Plumber licensing in West Virginia

West Virginia's reciprocity is real, exam-free — and residency-gated, which defeats most travelers. Both routes (from licensing states and from no-license states) incorporate the RECAP Act's conditions wholesale, and one of them is established West Virginia residency. The Division's own forms page says it plainly: the reciprocity forms 'may be applicable if moving to West Virginia.' For a relocator the terms are decent — license held a year, good standing everywhere, and a written decision within 60 days, though a pending complaint in any state freezes the file open-endedly.

Keeping your out-of-state address? Your path is the exam — and West Virginia's exam path is unusually kind; see below.

The prohibition draws its line at issuance — the Division's own rule says a person under a cease-and-desist may resume 'immediately... upon issuance of a license.' The fast lane is the Plumber in Training license: no exam, no experience requirement, no residency, $25 — a real license that puts you on the tools under a master or journeyman's direct supervision (three trainees per supervisor, card carried on the job) while your journeyman exam or RECAP file is in flight.

Just as important, the exemption list does day-one work for industrial travelers: plumbing as an employee at a manufacturing plant or industrial establishment, outside-the-foundation water and drainage lines, sewers and site utilities, HVAC scope, mine sites, and natural-gas facilities all sit outside the license requirement entirely.

West Virginia imposes no experience-hours prerequisite for the journeyman or master exam — none. The statute defines a journeyman as a person who passed the exam at 70%, the rule asks for a completed application and the fee, and the application form has no experience or employer-verification field at all. For a working traveler that means the exam is the whole gate: sit it, pass it, attach the score report to the application.

The Plumber in Training license is the apprentice tier, and its qualification is a single form and $25 — the statute defines the class simply as a person who has not passed the journeyman exam, so any competent traveler qualifies on paper. It runs a year, renews at $25, and the price is direct supervision by a licensed master or journeyman, capped at three trainees each.

Preempted twice over: since 2009 no West Virginia city or county may require any additional license or evidence of competence from a state-licensed plumber, and the occupational-licensing preemption statute reinforces it. The state card is the exclusive competency credential; local permits and inspections under the plumbing code continue as usual.

Different boards for different questions: your plumber license comes from the Division of Labor; the contractor license comes from the Contractor Licensing Board and attaches to whoever undertakes work other than as an employee — kicking in at $5,000 for residential jobs. On a W-2 you need the plumber license and nothing more; the contractor license is the business's concern.