Plumber licensing in Louisiana

Louisiana has three doors, and the newest is the widest. Classic reciprocity covers Arkansas and Texas, journeyman only — the board refuses master reciprocity outright. The Welcome Home Act covers everyone: any state, license held a year, exam-or-standards state, good standing — and the board must decide in 60 days.

Its residency condition has a door built in: a notarized letter promising employment satisfies it at application, with real residency proof due six months after licensure — though whether the board may still require its trade exam under the Act is unsettled, so ask. And from any state, an out-of-state license earned on at least 8,000 hours qualifies you to sit the Louisiana journeyman exam directly — no re-clocking hours as an apprentice.

One date to know: the whole machinery gets rewritten January 1, 2027, with the Welcome Home floor preserved.

Louisiana's $75 temporary work permit is real but narrow as the board runs it: you must already be deemed eligible and scheduled for the exam, it carries you as a journeyman only until the exam date, and it is one to a customer — fail the exam and no permit ever issues again. Welcome Home applicants get no interim authority; their protection is the 60-day decision clock.

The fallback is the $20 apprentice registration, under a licensed plumber's direct, constant on-the-job supervision. And note the employment tether either way: a Louisiana journeyman generally works under the employment of a board-licensed master — independent work is limited to repairing existing plumbing.

The journeyman exam application is $135, and your out-of-state license (earned on 8,000-plus hours) substitutes for the apprentice hour count. Coming up the Louisiana ladder instead: indentured apprentices — enrolled in a Workforce Commission program — reach the journeyman exam at 7,000 hours; unindentured at 8,000.

The residential-limited exam is 80 written questions over three hours on the residential code, plus a one-hour, three-part practical: screw pipe, copper, and floor work.

Registration comes before any work — no registered card, no wrench. The form is paper, notarized, names your master company, and costs $20, renewing by December 31. Indentured status (a Workforce Commission training program) lowers your hour requirements downstream; unindentured raises them. And keep your pay stubs: hours count only with payroll documentation or W-2s — cash time is invisible.

The state license preempts local licensing — parishes and cities may charge permit fees and run inspections, but may not run their own plumbing exams or licenses, and may only deal with people who already hold the state card. Every local permit application even carries the state-license notice in bold.

Two boards, two credentials, merging in 2027. The worker license is the state board's personal credential, and there is no unlicensed-helper route around it. The journeyman's tether to a licensed master's employment is the structural rule to plan around — a placement is only clean if the employer has its Louisiana master in place.