No state license — city/county licensing
No state licensing board — New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) for NYC licenses/registrations runs plumbing licensing in New York. Below: the exact ladder, the transfer doors into New York from all 50 states, the renewal and lapse lines, and the master-of-record rule for opening a company — every figure from the board's own publications, checked October 22, 2026.
No state license — city/county licensing Checked in part Checked October 22, 2026
Checked in part. No state plumber license exists; licensing is municipal. NYC DOB criteria below are from DOB's own pages (accessed 2026-10-22). Not confirmed on a primary source in this pass: current NYC registration/license fees, renewal terms, and lapse rules — fee fields are null rather than taken from secondary guides, whose NYC exam fees conflict with each other. Other cities' details (Buffalo, Rochester and others) are noted in localNote from secondary listings and were not individually re-verified against each city's code in this pass.
No state plumber license. New York does not license plumbers at the state level — there is no state journeyman or master license to apply for. Licensing is done by cities and counties, and the local rules are the real rules where you work.
| The ladder | New York |
|---|---|
| Journeyman credential | No state journeyman license — NYC Journeyman Plumber Registration (local, NYC only) |
| Total hours required | not published |
| Classroom hours | not published |
| Apprentice registration | No state registration system |
| Exam | No examination for NYC journeyman registration — NYC journeyman registration is criteria- and document-based through DOB NOW: Licensing; no exam is listed in DOB's registration criteria checked 2026-10-22. Registration fee was not stated on the DOB pages fetched, so fee is null. |
| License fee | Not published |
| Renewal | Every Not stated on the NYC DOB pages checked 2026-10-22 |
| Continuing education | Not stated on the NYC DOB pages checked 2026-10-22 |
| Master credential | No state master license — NYC Licensed Master Plumber (local, NYC only) |
Registration, in the board’s terms: There is no New York State apprentice, journeyman or master plumber license. In New York City, journeyman is a DOB registration, not a license, and it does not authorize independent work or permits. DOB counts experience in years, not hours, so hoursTotal is null.
No state master license — NYC Licensed Master Plumber (local, NYC only): NYC DOB (accessed 2026-10-22): at least 7 years of total experience within the 10 years before application in the planning/design and installation of plumbing systems under a Licensed Master Plumber, with at least 2 of those years worked as a registered journeyman plumber; DOB's master page also requires all experience to be under a Licensed Master Plumber in the United States with at least 1 year in New York City, and provides degree/government-inspection credit variants on the page. Written and practical examinations follow eligibility. Permits for plumbing work in NYC are issued only to a Licensed Master Plumber (or Licensed Master Fire Suppression Contractor for that work).
NYC written and practical exam fees were not stated on the DOB pages fetched in this pass and secondary guides conflict ($525/$350 vs $585/$530), so examFee is null.
No state license exists to lapse. NYC DOB renewal/lapse terms for the master license and journeyman registration were not stated on the DOB pages checked 2026-10-22.
Reinstatement: Not confirmed on a primary source checked 2026-10-22.
Past the line: Not confirmed on a primary source checked 2026-10-22.
There is no New York state license to endorse into — licensing is local, and local boards weigh verified out-of-state experience case by case. No state license and no state reciprocity. An out-of-state license does not substitute for a municipal license such as NYC's Licensed Master Plumber license; each licensing city or county runs its own examination process.
| Licensed in | Door into New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Alaska | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Arizona | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Arkansas | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| California | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Colorado | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Connecticut | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Delaware | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| District of Columbia | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Florida | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Georgia | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Hawaii | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Idaho | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Illinois | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Indiana | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Iowa | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Kansas | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Kentucky | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Louisiana | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Maine | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Maryland | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Massachusetts | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Michigan | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Minnesota | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Mississippi | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Missouri | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Montana | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Nebraska | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Nevada | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| New Hampshire | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| New Jersey | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| New Mexico | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| North Carolina | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| North Dakota | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Ohio | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Oklahoma | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Oregon | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Pennsylvania | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Rhode Island | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| South Carolina | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| South Dakota | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Tennessee | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Texas | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Utah | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Vermont | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Virginia | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Washington | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| West Virginia | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Wisconsin | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
| Wyoming | No state license — licensing is local | Run the pair → |
Included in the $49 PlumberLicenseCheck Kit
One payment. Yours to keep. The checkers above stay free either way.
The seat: Licensed Master Plumber (in a licensing city, e.g. NYC). In NYC, plumbing permits are issued only to a Licensed Master Plumber or Licensed Master Fire Suppression Contractor, and only those licensees or the employees they supervise may work on piping systems; the licensee must have a place of business in New York City, not a home office (NYC DOB project requirements, accessed 2026-10-22). An ownership-percentage rule for the master licensee was not confirmed on the DOB plumber pages fetched in this pass, so canNonPlumberOwn is set false conservatively for permit-holding purposes and flagged in partialNote.
All licensing is local. New York City is the dominant system (DOB journeyman registration + Licensed Master Plumber, permits only to the master). Secondary state listings also identify local plumber licensing in places including Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Troy, and Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester counties — check the city/county where the work is, because a license in one New York municipality does not carry to the next.
Run the owner gate for your situation →
Rules as published by No state licensing board — New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) for NYC licenses/registrations and the statutes it administers, checked October 22, 2026. Board: https://www.nyc.gov/site/buildings/industry/obtain-a-master-plumber-license.page
