Arkansas licenses HVACR contractors by class through the HVACR Licensing Board in the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing. Class A carries no capacity limit; Class B, under Act 746 effective September 1, 2025, reaches 25 tons of cooling per unit, 1,000,000 BTUH of heating input per unit, and refrigeration of 15 h.p. or less per unit. Each class has its own Prov examination, and each examination carries the published standard: 70% to pass.
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One program, two classes — never blended
This program covers two distinct Arkansas credentials together because candidates choose between them, compare them, and sometimes move from one to the other — but the two classes are not interchangeable, and this page never merges them. The Class A HVACR license and the Class B HVACR license sit in the same license family under Arkansas Code Title 17, Chapter 33, and the same Board governs both. Beyond that shared frame, almost everything that matters is class-specific: the scope ceiling, the examination, the content outline, the reference list in detail, the sitting length, and the annual license fee each differ. Read every section below by class. A fact stated for Class A is not a Class B fact, and a fact stated for Class B is not a Class A fact, unless the sentence says so for both.
Who issues the license
The HVACR Licensing Board, within the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing, administers this license family from Little Rock. The Board’s work reaches beyond examinations: it adopts a mechanical code and standards for the conduct of HVACR work, establishes fees, and establishes continuing education by rule. The Board is both the gatekeeper before the examination and the authority after it: Board pre-approval is required before sitting, examination results are forwarded to the licensing authority, and the license that follows is a Board license held under Board rules for as long as it is renewed.
Class A: scope without a capacity ceiling
A Class A license entitles the holder to perform HVACR work without limitation to BTUH or horsepower capacities. That single sentence is the class. It is the license for the contractor whose work is not bounded by unit size — large commercial cooling, large heating plant, and refrigeration work beyond the per-unit ceilings that define the class below it. The rule adds authorisation to install an HVACR appliance and to perform HVACR electrical work or fuel gas supply work as the rules define those terms.
HVACR itself is defined broadly in Arkansas law: the design, installation, construction, maintenance, service, repair, alteration, or modification of a product or equipment in heating and air conditioning, refrigeration, ventilation, or process cooling or heating systems. Two statutory measures recur in scope questions and are worth fixing early: one ton means 12,000 BTUH, and horsepower means 746 watts. Inside Class A, those measures describe work; they do not limit it.
Class B: the Act 746 scope line
A Class B license entitles the holder to perform HVACR work on air conditioning systems that develop not more than 25 tons of cooling capacity per unit, or one million (1,000,000) BTUH heating input per unit, and refrigeration systems of fifteen horsepower (15 h.p.) or less per unit. Class B carries the same appliance-installation, electrical, and gas-fitting authorisation as Class A. The difference between the classes is therefore not the kind of tasks a licensee may touch; it is the size of unit on which the licensee may perform them, measured per unit on each of the three measures above.
That 25-ton cooling line is current law because Act 746 of 2025 changed it, effective September 1, 2025. Arkansas materials in circulation still describe an earlier, smaller Class B cooling limit. That earlier line is repealed law. It does not describe the license a candidate is applying for now, it does not describe the work a current Class B holder may perform, and it must not be carried into preparation for this program. The same discipline applies at the work site: Act 746 also widened two working reaches for licensed and registered HVACR workers — gas fitting work now reaches seventy-five feet or less of final gas piping connection to a heating unit from an existing, accessible manual safety shutoff gas cock, and electrical connections may be made within seventy-five feet of the unit to a suitable disconnecting means provided by others, each performed under the applicable code. Both reaches were far shorter before the Act; the shorter figures are history, not current scope.
The class that no longer exists
Class C appears in older Arkansas material, and candidates will meet it there. It must be understood as history only. Act 746 struck Class C from the license classes. Under the Act’s express transition rule, as of September 1, 2025, all active and current Class C license holders became Class B license holders, able to perform all HVACR work previously permitted with a Class C license and that of a Class B license. There is no current Class C license to apply for, no current third examined class in this program, and no Class C route to plan around. A former Class C holder reading this page belongs, in current Arkansas law, on the Class B side of it.
