Plumber licensing in South Dakota

South Dakota publishes no partner list — it runs a discretionary equivalence review instead. The commission may license a nonresident without examination if your license was earned by examination, your state's plumbing laws are similar, and your state's plumbing code meets or exceeds South Dakota's. You pay all three fees — application, examination, and license, about $255 — even though no exam is sat.

Two things to plan around: the route is written for nonresidents, and the commission that decides meets quarterly, so start early and ask whether staff can approve between meetings. Coming from a state with no license at all, you document the work and prove licensure was not required where you earned it.

The temporary-permit rule was repealed in 2025 — the statutory authority survives on paper with no published process, so treat it as unavailable unless the commission says otherwise in writing. The workable fallback is the apprentice license: no experience required, $20 application plus $20 first-year fee, filed by you — supervised, apprentice-scope work while your equivalence application is decided.

One grace period runs the other way: a state-licensed plumber may work in a city for six months while the city's own paperwork is pending — state card first, then the city clock.

The plumber license takes four years as an apprentice at 1,900 hours a year — roughly 7,600 hours — with military time crediting one year for every two served, and a nine-month trade program shaving the wait to three years. Third-year apprentices with 3,800 hours can test into a class that works single-family jobs without immediate supervision.

The commission gives its own exams — no test vendor: Pierre by appointment any time, Sioux Falls and Rapid City only when eight to ten applicants accumulate, so where you test affects when you test.

The apprentice license is a real license class with no experience requirement — you file it yourself, $20 application and $20 the first year, stepping up about $10 a year as you renew. Your supervising contractor verifies hours on the experience form as you go. After 3,800 hours and the commission exam you may work single-family dwellings without immediate and personal supervision.

The worker license is statewide — no city issues it in the state's place — but municipalities may layer their own plumbing ordinances, permits, and licenses on top, and none of the big cities was swept, so ask the city building department. The statute hands you one protection: with the state card in hand, you may work in any city for six months while your city permit or license application is pending.

South Dakota licenses the worker and the contractor separately, and the worker license is the one that gets you hired — working unlicensed on public water or sewer property is a misdemeanor, with narrow own-property exceptions and a rural waiver. The contractor license is the business credential: six years' experience and a $100 exam, the employer's concern, not yours.