New Hampshire licenses its Master Plumber through the Mechanical Licensing Board, with the examination delivered by Prov: 100 questions in 180 minutes, open book, passed at 75 percent — on the International Plumbing Code 2018, even though the state has adopted the International Plumbing Code 2024 with effect from July 1, 2026. The PassProfessor New Hampshire Master Plumber program prepares candidates for the examination as it is actually tested, and for the business responsibility the license anchors.
This program is part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog — join the notify list and we’ll email you when enrollment opens.
What this credential certifies
The New Hampshire Master Plumber license is the top examined individual credential in the state’s plumbing family, issued through the Mechanical Licensing Board within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification. The family has four credentials: the apprentice plumber license, with no examination; the journeyman and master plumber licenses, earned by examination; and the mechanical business entity license, the firm credential, with no examination and no continuing education. There is no separate plumbing contractor license — the business tier is the entity license, and its licensee of record for plumbing work must be a master plumber.
That last fact is what the master license ultimately certifies. The statutory master plumber is a person or firm that, as a business, hires or employs other persons to do plumbing work, or does that work as a principal business — or ancillary to it — for its own account. The individual license and the business function are distinct credentials in practice: the individual holds the master license, and the firm holds a mechanical business entity license — no business may perform plumbing work without one — with a master plumber as its plumbing licensee of record. A master is also deemed qualified as a journeyman. The candidate who passes becomes eligible to anchor a plumbing business in New Hampshire.
The companion to this page, the New Hampshire Master Plumber Exam Guide, sets out the approval route, the outline, and the edition position in full.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | New Hampshire Master Plumber |
| Authority | Mechanical Licensing Board, within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, under RSA 153 |
| Vendor | Prov — single-part computer-based test; Board pre-approval required; scoring is immediate |
| Code tested | International Plumbing Code 2018 — 100 questions / 180 minutes / 75 percent to pass / OPEN BOOK / fee $90 |
| Code adopted | International Plumbing Code 2024, effective July 1, 2026, with the 2021 edition in concurrence through December 31, 2026 — candidates are examined on 2018 |
| Content outline | 100 questions across eight published areas; Scope and Administration, Calculations, Venting Requirements, and Drainage Requirements carry 15 each |
| Practical / drawing production | None — plans and sizing are tested by multiple choice only |
| Retake | No waiting period |
| Fees (licensing and examination fees) | Examination $90, paid to Prov; licensing $330 (combined fee, 2-year license) |
| Term and education | Term 2 years from issuance; continuing education 6 hours per endorsement per cycle |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Board or OPLC |
Tested on 2018, adopted 2024: the edition position stated plainly
No fact on this page matters more than the edition gap, and at the master tier it is three editions wide. New Hampshire has adopted the International Plumbing Code 2024, effective July 1, 2026. Through December 31, 2026, a permit applicant may elect the prior 2021 edition or the 2024 edition, but not a combination; from January 1, 2027, the 2024 codes govern all permit requests. The master examination, delivered by Prov under the Board’s current candidate bulletin, is tested on the International Plumbing Code 2018. Adoption states the law governing installations; testing states the standard the Board examines against — and in New Hampshire they currently name different books.
The study book, the practice book, and the book carried into the sitting are therefore the 2018 edition, together with the Board’s administrative-rules document, the second open-book reference. Where daily work already follows the adopted 2024 code, the candidate studies the difference consciously rather than letting current practice overwrite the tested text; a provision that reads as corrected in the newer book is, in the examination room, simply different, and the 2018 text decides the credited answer. No general testing-centre permission about bringing an older or newer printing of a titled book changes that. Licensure then reverses the emphasis — the licensee works under the adopted code, so the 2024 edition governs practice even though it does not decide the sitting.
Approval first, then one computer-based sitting
New Hampshire’s route runs through the Board before it runs to the testing centre. Board pre-approval is required before scheduling: the Board provides Prov the registration information, and Prov is not authorised to determine which examination a candidate must take. The master application’s supporting materials include one signed letter from a supervising licensed plumber together with the examination score, and the Board approves or denies within sixty days of a completed packet.