No journeyman license — and no journeyman examination
Arkansas draws its workforce line differently from states built on a journeyman tier, and the verified position should be stated plainly: Arkansas has no HVACR journeyman license and no journeyman examination, and no master license. The tier below the class licenses is registration. A registrant is a person who does not hold a Class A, B, D, or E license, who can only perform work for an HVACR licensee, and who holds a current HVACR registration. No examination is imposed on registrants. Annual registration is the license holder’s responsibility, and every licensee must ensure that all HVACR employees hold a current registration or license.
The examinations, class by class
Both examinations are administered by Prov, Inc., under contract with the Board, delivered by computer at Prov testing centers in Arkansas and elsewhere in the United States, and remotely at home through Examroom.ai. Board pre-approval is required before sitting, and Prov is not authorised to determine which examination a candidate must take; the class decision belongs to the application, not the test center. Scoring is immediate on completion, there is no penalty for a wrong answer, and restroom-break time does not stop the clock.
Class A examination. The Class A examination presents 100 questions in 240 minutes. Its published outline is: Systems and Sizing 19; General Knowledge 12; Equipment 12; Maintenance 12; Fuel Gas Systems 12; Piping 10; Plan Reading, Estimating and Math 8; Refrigeration Systems 6; Electrical 5; Law and Administration 4. The standard printed in the examination table is 70% to pass.
Class B examination. The Class B examination presents 50 questions in 180 minutes. Its published outline is: Fuel Gas Systems 8; Maintenance 8; Systems and Sizing 7; Piping 5; Refrigeration Systems 5; Electrical 5; General Knowledge 4; Equipment 4; Law and Administration 4. There is no Plan Reading, Estimating and Math area in the Class B outline — a real difference in what the two sittings reward, and one more reason the classes must not be blended in preparation. The standard printed in the examination table is likewise 70% to pass. The bulletin lists the Class B examination in Spanish (Español) as well as English; Class A is listed in English.
The bulletin publishes no pretest count for either examination, and this program states none.
Open book — and the discipline that comes with it
Both examinations are open book: references marked for examination use are permitted in the room. That permission carries strict discipline. Only permanent tabs are allowed — repositionable tabs and sticky notes are not permitted. Highlighting and underlining must be in pen and done beforehand; no marking during the examination, no handwritten notes or formulas anywhere in a reference book, and no added documents or formula sheets. An open-book sitting of this kind rewards a candidate who knows where a provision lives and can reach it quickly; it does not reward a candidate who expects to learn the code during the sitting.
The code position needs particular care because Arkansas separates the examination room from the job site. Every Prov HVACR examination permits the International Mechanical Code 2018 or 2021 and the International Fuel Gas Code 2018 or 2021 — with the Arkansas Fuel Gas Code, 2018 or 2021, as a printed substitution for the fuel gas code — at the candidate’s election. The bulletin does not designate one keyed edition. Preparation must therefore avoid hinging on a provision where the 2018 and 2021 editions differ, unless a candidate is working to the edition they will actually hold in the room.
The field standard is a separate layer. The Board has adopted the International Mechanical Code, 2021 edition, as the standard for the conduct of HVACR work. A candidate may therefore sit an examination holding a 2018 edition while the adopted field code is the 2021 edition. Keeping those two sentences separate — examination election on one side, adopted work standard on the other — is one of the defining habits this program teaches.
Who may apply, and what must be shown
The statutory qualifications are direct: the applicant must be an individual at least 18 years of age, apply on Board-prescribed forms, specify the class desired, meet all Board-rule requirements, pay the appropriate fees, and pass the appropriate examination. On experience, applicants with no licensing background must present satisfactory evidence of at least two years of experience as an HVACR contractor or an employee of an HVACR contractor. The Board may substitute Board-approved HVACR-related educational training for experience, with transcripts presented before Board consideration, and proof is taken on the least-restrictive basis — records, affidavits, or other bona fide evidence. The rule states the limiting principle twice, and it deserves emphasis: in no case shall apprenticeship, education, or training be a prerequisite or condition for licensure.
