Plumber licensing in Michigan

Michigan does not reciprocate with any state — the licensing form says so in those words — and the civilian path is experience credit toward exam eligibility, not a waiver: document your out-of-state license and supervised hours, and the board reviews it at one of its quarterly meetings before you may sit the Michigan exam.

That quarterly cadence is the real clock; budget for it. The exception is military-connected and generous: members, veterans, and their dependents with a substantially-equivalent license held a year get licensure without examination, mandatory on the department — and military dependents can also take a six-month temporary license, renewable once, to work while the full application runs.

Not as a plumber — a pending application is not a license, and there is no working on an out-of-state card. The day-one path is the apprentice registration, and Michigan's statute is built for it: you may start work first and register within 30 days of employment. The scope is learning and assisting under direct, on-site, in-person supervision, and the new ratio cap has teeth — one journey or master plumber per two registered apprentices, with the fines landing on the contractor.

Two housekeeping rules: hours earned while a registration is lapsed do not count, and a general temporary license exists in statute but Michigan appears not to issue it for plumbers — if a placement turns on it, get LARA's answer in writing.

The gate is board approval to sit, and the boards meet four times a year — the exam itself is the fast part. Journeyman takes 6,000 hours over at least three years as a registered apprentice under a master's supervision, or the military pathway: equivalent service experience attested by a superior with direct knowledge, applied within a year of an honorable discharge.

Register with the department within 30 days of starting work. The registration runs five years — extended automatically once you have applied for the journey exam — and the job must be your principal occupation: learning and assisting under direct, on-site, in-person supervision. One supervisor covers at most two apprentices, and the employer eats the penalty for stretching it.

Michigan forbids local trade licensing outright — a governmental subdivision may not require local licensing or exempt itself from the state's. No city journeyman card exists anywhere in the state. The one local filing is the contractor's: registering its state license with the local permit office, where required, at no charge.

The plumbing contractor is the business credential — a licensed master, or a firm employing one full-time as its representative — at $300 for three years, and permits issue only to licensed contractors with their master designated on the application. The worker license is separate and personal: the contractor's license never covers the hands.