The sitting itself is a single-part, computer-based, multiple-choice examination: 100 questions in 180 minutes, open book, offered in English, at Prov testing centres or remotely. New Hampshire centres in the current bulletin are in Concord, at two sites, Nashua, and Newington; candidates may also use any Prov centre nationwide. Scoring is immediate, so the candidate leaves knowing the result.
The open-book rules are specific. References marked as open book are permitted. Permanent tabs are permitted; moveable tabs and sticky notes are not. Highlighting and underlining are permitted in pen only; no marking may be made in books during the examination, no handwritten notes or formulas may appear in any reference, and no added documents are allowed. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so no question should be left unanswered. At under two minutes a question on average, the book rewards the candidate who already knows the answer’s neighbourhood; a candidate attempting a hundred fresh lookups will not finish.
Inside the 100 questions: the published master outline
Prov publishes a content outline for the master examination, and its shape shows where master-tier weight sits. Scope and Administration carries 15 questions, reflecting the tier’s regulatory depth — the master is examined on the code’s administrative framework and the Board’s rules as working knowledge. Calculations, Venting Requirements, and Drainage Requirements carry 15 each. Plumbing Fundamentals, Traps and Interceptors, Water Distribution, and Fixtures and Faucets carry 10 each.
Compare the journeyman outline, as ladder context only: 85 questions, with Venting at journey level carrying 20 and no Scope and Administration area at all. The master paper is not the journeyman paper with questions added; its centre of gravity shifts toward administration, calculation, and system requirements at full depth. The Board’s rules also list fourteen qualitative examination topics — including plans and drawings, backflow, commercial kitchen work, accessibility, and New Hampshire law. That list carries no per-topic counts, and the two outlines must not be merged: the bulletin’s counted areas are the preparation map. Reading plans and drawings, and sizing calculations, are knowledge tested by multiple-choice questions — there is no drawing to produce and no practical to perform.
The 75 percent standard, retakes without a wait, and the verified fees
The master passing standard is 75 percent: the bulletin states it as 75 percent to pass, and the Board’s rule requires at least 75 percent of the questions answered correctly. Both layers agree — the figure is 75, not the journeyman’s 70 percent in the same bulletin.
Below that line, the retake position is unusually forgiving. There is no required waiting period; a candidate may retest as soon as an appointment is available. A candidate cannot retake an examination once passed, unless the licensing authority requires it. Each attempt carries a fresh $90 fee, and cancelling or rescheduling online at least three days before the date is free, while missing the appointment or the deadline forfeits the fee. A no-wait rule is insurance, not strategy — the fee and the lost working time still argue for one prepared attempt.
The verified fees, in their separate layers: the examination fee is $90, paid to Prov at registration, and the Board’s fee rule agrees. The licensing fee is $330 — a single combined application processing and licensing fee, the same for initial licensure, renewal, and reinstatement, for a two-year license. There is no separate charge to add, and no late-renewal fee exists. Together, the layers total $420. For ladder context, the journeyman licensing fee is $198, the apprentice fee is $88, and the entity license is $275 for two years.
Who may sit, and what holding the license involves
The master gate is measured in standing as much as in time. The applicant must show good character and professional competence, including having been a journeyman plumber without consumer complaints resulting in board disciplinary sanctions within the past year; must have held a New Hampshire journeyman license for at least six months; must pass the master examination at 75 percent or better; and must be eighteen years of age or older. Board pre-approval completes the gate. Behind it stands the journeyman route: apprenticeship completion, not less than 600 hours of educational training, and not less than 8,000 working hours of experience, followed by the journeyman examination — 85 questions in 180 minutes, open book, passed at 70 percent, for the same $90 fee. A plumber licensed as a journeyman elsewhere follows an examination route as well; no reciprocity state is named in the verified record, and none is claimed here.
