Idaho Plumbing License Experience Hours

Two Hour Thresholds, Same Destination

Idaho sets two different OJT hour requirements depending on whether you combine work experience with formal schooling. Both pathways lead to the same journeyman exam eligibility — the difference is time.

Schooling pathway: 8,000 hours. Combined with 576 classroom hours (144 per year across four sequential years) at a state-approved technical college. This is the faster route — roughly four years of full-time work.

Work-only pathway: 16,000 hours. No classroom requirement, but the OJT threshold doubles. At full-time hours, this takes approximately eight years.

The math is straightforward. The schooling pathway costs tuition (about $1,950 per year at North Idaho College, with Idaho Launch scholarship eligibility) but saves four years of apprentice-level wages. For most people, the journeyman wage premium over four additional years far exceeds the total tuition cost.

What Counts as Qualifying Hours

Not all plumbing-adjacent work qualifies toward the standard journeyman threshold. Idaho is specific about what counts:

Qualifying work: Hours spent making plumbing installations under the direct supervision of a licensed journeyman plumber while you hold an active apprentice registration. This includes residential and commercial plumbing installation, repair, and alteration work that falls under the scope of the Idaho State Plumbing Code and Uniform Plumbing Code.

Work that does not count:

• Pipe fitting experience
• Lawn sprinkler installation
• Appliance specialty work (this has its own separate specialty license track)
• Water pump installation (also a separate specialty track)
• Any hours worked when your apprentice registration was inactive or lapsed

That last point is critical and worth repeating: hours worked during any period when your apprentice registration has lapsed are excluded from your qualifying total. If a lapse affects your records, contact DOPL's trade licensing staff before relying on those hours.

How Idaho Tracks Hours

DOPL's electronic licensing system (OASIS) stores experience records in specific categories. Recent updates require verifiers to report both "on-site hours" and "responsible charge hours," and the system now uses "system facility" classifications instead of the older "employer" category. This distinction helps DOPL differentiate between commercial and residential installations.

The official verification happens through paper forms, not the digital system. A separate Plumbing Work Verification Form must be completed for each employer where you gained experience. Each form requires:

• Exact start and end dates of employment
• Total hours worked
• Signature of the supervising journeyman with their active license number
• Notarization

You need one form per employer. If you've worked for three different contractors over your apprenticeship, that's three separate verification forms, each signed by the journeyman who supervised you at that specific shop.

The Employer Verification Problem

This is where the hour-tracking system creates real-world friction. Former employers go out of business. Supervising journeymen move out of state or retire. Relationships sour, and former bosses aren't always motivated to sign paperwork that helps you become their competition.

The best defense is documentation during employment, not after. Keep your own independent hour log — weekly records of dates, hours, project types, and the supervising journeyman's name and license number. When it's time to submit your verification forms, you'll have the backup documentation to fill in gaps.

If a former employer refuses to cooperate or can't be located, contact DOPL's trade licensing staff at [email protected]. They can advise on alternative documentation paths, though the process is slower and less certain than having a completed verification form.

Out-of-State Hours

Applicants moving to Idaho with plumbing experience from other states go through an individual evaluation by DOPL. You'll need official Work Verification Forms signed by your out-of-state employers and supervising journeymen, detailing exact hours.

If you hold an active journeyman license in another state, DOPL may accept a certified license history as sufficient proof of experience — but this applies specifically to the reciprocity process with Washington, Oregon, and Montana, not to a general transfer of hours.

For detailed hour-tracking templates and a walkthrough of the verification process, the Idaho Plumber License Guide includes log sheets designed to match DOPL's specific documentation requirements.

See more Idaho guides →