New Hampshire licenses its Journeyman Plumber through the Mechanical Licensing Board, with examinations delivered by Prov: 85 questions in 180 minutes, open book, passed at 70 percent — on the International Plumbing Code 2018, even though the state has adopted the International Plumbing Code 2024. The PassProfessor New Hampshire Journeyman Plumber program prepares candidates for the examination as it is actually tested, and for holding the license that follows it.
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What this credential certifies
The New Hampshire Journeyman Plumber license, issued through the Mechanical Licensing Board within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, certifies that the holder has satisfied the Board’s approval process and passed its examination on plumbing code knowledge and sizing judgement. It is the license that lets a plumber in New Hampshire do journeyman work on the strength of examined competence: drainage, waste and vent systems, water supply, fixtures and the code provisions that govern how each is installed and inspected.
One feature of the New Hampshire system must be understood before any other, because it decides what to study. New Hampshire has adopted the International Plumbing Code 2024, effective July 1, 2026 — but the Journeyman Plumber examination is still tested on the International Plumbing Code 2018. Adopted code and tested code are different editions in this state, and the examination governs preparation. A candidate who studies the 2024 book because it is the book in force will be examined on a different text. A candidate who studies the 2018 book because it is the book examined will pass the sitting and then learn, as every licensee must, to work to the adopted code on the job. This page and its companion guide keep those two layers separate throughout, and the program described below is built on the tested edition.
The companion to this page, the New Hampshire Journeyman Plumber Exam Guide, sets out the approval route, the sitting and the two-edition position in full. This page gives the credential, the examination and the program in one view.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | New Hampshire Journeyman Plumber |
| Authority | Mechanical Licensing Board, within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC) |
| Vendor | Prov — single-part computer-based test |
| Code tested | International Plumbing Code 2018 — 85 questions / 180 minutes / 70 percent to pass / OPEN BOOK / examination fee $90 |
| Code adopted | International Plumbing Code 2024, effective July 1, 2026 — adopted edition differs from tested edition; candidates are examined on 2018 |
| Approval and scoring | Board pre-approval is required before scheduling; scoring is immediate |
| Practical / drawing | None — no practical or drawing component |
| Retake | No waiting period before a retake |
| Fees (state and examination fees) | Examination $90; Journeyman Plumber license $198 (rule layer, Plc 1002.25) |
| Term and education | License term 2 years from issuance; continuing education of 6 hours per 2-year cycle is required |
| Reciprocity | No state is named for reciprocity — none is stated |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Mechanical Licensing Board or the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification |
Tested on 2018, adopted 2024: the edition position stated plainly
Edition gaps are common in licensing, but they are rarely as clean — or as consequential — as New Hampshire’s. The state adopted the International Plumbing Code 2024 with effect from July 1, 2026. The examination, delivered by Prov under the Mechanical Licensing Board, remains on the International Plumbing Code 2018: 85 questions, 180 minutes, open book, 70 percent to pass. Both statements are verified, and they do not contradict each other; they describe two different functions. Adoption describes the law that governs installations. Testing describes the standard the Board examines against, and testing changes on the Board’s timetable rather than automatically on adoption.
Candidates should draw three practical conclusions. First, the study book is the 2018 edition, full stop — including where the candidate’s daily work already follows the adopted 2024 code. Edition differences that feel like corrections on the job are, in the examination room, simply differences, and the 2018 text decides the credited answer. Second, open-book delivery makes edition discipline physical as well as intellectual: the book brought to the sitting, and the book practised with beforehand, must be the 2018 edition, organised for fast use. Third, licensure is not the end of the edition story. The licensee works under the adopted code, so the 2024 edition matters to practice even though it does not decide the examination — and the program below addresses the tested edition for the sitting while keeping that practice position visible, so candidates pass the examination they face without confusing it for the code they will work under.
Approval first, then a single computer-based sitting
New Hampshire’s route runs through the Board before it runs to the testing centre. Board pre-approval is required before a candidate schedules with Prov, so the application step is not a formality to be left to the week of the intended sitting — it is the gate that controls when the sitting can happen at all. Candidates should complete approval with time in hand, schedule deliberately once approved, and treat the interval between approval and sitting as the final preparation window rather than the start of preparation.
The sitting itself is a single-part computer-based test: 85 questions in 180 minutes, open book, with scoring that is immediate. Three hours for 85 questions is a workable pace that still punishes dithering — roughly two minutes a question, with sizing and code-lookup items entitled to more and straightforward provisions owing time back to the pool. Immediate scoring removes the waiting period that hangs over Board-marked examinations elsewhere; the candidate leaves knowing the result. There is no practical component and no drawing component to prepare for alongside the written paper — no bench project, no sizing exercise produced as a drawing — so the whole of preparation can be spent on the written performance the sitting actually examines. Isometric and system questions, where they appear, are written questions to be answered in writing, and they are prepared for as such.
Open book deserves its usual warning, sharpened for this state. The book helps only the candidate who can find the governing provision quickly in the tested edition. Lookup speed is a trained skill: it comes from practising with the 2018 book organised — tabbed, section-aware, used daily — until finding an entry costs seconds rather than minutes. Candidates who treat open book as a substitute for knowledge discover, somewhere around the middle of the 180 minutes, that 85 lookups do not fit inside three hours. The examination is designed so that knowledge carries the sitting and the book verifies it; preparation should be built the same way.
