Wyoming electrician license: levels, hours, reciprocity, pay

A Wyoming journeyman electrician license takes 8,000 hours of work plus 576 hours of approved classroom, with no more than 75% of the hours in any one kind of work. Cards from a long list of states come in by reciprocity, but only once. The median Wyoming electrician made $36.59 an hour in May 2025, per BLS.

Everything below is as of 2026, from the Wyoming Department of Fire Prevention and Electrical Safety licensing page. Confirm with the department before you file or move. For how Wyoming compares with other states, see electrician license requirements by state.

01Wyoming license facts at a glance

02Which licenses does Wyoming issue?

Wyoming licenses statewide, from the apprentice up, plus low voltage technicians and contractors.

• Apprentice. If you've never held a Wyoming apprentice license, you have to start the process within 10 days of your first day on the job. A new license is $20. One journeyman or master can supervise no more than 2 apprentices.
• Journeyman. Details below. The license is $100, and $50 to renew.
• Master. 8 years and 16,000 hours, including 4 years and 8,000 hours as a licensed journeyman, plus the 576 classroom hours.
• Electrical contractor. $400. The company has to employ a full-time Wyoming master as its "master of record," and a master can be master of record for only one company.

Apprentice supervision steps down as hours stack up: 100% in years 1 and 2, 50% in year 3, 25% in years 4 and 5. In year 6, past 10,000 on-the-job hours, it goes back to 100%.

You have to work for a Wyoming contractor

The department says any journeyman doing electrical work in Wyoming "shall be employed at all times by an Electrical Contractor who carries a current Wyoming Electrical Contractor's license." Masters too.

So a Wyoming card alone doesn't let you work on your own or for an outfit without a Wyoming contractor license. On a travel call, ask whether the company holds one and has a master of record. If the answer is "we're working on it," your start date is a guess.

03How do you qualify for the journeyman exam?

You need 4 years and 8,000 hours in the electrical wiring industry, plus 144 classroom hours a year, 576 in all, through a program approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. School beyond the 576 hours can earn up to 2 years and 4,000 hours of credit.

No classroom hours? The only other route is 10 years and 20,000 hours as a licensed journeyman or master, approved by the chief electrical inspector.

The 75% rule, worked out

"No more than 75% of the 4 years (8,000 hours) may be in any one category": residential, commercial or industrial. That's a 6,000-hour ceiling in any one of them.

Say you came up in houses: 7,000 residential hours and 1,000 commercial. Read as written, only 6,000 residential hours count, plus the 1,000 commercial. That's 7,000, so you're 1,000 hours of other work short even with 8,000 on paper. Ask the department how it will count your log before you apply.

04What's the exam like?

The department says exams are on "the current edition of the National Electrical Code," and its adopted codes list the 2026 NEC. Mike Holt Enterprises' state page reports the 2026 code took effect July 1, 2026, but says exams were still testing on the 2023 NEC. Ask the department which book your exam uses before you buy one.

The same secondhand page says testing runs through Pearson VUE and the journeyman exam is open book, 80 questions in 4 hours. Confirm those with the department too.

05Can you bring your license to Wyoming?

Yes, from a list of states, and only once. The department's journeyman list includes Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah. For masters, it's Idaho, Iowa and South Dakota. The department checks your hours, exam date and score through the National Electrical Reciprocal Alliance (NERA), and the verification letter has to come straight from your home board, not from you.

The terms:

1. Earned by exam, 70% or better for a journeyman, 75% for a master. Grandfathered licenses don't qualify.
2. Held at least 1 year from your exam date, in good standing.
3. Wyoming's own hours. You still have to show 8,000 on-the-job hours and 576 hours of DOL-approved schooling, with your apprentice school transcript.
4. CE. 16 hours, 8 on code, within 3 years of your last renewal.
5. Failed a Wyoming exam? You can't reciprocate until you've held your home license 3 years.

Point 3 trips up hands from states with no classroom requirement. Pull your transcript before you pack the truck. Our electrician license reciprocity guide explains how these terms compare across boards.

All six states on Wyoming's borders are on the journeyman list. Idaho and South Dakota are the only two on the master list too, and our Idaho electrician license guide covers how that card is earned. Montana and Colorado cards transfer at the journeyman level only. The Montana journeyman and master rules cover the home side up north. For the state to the south, see how Colorado licenses journeymen.

06Don't let a reciprocal card lapse

Wyoming lets you reciprocate one time, so a lapsed reciprocal card means sitting the Wyoming exam. In the department's words: "You are eligible to reciprocate your electrician's license to the State Of Wyoming one (1) time." Let it run past the grace period and you get it back by exam, not by reciprocity.

Journeyman licenses renew every 3 years on January 1, and the renewal window opens October 1 of the year before. Say your card expires January 1, 2027. You have a 45-day grace period with a $50 late fee, which runs to February 15. On February 16 you're retesting, paying the $100 fee plus the testing fee.

Two habits keep that from happening:

• Set a phone reminder for October 1 of the year before your card expires.
• Get your 16 CE hours, 8 on code, between the date your card was issued and the date it expires. Hours from before issuance don't count.

For how other states handle CE, see electrician CE requirements by state.

07What does a Wyoming electrician make?

The median Wyoming electrician made $36.59 an hour in May 2025, against a national median of $30.38. These are BLS OEWS straight-time wages for all electricians, apprentices included. No overtime, per diem or benefits, and they're market data, not what any one contractor will pay you.

Both nonmetro areas beat Cheyenne and Casper on the median, and they employed 1,750 of the state's 2,960 electricians (our math). Western Wyoming had the highest 90th percentile in the state, $53.93, and a mean of $39.03 an hour, or $81,170 a year. The statewide median annual wage was $76,120.

Next door, the medians were $36.90 in Montana, $30.29 in Idaho, $29.92 in Colorado and $29.81 in Utah, same survey. Our journeyman electrician pay breakdown explains what moves a rate inside those ranges.

Run your Pay Check to see what electricians with your license make near you. Takes about a minute and your boss never hears about it.

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