A master plumber is the highest individual plumbing license a state issues: a plumber who has met the state's experience requirement, passed the master plumber exam and is legally allowed to plan, permit and supervise plumbing work.
In states such as Georgia and Texas, a plumbing company cannot lawfully do plumbing without one attached to it.
Exactly what the license requires — and allows — is set state by state, and in states such as Nebraska, city by city.
What is a master plumber?
A master plumber is the top individual plumbing license a state issues — the rung above journeyman wherever a journeyman tier exists.
Virginia's tradesman ladder for plumbing, for example, has three levels: residential tradesman, journeyman and master.
Texas licenses plumbers statewide through the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners with four credentials: Tradesman Plumber-Limited, Journeyman Plumber, Master Plumber and Plumbing Inspector.
The word master does not mean the same thing in every state's law.
New Hampshire defines a master plumber as the person or business that employs plumbers or does plumbing as a business, and Delaware's Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners issues only master-level licenses — Master Plumber, Master HVACR and Master HVACR Restricted — with no state journeyman license at all.
What stays constant is the direction of authority: the master license is the one the rest of the trade works under.
In Delaware, only a licensed master plumber may provide plumbing services, and apprentices and journeymen may work only under the supervision of a master who employs them or works full time for the same business.
Day to day, the work is plumbing plus authority: the same installations and repairs as any plumber, plus the planning, permitting, bidding and supervision that other licenses are not allowed to carry.
The next section breaks those powers out.
What a master plumber is allowed to do
The license's core legal powers are planning, permitting and supervision.
In Montana, only a licensed master plumber may plan, estimate, bid, contract for and supervise plumbing work, and only masters may pull plumbing permits.
In Delaware, only a licensed master plumber may provide plumbing services, with apprentices and journeymen working under a master's supervision.
The second power is qualifying a company to do plumbing.
Texas requires any business that advertises or offers plumbing to secure the services of a Responsible Master Plumber, and a Texas RMP may attach their license to one plumbing company only.
Colorado plumbing contractors must name a Responsible Master Plumber who is actively engaged full time and responsible for all of the company's plumbing work, and Georgia companies may do plumbing only if a Master Plumber Class I or II is regularly connected with the business full-time.
Virginia goes into the licensing statute itself: a master tradesman license is a condition of licensing plumbing, HVAC and electrical contractors.
Master scope can itself be tiered.
Georgia's Master Plumber Class I may work on single-family homes, townhomes and multifamily buildings up to three stories, and on commercial buildings up to 20,000 square feet; Class II has no scope limit.
What the license does not do is travel: a master license issued in one state carries no automatic weight in another, and the work it allows is defined by the board — or the city — that issued it, not by the title.
Confirm the rules with your board
How to become a master plumber (the short version)
The common shape across the states that license individual plumbers is apprentice, then journeyman, then master — but the hours, the years and the exam are set by each state, and there is no single national requirement for a master plumber license.
Washington, DC, for example, sets master plumber/gasfitter exam eligibility at 8 years or 16,000 work hours.
Texas requires master applicants to have held a journeyman license — Texas or another state's — for at least 2 years, or 1 year plus completion of a U.S. Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship program.
Montana asks for 4 years as a licensed journeyman, with at least 3 of those years working with a licensed master plumber or in a supervisory capacity.
Work under the license below you
Start as a registered apprentice or a journeyman working for a licensed master plumber — states such as Delaware require that supervision by law.Log the experience your state requires
Hour and year totals are set by your state board, and they vary widely. Ask the board what counts toward the requirement before you start counting.Pass the master exam your board administers
Exam formats and providers are board-specific, so prepare from your board's own candidate guide rather than from generic national advice.Decide whether you will qualify a company
If you plan to run or anchor a plumbing business, ask the board how the master license attaches to it — Texas, for instance, ties a Responsible Master Plumber to a single company.
Master plumber pay
There is no master-plumber-only wage data.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts all plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters in one occupation — SOC 47-2152 — and lists Master Plumber among that occupation's example titles, so every figure below covers journeyman-level plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters as well as masters.
In May 2025, the median wage for that occupation was $30.67 an hour, or $63,800 a year, and the mean was $34.70 an hour, or $72,170 a year.
At the top end, the 90th percentile earned $52.13 an hour — $108,420 a year (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025).
The occupation is projected to grow 6.8% from 2025 to 2035, against a 3.5% all-occupation average, with 42,000 openings a year on average (BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35).
State-by-state tables — medians, percentiles and the top-paying states — are on our master plumber salary page.
Is becoming a master plumber worth it?
The license is worth what it lets you do.
It is the credential that carries permit authority, supervision duty and — in states including Georgia, Texas, Colorado and Virginia — the legal ability for a plumbing company to do plumbing work at all.
That is the business case: plumbing companies in those states must attach a master plumber to operate, so the license is the door to running your own shop, serving as a company's qualifying master, or moving up where you already work.
Part of the trade already takes that route — 8% of plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters were self-employed in 2025 (BLS).
The costs and requirements are real and state-specific: New Jersey, for one, requires a new master plumber to file a $3,000 surety bond after passing the exam.
Because hour totals, exam providers and fees vary by state, price your own path from your board's current fee schedule rather than from a national rule of thumb.
And the reverse case is legitimate too: if you intend to stay on the tools as a journeyman-level employee, the master exam may never earn its keep.
If you want to sign the permits, run the crews or put your name on the license a company operates under, in states such as Montana no lesser license can do those things.
Master plumber jobs
Master plumbers work where the plumbing trade works.
In 2025, 65% of plumber, pipefitter and steamfitter jobs were with plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors, and 8% of the trade was self-employed (BLS).
That employer segment mixes plumbing and HVAC-only firms; the companies in it that offer plumbing must attach a licensed master plumber to do so in states such as Georgia and Texas.
The occupation also shows up in utility system construction and local government, the next-largest industry employers in the federal data.
The role itself mixes tools and paperwork: a master plumber may spend part of the week on installations and service calls and the rest estimating, bidding, pulling permits and supervising journeymen and apprentices — the exact duties Montana reserves to masters by law.
Open roles are collected on our master plumber jobs page, alongside apprentice, journeyman and service plumbing listings.
This page is career information, not legal advice. Licensing requirements change; confirm them with your state plumbing board — or, where licensing is local, the city or county — before you apply.