An Idaho plumbing license comes from DOPL, and there is no master plumber tier here. The word “master” does not appear once in Idaho’s plumbing statute. The top of the ladder is Plumbing Contractor.
Idaho is also one of the cleaner states to get licensed in. No continuing education, a small bond, and three real reciprocity agreements.
Who runs plumbing licensing in Idaho
The Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses (DOPL), through the Idaho State Plumbing Board.
Idaho State Plumbing Board at DOPL
If you find yourself on a Division of Building Safety page, it is stale. Plumbing moved to DOPL and every DBS link now redirects. The law is Idaho Code Title 54, Chapter 26, with rules at IDAPA 24.39.20.
The six license classifications
Idaho Code section 54-2611 creates exactly six, three plumbing and three specialty:
- Plumbing Apprentice, a registration, no exam
- Plumbing Journeyman, a certificate of competency
- Plumbing Contractor, the top tier
- Specialty Apprentice
- Specialty Journeyman, either Appliance Specialty or Water Pump Specialty
- Specialty Contractor
Register as an apprentice before you start counting hours. DOPL says hours worked while unregistered do not count toward the journeyman requirement. That is the single most expensive mistake in Idaho, because it can cost you years.
Hours and schooling
For a Plumbing Journeyman there are two paths:
- 8,000 hours as a registered apprentice plus 576 hours of a board approved course of instruction, which is four years of schooling
- 16,000 hours of plumbing experience with no schooling
The math is worth sitting with. Doing the schooling cuts your hour requirement in half. Out of state hours count, but Idaho hours only count if you held an active Idaho apprentice registration while you worked them.
Pipe fitting and appliance specialty work do not count toward journeyman hours.
Approved apprenticeship programs include College of Southern Idaho, College of Western Idaho, College of Eastern Idaho, Idaho State University, Lewis-Clark State College, North Idaho College, Treasure Valley Community College, and the Boise and Pocatello Plumbing JATCs.
Appliance Specialty Journeyman: 3,000 hours plus 72 hours of approved training, or 6,000 hours straight. Water Pump Specialty: 3,000 hours, no classroom path published.
Plumbing Contractor: hold a journeyman certificate, pass the exam, post the bond. The current rule and application publish no minimum time in grade. If a site tells you Idaho requires two and a half years as a journeyman first, that is not in the current rule.
Exams
PSI administers the exam, delivering the IAPMO test.
The order matters and it is backwards from most states. Journeyman applicants pass the exam before submitting the DOPL application. Contractor and specialty applicants apply first and get exam information after approval.
Applications are cancelled one year from the application date if you have not passed. Fail twice and the board may bar you from retesting for a year.
Idaho does not publish a passing score anymore. The old pre-2023 rule had 75 percent in it and nearly every third party site still repeats that number. It was removed in the 2023 rewrite. Do not plan around a figure the state no longer publishes.
Testing is on the 2017 Idaho State Plumbing Code, which is based on the 2015 Uniform Plumbing Code.
Fees
DOPL charges a $22.50 application fee across the board, plus:
- Journeyman: $29.40 initial, $21.60 renewal, three year term
- Contractor: $147 initial, $108 renewal, three year term
- Apprentice: $50, five year term
- Specialty Apprentice: $30, three year term
The journeyman application form totals $51.90 for an initial or reciprocal license, since the exam is already behind you.
Idaho Code section 54-2616 lists different numbers, but those are annual rates. DOPL’s table is what you actually pay for the three year certificate. The exam fee is set and collected by PSI, not the state, so confirm it with PSI.
Bond and insurance
Contractors post a $2,000 compliance bond. It has to stay effective for the full certificate period, and proof of bond renewal is required to renew.
Journeymen and apprentices post nothing.
No insurance requirement of any kind appears in the plumbing statute or rules. Not general liability, not workers’ comp. Your customers and GCs will still ask, so carry it, but the board does not require it.
One nice side effect: plumbers licensed under Chapter 26 are expressly exempt from the Idaho Contractor Registration Act. That is one registration you do not have to go get.
Continuing education: none
DOPL’s own FAQ says it in one line: there are no continuing education requirements for plumbing.
The statute lets the board create CE, and the pre-2023 rule required 8 hours per three years for journeymen and 16 for contractors. Both were deleted in the 2023 rewrite and nothing replaced them. This is the second place aggregator sites get Idaho wrong.
Renewal
Certificates run three years from the date of issue. There is no fixed statewide renewal date, so yours depends on when you were licensed. Apprentice registration runs five years, specialty apprentice three.
Renew during the month before expiration. A lapsed certificate can be revived within two years without retesting, on payment of the full initial fee. A lapsed apprentice registration gets one year.
Contractors not working in Idaho can go inactive rather than let it lapse. And if a plumbing contractor dies or is incapacitated, a journeyman can be issued a 90 day temporary contractor certificate, renewable once, though it does not allow new permits or new work.
Reciprocity: three states, not two
Idaho publishes signed journeyman level agreements with Oregon, Montana and Washington. Most write-ups only mention Oregon and Montana. Washington is in there too.
Terms, from the official journeyman application:
- Montana or Oregon: verification showing a completed apprenticeship plus 8,000 hours, active status, and licensure by examination
- Washington: verification showing either 8,000 or 16,000 hours, active status, and licensure by examination
Residency catch. Coming from Washington or Montana, you have to still be a resident of that state when you apply. Move to Idaho first and you lose the reciprocity path. Oregon’s agreement has no residency clause.
No written exam is required for the reciprocal certificate. The fee is $51.90.
There is no contractor level or specialty level reciprocity. Journeyman only.
What changed in 2023, and why it matters
Idaho ran a zero based regulation rewrite and rebuilt the plumbing rule from scratch. Two things came out of it that almost every other write-up still gets wrong.
The published passing score was removed. The old rule said 75 percent. The current rule says nothing about a score.
Continuing education was removed entirely. The old rule required 8 hours per three years for journeymen and 16 for contractors. Both are gone.
The practical takeaway is simple. If you are reading an Idaho plumbing page that quotes a 75 percent passing score and a CE requirement, it is running on pre-2023 information and you should not trust its other numbers either.
Exams also moved to PSI recently, so older guidance pointing at another test vendor is stale. The board has confirmed it is not engaged in rulemaking for 2026 or 2027, so the current rules should hold for a while.
Who actually needs a license
Anyone performing plumbing work needs to hold one of the six classifications or be a registered apprentice working under a journeyman. There is no dollar threshold that lets you work unlicensed on small jobs the way some states allow.
The practical sequence for someone starting out looks like this. Register as an apprentice with DOPL before your first day so the hours count. Get into one of the approved programs and take the 576 classroom hours, because it halves your required field hours from 16,000 to 8,000. Pass the PSI exam, then apply for the journeyman certificate. When you are ready to work for yourself, apply for the contractor certificate and post the $2,000 bond.
Budget roughly four years on the schooling path. Eight years without it. That gap is the strongest argument for enrolling.
Common questions
Is there a master plumber license in Idaho? No. Plumbing Contractor is the top tier.
Do I need CE to renew? No.
Can I count hours from before I registered? Out of state hours yes. Idaho hours worked without an active apprentice registration, no.
Next steps
Compare states on the plumbing license by state hub, or read the full plumbing license guide.
With the license handled, here is how to start a plumbing business.
