Plumbing license renewal runs through the board that issued your license: pay the renewal fee before the expiration date and complete any continuing education the state requires.
Cycles range from annual to every three years — of the jurisdictions our research verified, twelve renew plumbers yearly, fourteen every two years and four every three.
Let a license lapse and the cost climbs: late fees first, then reinstatement or a re-test.
Renewal cycles by state
There is no national renewal schedule.
Each board that issues plumbing licenses sets its own cycle, and the paperwork is similar everywhere — pay the fee, confirm your hours, keep your address current — but the calendar is not.
Across the jurisdictions our research verified, plumber licenses renew on three patterns.
| Renewal cycle | States |
|---|---|
| Every year | Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas |
| Every two years | Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia |
| Every three years | Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Washington |
| Michigan | Journeyman plumber licenses renew annually; master plumber licenses every three years |
| California (C-36) | The CSLB license is issued for two years; active licenses renew every two years, inactive ones every four |
Michigan splits its cycle by level, and California sits one step up the ladder: the state's plumbing credential is the CSLB C-36 contractor license, and it follows the two-year pattern common to contractor licenses rather than an individual journeyman cycle.
The list is the states our research verified — not the whole country.
If your state isn't in the table, your board's renewal page is the authority, not a pattern borrowed from a neighbor.
And renewal only applies to a license you already hold; what each rung of the ladder requires is its own question, covered in our plumbing license requirements guide.
Fees and online renewal
Each board sets its own renewal fee, charged at the start of a new term, and the spread between boards is wide.
A few verified examples:
- Texas — journeyman plumber renewal $40 per year (as of September 2026)
- Maine — journeyman and master plumber renewal $200 every two years
- South Carolina — residential plumber renewal $220
- California — an active CSLB license renews for $450 (sole owner) or $700 (non-sole owner) per two-year term, on the board's 2026 fee schedule
Online renewal runs board by board.
Georgia's plumber licenses renew online by November 30 of even-numbered years; Oregon's licenses can be renewed online within 45 days of expiration; and Alaska renews contractor registrations and professional licenses through its MY LICENSE portal.
Fees and deadlines are board rules, and boards change them
Late renewal and reinstatement
Boards treat a lapse in steps: a late window with a surcharge first, formal reinstatement next, and re-testing — or starting over — for the longest gaps.
The windows themselves are state-specific, which is exactly why they're worth knowing before the deadline passes, not after.
- Georgia — late renewal runs from December 1 to December 31, one month past the November 30 deadline
- Maine — a $50 late fee, available up to 90 days after expiry
- Delaware — late renewal adds 50% of the renewal fee
- North Carolina — a renewal received after January carries a $25 late processing fee
- South Carolina — a $50 late fee, then a $480 reinstatement fee once the license has lapsed
The longest gaps end the license as you know it.
South Carolina requires re-examination once a license has lapsed more than three years, and so does North Carolina.
Oregon requires a retest once a license has been expired more than one year.
New Hampshire treats licensees who renew 365 or more days late as new applicants, who must re-test.
Texas draws the line at two years: a plumbing license expired more than two years cannot be renewed, and the person must start over as a registered apprentice and re-pass the exams.
The arithmetic favors acting early.
A $50 late fee beats a $480 reinstatement fee, and both beat re-testing.
If your license has already lapsed, call the board that issued it before you take any work — where your state sits on the late-to-lapsed scale, and what it will take to get back, is the board's call.
Once the license is current again, it's what you sell: browse plumber jobs while the paperwork is fresh.
CE requirements: a summary
States wire continuing education into renewal at every intensity — the hour totals our research verified range from none to 24 per cycle.
The tiers:
| CE required | States (cadence) |
|---|---|
| None | Maryland, North Carolina; Michigan requires none routinely — a code-update course only after a new code is adopted |
| 4 hours | Alabama, Illinois, Montana — every year |
| 6 hours | Kentucky and Texas every year; Oklahoma per 3 years |
| 8 hours | Georgia and Vermont per 2 years; Colorado each year |
| 12 hours | Massachusetts per 2 years; Utah per cycle |
| 16 hours | Minnesota per 2 years; New Mexico; Alaska per 24 months |
| 24 hours | Oregon; Washington per 3 years; Wisconsin |
The same research shows the HVAC picture is different: it found no CE requirement for the HVACR license in Maryland, for North Carolina, for Michigan's mechanical contractor license, for Wisconsin's HVAC qualifier/registration, or for Louisiana's commercial (LSLBC) licenses — and among the HVAC licenses it checked, Florida's contractors need the most, 14 hours per 2 years.
Whatever your trade, the hour total, the approved providers and whether hours carry over are board rules, and they change.
Confirm yours with the board before the renewal date — the table above tells you the tier to ask about, not the whole rule.
Career information, not legal advice. Renewal cycles, fees, late windows and CE hours are set by each state licensing board — or the city or county office where licensing is local — and they change. Confirm the current rules with the board that issued your license before you renew.