order your preparation around how the exam is built. The ordering below follows question concentration and prerequisite logic: foundations first, then the big technical blocks, then the small specialty headings, with administrative material woven in so it does not get left to the end.

Whatever schedule you choose, use original practice questions and avoid sources that claim to reproduce live exam items. For a fuller plan, see our NH-JE study guide, and if you are wondering how demanding the material is, read how hard the NH-JE exam is. When you are ready to test your recall under realistic conditions, try the NH-JE practice test and return to the main practice site to track which headings need more work.

Frequently Asked Questions