Plumber licensing in Colorado

Colorado holds no reciprocity agreement with anyone — it runs license by endorsement, open to every state, judged case by case. The conditions that decide most files: the license must be state-issued (city and county cards do not qualify), earned by examination on the current or previous plumbing code edition, active, and held at least six months.

Your issuing board completes the verification form, employers complete experience affidavits, and no exam waiver is automatic — the board can still route you to the Colorado exam. A refusal can be appealed, but only within 45 days.

Yes — as a registered apprentice, and Colorado's definition is wider than the word: any individual employed in the plumbing trade without a Colorado license is an apprentice, twenty-year out-of-state journeymen included. The employer registers you with the board — the statute allows thirty days, the board expects it before the first shift — at $30, and you work under a licensed plumber physically supervising on site, capped at three apprentices per supervisor.

State inspectors check licensure and that ratio on job sites, on state-permitted and locally-permitted projects alike, so the crew math is enforced, not theoretical. A statutory temporary permit exists on paper for exam applicants, but no form or process is published — do not plan a placement on it.

Colorado flipped the usual order, and it works in your favor: no pre-approval gate. You self-qualify on hours, book the PSI exam directly, pass it, and then file the license application with the passing result attached. Ignore the older apply-first language still floating on some division pages — the board's current rule and licensing guide both say exam first.

Registration is mandatory, employer-initiated, and two-step: you create the apprentice record online, the contractor attaches it to its registration — neither half alone counts. $30, within thirty days of hire at the outside, before the first shift by the board's own guidance. Late registration is a disciplinary matter for the employer.

Worker licensing is exclusively the state's — the statute declares it a matter of statewide concern, and no Colorado municipality issues a plumber card. Local governments keep permitting and inspection, and their inspectors verify state licensure and the apprentice ratio as they go.

The worker license and the contractor registration are separate: you personally need the residential, journeyworker, or master license — or the apprentice registration — to work, and the business needs its own registration to operate as a plumbing contractor. One never substitutes for the other.