NASCLA Electrical Exam: What Florida Will Actually Accept

The NASCLA electrical exam comes in three versions, and Florida accepts only one: the Residential Electrical Contractor exam, and only as half of an endorsement. You must already hold a similar license in another state, and you still sit Florida’s Business exam. First time applicants have to take Florida’s own two part exam.

On this page: the three NASCLA electrical exams set against Florida’s own from the two current bulletins, the one Florida endorsement row that counts, and the fee arithmetic with the unpublished gaps marked.

This site is independent. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation or by NASCLA, and nothing here is legal advice. Every figure below was checked on 4 October 2026 against NASCLA’s own pages, the PSI candidate bulletin dated 7 July 2026, and the Florida electrical board’s documents.

What are the three NASCLA electrical exams?

The National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies runs three open book electrical trade exams, which it says were ready for state adoption in August 2018. They are a shared trade exam that member states can accept in place of their own, so an electrician licensed in several states is not tested on the same code book five times. The exams are delivered by PSI, and the PSI candidate bulletin for the program sets out the numbers:

Two details in that table catch people. The journeyman exam, the junior license of the three, gets the most time, a full half hour more than the master exam. And every version carries 10 experimental questions on top of the 100, which do not count for or against you but look exactly like the ones that do, so you are really working through 110 questions in the time allowed.

The bulletin is also blunt about what NASCLA does not cover. It is the trade portion only. Candidates still follow each state’s own application and take that state’s business and law exam. You apply through NASCLA’s National Examination Database first, wait up to 7 business days for approval, and then have one year and a maximum of three attempts to pass.

Does Florida accept the NASCLA electrical exam?

Partly, and for far less than most course pages imply. Electrical contracting in Florida is not run by the Construction Industry Licensing Board that handles general, building and residential contractors. It sits under the separate Electrical Contractors’ Licensing Board, in Part II of Chapter 489, Florida Statutes, and that board keeps its own exam endorsement list. The copy checked today was revised in December 2025. Its NASCLA row reads, in short: Partial. The NASCLA Residential Electrical Exam counts as the Florida Residential Specialty Technical Examination, the applicant must still take the Florida Business exam, and the determination dates from May 2020.

NASCLA’s own Florida page agrees and adds the condition that trips up new electricians. Endorsement needs a license in another jurisdiction similar in scope to the Florida classification you want, and, in NASCLA’s words, “the only acceptable exam under the statute is the Florida Exam” for an initial applicant who has never been licensed.

So, as of today:

• The NASCLA Electrical Contractor (master) exam does not appear on Florida’s list at all, so it does not lead to a Florida Unlimited Electrical Contractor certificate.
• The NASCLA Journeyman exam does not appear on the list either.
• The NASCLA Residential exam replaces only the technical half of Florida’s residential specialty exam, and only for someone already licensed elsewhere.

If you came here hoping NASCLA was a back door into a Florida license, it is a side door to one room, and you need a key from another state to open it. The wider picture of which states’ own exams clear Florida’s in full is in this site’s breakdown of Florida electrical license reciprocity and endorsement.

How does the NASCLA residential exam compare with Florida’s own?

Florida judged the NASCLA residential exam substantially similar to its own residential technical exam in 2020, but the two are not identical on paper. Set side by side from the PSI bulletin and Florida’s electrical Candidate Information Booklet, effective February 2026:

The pass mark is the striking row. NASCLA’s residential exam passes at 70 correct out of 100, while Florida’s own technical exam asks for 75 percent, yet the board accepts the first in place of the second. The content is cut differently too: Florida’s outline lists box fill, demand loads, neutral loads, appliance loads, voltage drop and conduit fill as separate counted areas, while NASCLA groups the same ground under wider headings such as grounding and bonding (14 questions), circuit protection and installation (16) and wiring methods and practices (17).

One more practical point. Florida’s electrical exams are delivered by Pearson VUE, not by Professional Testing, Inc., which runs the construction exams most of this site covers. Ring the wrong vendor and you will get a polite person who cannot find you.

What can you bring into a NASCLA electrical exam?

All three NASCLA electrical exams are open book, and the bulletin’s rules on what the books may carry are close to Florida’s, with one extra trap. The approved references for the residential exam include the NEC 2020 or 2023, OSHA 29 CFR 1926, NFPA 70E 2024, NFPA 72 2022, the 2024 International Residential Code, the NASCLA Contractors Guide, Ugly’s Electrical References and a Mike Holt theory text. A blueprint packet is handed out at the test center.

• Highlighting, underlining and permanent tabs are allowed.
• Written notes are not, and nothing loose or attached may sit inside a book.
• Post it style temporary tabs must be removed before the exam starts.
• The two optional indexes, Ferm’s Fast Finder and the Tom Henry Key Word Index, must be completely unmarked, with no highlights and no tabs, or they stay outside.
• Only a silent, non programmable calculator without a printing tape or a letter keyboard is allowed.

That optional index rule is the one people lose a book over: the index you tabbed most lovingly is the one you are not allowed to tab at all. How Florida’s own tab and highlight rules work is covered in this site’s guide to tabs, highlighting and notes on the Florida exam.

What does the NASCLA route to a Florida license cost?

Only some of the fees are published, so here is the arithmetic with the gaps marked rather than guessed:

Worked through: $65 plus $45 plus $492 is $602 of published fees before either exam sitting. Add the commonly quoted $125 PSI fee and the total is $727, still before Florida’s Business exam fee. The ECLB 2 form also carries a printed notice of a temporary 50 percent reduction that brought the endorsement fee to $346.50, but the notice itself limits that to Florida’s 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 fiscal years, so plan on $492 and confirm with the board on 850-487-1395.

Money is not the only cost. The same form asks every endorsement applicant for W-2, 1099, Schedule C or K-1 forms for each year of required experience, at least three letters verifying that experience, a credit report with a public records statement, and evidence of workers’ compensation coverage and financial responsibility. The exam is the cheap part.

Who should take the NASCLA electrical exam instead of Florida’s?

The NASCLA electrical exam earns its fee for a residential electrician who is already licensed in one state and wants to add others that accept the same transcript. NASCLA’s list is longer than Florida’s single row, and this site’s dated count of the states NASCLA covers sets out which jurisdictions take which exam. For that person, Florida is one more stop on the same transcript plus a Business exam.

It does nothing in Florida for anyone else. If Florida will be your first electrical license, the statute route is Florida’s own two part exam, described in this site’s guide to the Florida electrical contractor license. If you want the Unlimited certificate, the NASCLA master exam is not on the list, so check whether your home state’s own exam is, or sit Florida’s. And one wrinkle is worth a phone call before you pay anyone: the ECLB 2 form says an applicant must have obtained the out of state license through examination in that state. If your other license was itself issued on a NASCLA transcript, ask the board how it reads that sentence for you before you rely on it.

Whichever exam you sit, it is open book, and the skill being tested is finding the answer in the code fast enough. This site’s plain account of what NASCLA exam prep is worth covers what a course adds and what it does not.

Frequently asked questions

Rules and fees change without notice. This page was verified on the date shown and is rechecked on the weekly refresh. If you hit something different, tell us in the comments.