The license runs for two years from issuance. Continuing education is required — 6 hours per endorsement held per two-year cycle, in Board-approved seminars of at least three hours, with no repeat credit — and the circulating claim that New Hampshire requires none should be disregarded; the requirement is verified. A master may supervise no more than two apprentices per licensee, with direct supervision — the supervisor physically present — for the first two years of an apprenticeship. A license expired within one year may be reinstated through the renewal process at the same $330 fee; a license expired more than a year requires initial licensure again. No surety bond is required; a business entity must show liability insurance, with no minimum amount stated.
What makes this examination demanding
The demand is precision across a split standard. The candidate must hold the 2018 code as the examination’s law while working life pulls toward the adopted 2024 code, with the 2021 edition still electable on permits through the end of 2026 — three editions in simultaneous circulation, each governing a different decision. The candidate must convert open-book access into pace across 100 questions in 180 minutes, inside reference rules that forbid the moveable tabs, in-exam marking, and handwritten notes many candidates rely on. And the candidate must carry master weight where the outline puts it: administration, calculations, venting, and drainage at fifteen questions each.
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 master needs — with a state delta dominated by edition discipline and regulatory depth: everything keyed to the tested 2018 edition, the Scope and Administration weight the outline carries, the Board’s administrative-rules reference, and the approval, fee, and holding positions on this page. The adopted 2024 edition is addressed only to mark the boundary between sitting and job. Every item is written from scratch against primary sources.
Outline-shaped, sitting-shaped practice. The program rehearses the sitting as published: single-part sets at the verified scale — 100 questions inside 180 minutes — distributed across the eight counted areas in their published proportions, with the 2018 code open and organised under the bulletin’s reference rules.
Written scope, complete for this credential. The master examination has no practical and no drawing-production component, so written preparation addresses the whole of what the sitting examines.
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 through Prov after Board pre-approval. The full route is set out in the companion New Hampshire Master Plumber Exam Guide.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The New Hampshire Master Plumber program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Our catalog now includes preparation for master plumber examinations across the country, and this program joins it when it meets the standard described above. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write to you when it is ready.
Frequently asked questions
Who licenses master plumbers in New Hampshire, and who delivers the examination?
The Mechanical Licensing Board, within the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC), under RSA 153. Prov delivers the examination as a single-part computer-based test, after Board pre-approval; scoring is immediate.
Which code edition is tested?
The International Plumbing Code 2018. New Hampshire has adopted the International Plumbing Code 2024, effective July 1, 2026 — with the 2021 edition in concurrence through December 31, 2026 — but the examination remains keyed to 2018.
How many questions are on the master examination, and how long does it run?
100 questions in 180 minutes, open book: Plumbing Fundamentals 10, Scope and Administration 15, Calculations 15, Traps and Interceptors 10, Venting Requirements 15, Drainage Requirements 15, Water Distribution 10, Fixtures and Faucets 10.
What score passes?
75 percent — at least 75 percent of the questions answered correctly, under the Board’s rule. The journeyman standard is 70 percent.
What does the master route cost in verified fees?
Examination $90, paid to Prov. Licensing $330 — a single combined fee, the same for initial licensure, renewal, and reinstatement, for a two-year license.
Who is eligible to sit for the master examination?
An applicant aged eighteen or older who has held a New Hampshire journeyman license for at least six months, shows good character and professional competence — including no consumer complaints resulting in disciplinary sanctions within the past year — and has Board pre-approval.
Is there a practical or drawing test?
No. Plans and sizing are tested by multiple-choice questions only.
How soon can a candidate retake after a failure?
There is no required waiting period; a candidate may retest as soon as an appointment is available, for a fresh $90 examination fee.
How long does the license last, and is continuing education required?
Two years from issuance. Continuing education is required: 6 hours per endorsement per cycle, in seminars of at least three hours.
What does the master license allow the holder to anchor?
A master plumber serves as plumbing licensee of record for a mechanical business entity license, the firm credential under which a business performs plumbing work. There is no separate contractor license.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Board?
No. PassProfessor is independent. The Board alone approves and licenses; 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 ready.