License fees, stated by class
License fees are annual and class-specific: Class A is $200 per year and Class B is $150 per year. Those are license-layer figures, stated in both the statute and the rule, and they are the only Board dollar figures this program presents as settled for these two classes. The Board waives the initial licensing fee, on documented qualification, for applicants in the assistance and income circumstances the rule lists.
Holding the license: renewal and continuing education
Arkansas licenses run on an annual term: licenses and registrations expire one year after issuance, phrased in the rule as the last day of the month one year from the original issuance date. Renewal is not a formality detached from learning. Under current law, no HVACR license shall be renewed unless the licensee completes at least eight hours of continuing education per current International Mechanical Code cycle — classroom or Board-approved instruction relating specifically to HVACR construction, installation, maintenance, and repair or the current mechanical code, obtained only in Board-approved programs and completed before the final year of the code cycle. Failure carries suspension of the class holder’s license until an approved, verifiable course certificate is received. An older Arkansas posture expressed in hours per year no longer states the rule and must not be used to plan renewal.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
The Arkansas HVACR Contractor Class A/B program in the PassProfessor catalog prepares candidates for the two Prov examinations as Arkansas currently constitutes them: two separate class tracks inside one program, never blended. The Class A track follows the 100-question outline, including its Plan Reading, Estimating and Math area. The Class B track follows the 50-question outline and the current Act 746 scope line — 25 tons, 1,000,000 BTUH, 15 h.p. Both tracks teach the open-book discipline the sittings impose, the 2018-or-2021 examination election against the adopted 2021 field code, the law and administration material each outline carries, and the Arkansas-specific duties — registration, insurance display, renewal education — that surround the examinations. Material describing the repealed Class C license as a current option, or the earlier Class B cooling limit as current scope, has no place in this program.
PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider and is not affiliated with the HVACR Licensing Board, the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing, or Prov. Completing this program confers no license and no examination eligibility; the Board alone licenses, and candidates sit through the Board’s approval process and Prov’s scheduling channels. The companion guide — Arkansas HVACR Contractor Class A/B Exam Guide (/arkansas-hvacr-contractor-class-a-b-exam-guide/) — works through the two outlines, the route, and a study method in full.
Frequently asked questions
Is this one license or two?
Two licenses in one family, covered by one preparation program. Class A and Class B have separate scopes, separate examinations, separate outlines, and separate annual license fees. Nothing about one class should be assumed for the other.
What may a Class B holder work on under current law?
Air conditioning systems of not more than 25 tons of cooling capacity per unit, or 1,000,000 BTUH heating input per unit, and refrigeration systems of 15 h.p. or less per unit — the Act 746 line effective September 1, 2025.
What happened to Class C?
Act 746 repealed it. As of September 1, 2025, active and current Class C holders became Class B holders. Class C survives only as history in older materials.
What score passes each examination?
The examination tables print the standard in the same form for both classes: 70% to pass.
How long is each sitting?
Class A: 100 questions in 240 minutes. Class B: 50 questions in 180 minutes. Both are open book under the reference discipline described on this page.
Does Arkansas have a journeyman HVACR examination to take first?
No. Arkansas has no journeyman license and no journeyman examination. The tier below the class licenses is registration, which carries no examination, and registrants work only for an HVACR licensee.
Which code edition is the examination on?
The examination permits the 2018 or 2021 editions of the mechanical and fuel gas codes at the candidate’s election; the bulletin designates no single keyed edition. Separately, the Board’s adopted standard for HVACR work is the International Mechanical Code, 2021 edition.
What are the annual license fees?
Class A: $200 per year. Class B: $150 per year.
What continuing education does renewal require?
At least eight hours per current International Mechanical Code cycle, in Board-approved instruction on the subjects the rule specifies, completed before the final year of the code cycle. A license is not renewed without it.
Can another state’s license transfer by reciprocity?
The Board states it has no reciprocal licensing agreements with any other state board for HVACR licensing at this time. Do not plan around a named reciprocal state.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Board?
No. PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the HVACR Licensing Board, the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing, or Prov.
When does enrollment open?
The program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address on this page and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program.