Keeping a Texas electrical license current

The business license and each individual license run on separate clocks

Your electrical contractor license and every individual license tied to it — journeyman, master, apprentice — each carry their own expiration date, set from when that specific license was first issued or last renewed. TDLR does not batch them. A contractor license can stay current while a journeyman on staff runs three months lapsed, or the reverse: the business license can lapse while every electrician working under it stays fully licensed. Treat this as a portfolio, not a single date to remember. Keep a simple log of every license number tied to the business — the contractor license itself, the assigned master electrician's license, and any journeyman or apprentice licenses you sponsor — with its own expiration date next to it. Missing one because you were watching another is the most common way a crew ends up doing licensed work on an expired credential without anyone noticing until renewal comes up.

Renewal cost climbs the longer a license sits expired

Both license types get more expensive to renew the longer they sit expired, and the increase happens in bands rather than day by day. An electrical contractor license renewed on time costs $110; let it lapse and the fee jumps to $165 within the first 90 days, then to $220 from 91 days out to 18 months. An individual license follows the same shape at a smaller scale — $30 on time, $45 within 90 days, $60 from 91 days to 18 months. Past 18 months the fee itself does not climb again, but the process does: you file a Request to Executive Director form by mail instead of renewing online, and TDLR reviews the request before reinstating the license. See what a new license actually costs if a lapse runs long enough that renewal stops being available at all.

$165An electrical contractor license renewal filed within 90 days of expiration costs $165. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

$220An electrical contractor license expired 91 days to 18 months costs $220 to renew. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

$30A journeyman electrician license renewed on time costs $30. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

$60A journeyman electrician license expired 91 days to 18 months costs $60 to renew. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

Past 36 months, renewal is gone and you are filing new

Once a license — business or individual — has been expired for more than 36 months, TDLR will not renew it under any process, mail application included. At that point you are not a lapsed licensee anymore; you are an applicant with no license on file, and you start over under whatever requirements apply to a first-time application today. For the business license that means a new Form ELC-LIC-003, a new fee, a currently named master electrician, and a fresh certificate of insurance. For an individual license it means reapplying under the hours and exam requirements in effect now, which may not match what applied when the original license was issued years earlier. The licensing steps for a new contractor application are the same ones a lapsed contractor now has to repeat in full, fee included.

Licenses expired more than 36 months cannot be renewed and must reapply as a new applicant. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

Continuing education hours are due before you renew, not after

Every individual electrician license — apprentice, journeyman, maintenance, sign, and master — needs four hours of continuing education completed before that license renews. Contractors and residential appliance installers are exempt, because the requirement attaches to the person's trade competency, not the business entity. The four hours have to cover four fixed topics: the National Electrical Code, Texas electrician law under Occupations Code Chapter 1305, the state's administrative rules in Title 16, and electrical safety under NFPA 70E. A single combined course covering all four satisfies it, or you can stack separate courses that add up to four hours across the topics. Waiting until the renewal window opens to go looking for a course is the usual mistake — if the provider is booked or does not run the course again before your expiration date, you lapse into the fee bands above for something four hours would have prevented.

4 hoursIndividual electrician licenses require 4 hours of continuing education before each renewal. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

Continuing education must cover the National Electrical Code, Texas electrician law, state administrative rules, and NFPA 70E electrical safety. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

The course provider reports your hours, not you

Once you finish a course, you do not attach a certificate to your renewal application the way you might expect. The registered CE provider is the one who reports completed hours directly to TDLR, and your renewal only goes through once that report is on file. Keep the completion certificate anyway — you should receive it within 15 days of finishing the course, and a certificate that never arrives is often the first sign the provider has not reported the hours. TDLR runs a Continuing Education Courses Look Up tool where you can check whether your hours have posted before you file the renewal itself, rather than finding out at the counter that the provider never reported you. Only courses run through a TDLR-registered provider count; a course from an unregistered instructor satisfies nothing, no matter how closely it tracks the required topics.

The continuing education provider, not the licensee, reports completed hours to TDLR. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

15 daysA licensee should receive their continuing education course completion certificate within 15 days of finishing the course. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

Renewing the business license still needs current insurance on file

The business license renewal is not just a fee and a form. TDLR requires a current certificate of general liability insurance on file that meets the same coverage floors as the original application — $300,000 per occurrence, $600,000 aggregate, and $300,000 aggregate for products and completed operations. A lapsed or cancelled policy at renewal time is treated the same as never having filed one, and the renewal will not clear until a valid certificate matching those numbers is attached. See what those insurance floors actually cover if your policy has changed since the business was first licensed, because a broker quote that met the requirement two years ago is not guaranteed to still match it — carriers adjust limits and exclusions at their own renewal, and it is worth checking the certificate against the current numbers rather than assuming the old policy still qualifies.

$300,000Electrical contractors must maintain $300,000 per occurrence and $600,000 aggregate liability coverage. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

$300,000Electrical contractors must maintain $300,000 aggregate coverage for products and completed operations. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

A named master electrician has to stay on the business license

The other renewal-blocking requirement is the same one that got the business licensed in the first place: a currently held Texas master electrician license has to be assigned to it, whether that is the owner or an employee. If the master electrician who was assigned leaves the business, the license itself does not automatically fail, but the renewal will, because TDLR checks that assignment at renewal the same way it checked it at the original application. A master's license can only be assigned to one contractor at a time unless that electrician owns more than half the business, so you cannot borrow a master who is already carrying another company's license to get through a renewal. Read what the master electrician role actually requires if the person currently assigned is thinking about leaving — replacing them takes longer than most owners expect.

A master electrician's license may be assigned to only one electrical contractor unless that electrician owns over 50% of the business. — Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, retrieved 2026-09-16

What happens to jobs already underway when a license lapses

An expired license does not pause a job site by itself, but it changes what you are legally allowed to be doing there. Work performed, inspected, or signed off while the contractor license or the assigned master electrician's license is expired is work performed without the credential the permit was issued against, which is the kind of gap a municipal inspector or a customer's attorney can raise later even if nothing went wrong on the job itself. Existing permits pulled while the license was current do not automatically become invalid the moment the license lapses, but any new permit application, any new inspection request, and any new contract signed during the lapse is exposed. The practical move is to stop opening new work the moment you notice a lapse, finish what code and contract already commit you to as carefully as usual, and treat renewal as the thing that has to happen before the next job starts, not something to catch up on later.

The order that avoids re-filing — CE, then insurance, then renewal

Sequencing matters more than most people think when a renewal date is close. Book and finish the continuing education hours first, because they take real calendar time — a provider's next session might be two weeks out — and everything else waits on those hours being reported. Once the CE has posted, confirm the certificate of insurance is current and matches today's coverage floors, since a broker can usually issue or update a certificate faster than a CE provider can run a class. Only then file the renewal itself, whether that is the individual license, the business license, or both on the same day. Doing it in the reverse order — filing first and scrambling for CE or insurance afterward — is how a renewal that should have been routine turns into a 90-day late fee, because the application sits incomplete while you chase the missing piece and the clock keeps running against the old expiration date, not the day you started chasing it.

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