How do I renew my electrician license in Texas?
Texas electrical licenses are issued by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and, unlike most licenses on this site, they renew every year. A license is valid for one year from the date it was issued and must be renewed annually, so the continuing education is an annual job too.
What Texas asks for
- Hours required
- 4 hours of approved continuing education
- How often
- Every year
- Who is exempt
- Electrical contractors and residential appliance installers are not required to complete continuing education. Apprentices may take these 4 hours or instead be enrolled in a TDLR-registered apprenticeship course.
- Reporting
- We file your completion electronically with TDLR within 7 days of the date you finish, and your completion certificate is issued within 15 days.
Subjects the board names
- National Electrical Code
- Texas Electrician Law (Occupations Code, Chapter 1305)
- Texas Electrician Administrative Rules (16 TAC, Chapter 73)
- Electrical safety as defined in NFPA 70E
One hour of CE means 50 minutes of instruction, and you may not claim the same course twice. If you hold more than one electrician license, 4 hours in total covers all of them.
Checked against the board's own pages on 2026-08-09.
Check first whether you need CE at all
Contractors and residential appliance installers are not required to take continuing education. If that is your license type, buying a CE course buys you nothing toward renewal. This matters because it is easy to assume every TDLR electrical license carries the same requirement, and it does not.
The 4 hours apply to the individual license types: master, journeyman, and the related residential and sign endorsements. Apprentices meet the requirement either with the same 4 hours or by being enrolled in a TDLR-registered apprenticeship course.
One set of hours covers every license you hold
If you hold more than one electrical license, you do not multiply the requirement. Four hours in the cycle covers all of them.
What the 4 hours have to be about
TDLR names the subjects rather than splitting the hours into fixed blocks, which is why the box above lists topics instead of a breakdown. The course has to draw on the National Electrical Code, the Texas Electrical Safety and Licensing Act (Occupations Code chapter 1305), the department's rules in 16 TAC chapter 73, and NFPA 70E electrical safety. One hour means 50 minutes of instruction, which is the standard TDLR counts by.
The renewal itself
- Take your 4 hours from a TDLR-approved provider before the license expires. Ours is the Texas electrician CE course, under TDLR provider number 2268.
- We file your completion with TDLR electronically within 7 days, and your certificate follows within 15 days.
- Renew in TDLR's online portal and pay the fee for your license type. TDLR publishes the current amount on the renewal page for that type.
- Confirm the new expiry date in TDLR's license search.
Because the cycle is annual rather than biennial, the most common way to get caught out is assuming you have another year in hand. If you are not sure when your license expires, TDLR's license search will tell you, and it is worth checking before you buy anything.
