About TradeLicenseMap

What this site is

TradeLicenseMap answers one question for people moving into the skilled trades: how do I actually get licensed as an electrician, plumber or HVAC technician in my state? The licensing system in the United States is a fifty-state patchwork — Texas counts 8,000 on-the-job hours toward a journeyman electrician license, Washington routes everyone through an approved apprenticeship, Illinois licenses plumbers through its Department of Public Health and doesn't license electricians at all. The official boards publish the truth, but each one publishes only its own slice, in its own vocabulary, on its own website.

We put the slices together: a verified requirements page for every trade-and-state combination we cover, plus three tools — a Path Finder that matches your experience to your state's actual qualification routes, a Reciprocity Checker built on the directed agreements boards really publish (including the honest "no agreement" answers), and a Trades vs College calculator built from Bureau of Labor Statistics wage medians.

Where every figure comes from

Every hour count, fee, exam rule and renewal cycle on this site was read from an official source: the state licensing board's own website (TDLR, TSBPE, CSLB, Washington L&I, Michigan LARA, and so on), the state's statutes or administrative code, or a federal agency (the EPA for Section 608, the BLS for wages, NCES for education figures). We never copy a competitor's or aggregator's table — if we could not verify a figure at its official source, it does not appear here.

Each state page carries a dated verification stamp and links the exact official pages we read. Wage figures are May 2025 BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics state medians, retrieved from the BLS public API and dated on the page.

What we do when we can't verify

We ship fewer pages. Several states' official websites block automated verification or publish requirements only in ways we could not confirm — those states are simply not on the site yet, rather than filled in from second-hand tables. When a specific figure (an exam fee set by a testing vendor, an hour threshold published only inside an application portal) could not be confirmed, the page says "see the current application" instead of guessing. An invented number is worse than a missing one.

What is enforced in code

Three promises are enforced by an automated audit that blocks every deploy (not editorial habit): every state page must carry a verification date and at least one official source link; every figure quoted in a page's search snippet must match the dataset it was generated from; and no advertising may render above the answer on any page. Everything else — tone, coverage choices, update cadence — is editorial judgment.

Limitations, honestly

Licensing rules change, boards make case-by-case determinations, and cities layer their own requirements on top of state rules. This site is a map, not the territory: use it to understand your route, then confirm with the board before applying, and treat the ROI calculator as a framing tool built on medians — not a forecast of your life. Nothing here is legal or financial advice.

Corrections are welcome and acted on: hello@tradelicensemap.com.