Passing, retaking and what failure costs here
The passing standard is 70 percent. Below that line, New Hampshire’s retake position is unusually forgiving: there is no waiting period before a retake. A candidate who misses can regroup and sit again without a mandated interval standing in the way. That generosity should be read correctly. It lowers the cost of a failed attempt; it does not lower the value of passing at the first attempt, because each sitting still costs the $90 examination fee, still costs the preparation cycle that preceded it, and still delays the license and the work that follows it. The sensible use of a no-wait retake rule is as insurance, not as a strategy — prepare for one prepared attempt, and know that a miss is recoverable rather than ruinous.
The verified fees frame the route’s cost. The examination fee, paid for the Prov sitting, is $90. The Journeyman Plumber license fee is $198, stated in the rule layer at Plc 1002.25. The license term is 2 years from issuance — dated from when the license issues, rather than from a statewide fixed expiry — and renewal on that two-year rhythm is paired with the education requirement described next.
Holding the license: two years, six hours, and a claim to disregard
Continuing education is required in New Hampshire, and the figure is verified: 6 hours per 2-year cycle. Candidates will encounter a circulating claim that New Hampshire has no continuing education requirement for plumbers. That claim is false, and this page states the verified position plainly so it can be relied on instead: the Journeyman Plumber license runs for 2 years from issuance, and 6 hours of continuing education per 2-year cycle are part of holding it. The error matters because it is the comfortable kind — a licensee who believes it discovers the requirement at renewal, when the cycle’s hours can no longer be gathered calmly. Build the habit at licensure: log hours as they are earned across the cycle, and renewal becomes an administrative step rather than a scramble.
Reciprocity should be stated with equal care, in the opposite direction. No state is named for reciprocity in the verified record for this credential, and none is claimed here. A plumber licensed elsewhere should not assume a transfer route into New Hampshire exists on the strength of secondary summaries; the verified route is the Board’s approval and the Prov examination described on this page, and candidates in that position should confirm their standing with the Board directly.
What makes this examination demanding
The demand in New Hampshire is precision under a split standard. The candidate must hold the 2018 code as the examination’s law while working life pulls toward the 2024 code the state has adopted — two editions of the same model code, close enough to invite confusion and different enough to decide questions. The candidate must also convert open-book access into speed rather than dependence, inside a fixed 180 minutes, on a computer-based test where the result arrives immediately and there is no marking interval in which to hope. None of that is exotic, and all of it is trainable — which is precisely the point. This is an examination that rewards the candidate who prepared for the sitting as specified: the tested edition, the approval gate cleared early, the book organised, the pace rehearsed.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Built on the platform architecture: a code core plus a New Hampshire delta. PassProfessor plumbing programs in our catalog pair a model-code core — original practice material written to the International Plumbing Code knowledge a journeyman needs, across drainage, venting, water supply, fixtures and sizing — with a state delta. The New Hampshire delta here is dominated by one discipline: everything is keyed to the tested 2018 edition. Practice items, code references and sizing work follow the International Plumbing Code 2018 as Prov examines it, and the adopted 2024 edition is addressed only to mark the boundary — so candidates always know which book a question lives in. Every item is written from scratch against primary sources.
Sitting-shaped practice. The program rehearses the sitting as specified: single-part, computer-delivered sets at the verified scale — 85 questions inside 180 minutes — with the study copy of the 2018 code open and organised, building both the knowledge the questions examine and the lookup economy the clock demands. Approval timing, immediate scoring and the no-wait retake position are covered as route knowledge, so no part of the process surprises the candidate.
Written scope, complete for this credential. The New Hampshire examination has no practical and no drawing component, so written preparation addresses the whole of what the sitting examines. That completeness is specific to this credential’s verified structure and is stated because candidates comparing states will find practical components elsewhere that no written program can rehearse.
Independence, stated plainly. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Mechanical Licensing Board or the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, and this program is not a Board course. Completing it confers no license and no approval; the Board alone approves and licenses, and candidates schedule examinations through Prov after Board pre-approval. The full route is set out in the companion New Hampshire Journeyman Plumber Exam Guide.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The New Hampshire Journeyman Plumber program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Our catalog now includes preparation for journeyman plumber examinations across the country, and this program joins that catalog when it meets the standard described above. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program. No date is promised.
Frequently asked questions
Who licenses journeyman plumbers in New Hampshire?
The Mechanical Licensing Board, within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC).
Who delivers the examination?
Prov delivers the examination as a single-part computer-based test, after Board pre-approval.
Which code edition is tested?
The International Plumbing Code 2018. New Hampshire has adopted the International Plumbing Code 2024, effective July 1, 2026, but the examination remains on the 2018 edition — candidates are tested on 2018.
How many questions are on the examination, and how long does it run?
85 questions in 180 minutes, open book.
What score passes?
70 percent.
What does the examination cost?
The examination fee is $90. The Journeyman Plumber license fee is $198, under the fee rule at Plc 1002.25.
Is Board approval needed before scheduling?
Yes. Board pre-approval is required before scheduling with Prov. Scoring after the sitting is immediate.
Is there a practical or drawing test?
No. The examination has no practical or drawing component; it is a single written computer-based test.
How soon can a candidate retake after a failure?
There is no waiting period before a retake.
How long does the license last, and is continuing education required?
The term is 2 years from issuance. Continuing education is required: 6 hours per 2-year cycle. Claims that New Hampshire has no continuing education requirement for this license are incorrect.
Does New Hampshire name any state for reciprocity?
No state is named in the verified record, and none is claimed here. Candidates licensed elsewhere should confirm their position with the Board.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Board?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider. The Board alone approves and licenses, and Prov delivers the examination.
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.