How Do You Get a Plumbing License in Arizona?

Not for the plumber working as an employee with wages as their sole compensation.

Arizona's contractor licensing law exempts anyone who does regulated work as an employee with wages as their sole compensation (A.R.S. § 32-1121(A)(11)), so employed plumbers need no ROC license of their own.

A narrow second exemption covers casual or minor work under $1,000 in aggregate contract price that does not require a local building permit.

What Arizona does license statewide is the plumbing business: the ROC licenses and classifies plumbing contractors.

Our research found no state journeyman or master plumber license for individuals — no state agency issuing individual plumber licenses turned up — and whether any city licenses plumbers individually was not checked, so confirm the picture with the ROC and with the city where the work is done.

The plumbing credentials our research found are ROC contractor classifications, and the class decides the work a business can bid.

C-37 Plumbing is the commercial classification: its scope is all plumbing performed solely within property lines — water supply piping, venting and drainage, septic tanks and leach lines, and lawn sprinklers — and not work on public easements or right-of-ways.

R-37 Plumbing, Including Solar and R-37R Plumbing are the residential classifications, and CR-37 Plumbing is listed as the dual classification in the same class rules.

The commercial solar variants are C-77 Plumbing Including Solar and C-78 Solar Plumbing Liquid Systems Only, and the ROC's class list also includes a CR-77 dual solar classification.

In our research there is no journeyman rung and no master rung: a plumber either works as an exempt employee or holds — or backs as the qualifying party of — an ROC license.

Because the ROC licenses the business, the experience requirement attaches to the qualifying party — the person whose background backs the license.

A qualifying party needs at least four years of practical or management trade experience in the license's type of work, at least two of them within the last ten years, and accredited technical training can count for up to two of the four years.

The qualifying party must be regularly employed by the licensee and actively engaged in the classification of work; they may be the sole proprietor, a partner, an LLC member, a corporate officer or an employee.

The license is a two-year license, and the ROC's fee schedule (2026) puts a new plumbing license at $580 for a commercial (C) classification, $720 for residential (R, including the $370 Recovery Fund assessment) and $850 for dual (CR).

In our research there is no state apprentice registration to log hours toward a license either: the ROC does not run an apprenticeship program and points instead to the Department of Economic Security's registered apprenticeship.

The ROC requires two exams of a qualifying party, and both must be passed with at least 70%.

The first is the online, open-book Arizona Statutes and Rules Training Course and Exam (SRE), delivered through Gmetrix; the second is the trade exam, delivered through PSI, online or at a test center.

The statute requires the written exam to be taken within two years before application and to cover the trade plus Arizona building, safety, health and lien laws and contracting business administration — and the registrar waives the exam requirement when the qualifying party has qualified a license in the same classification within the preceding five years.

Exam fees are $61 for the Statutes and Rules exam, paid to Gmetrix, and $66 for the trade exam, paid to PSI.

NASCLA exam scores are not a shortcut for plumbing: the ROC accepts NASCLA exams only for its general building and electrical classifications.

ROC licenses are biennial, so renewal comes up every two years.

Fees (2026): renewals are $480 for a commercial (C) classification, $540 for residential (R) and $650 for dual (CR), which the ROC's fee schedule shows including the Recovery Fund.

On continuing education, our research did not confirm a CE requirement for ROC renewals — the classification-requirements materials we tried to read could not be downloaded — so ask the ROC before you count on renewing without CE hours.

An employed plumber who holds no ROC license has no state plumbing license to renew in our research, and so no state CE clock either.

There is no journeyman or master plumbing license to transfer into Arizona in our research — the state credential is the ROC contractor license.

What Arizona does have is a universal licensing law: it requires the state to license people who establish residence in Arizona and have held a license in good standing in another state for at least one year, at the same practice level, having passed any exam that state required.

Our research did not confirm how the ROC applies that law to plumbing contractor classifications, so put your out-of-state license, a license verification and your exam history in front of the ROC and ask what it will recognize.

Our Arizona sources record no reciprocity agreement stated by the ROC.

The ROC links an online contractor search for looking up the businesses it licenses; our research recorded the link but did not open the search itself, so start from roc.az.gov if the search page does not load.

A lookup tells you whether the plumbing contractor you are dealing with holds an ROC license.

In our research there is no individual plumber license to look up — the credential behind the work belongs to the business, not the worker.