Electrician licence in Puerto Rico: the three levels, the hours and the exam

Who issues the licence

The profession is regulated by Act No. 115 of 2 June 1976, as amended, and the licence is issued by the Electricians Examining Board, which sits under the Department of State's Auxiliary Secretariat of Examining Boards.

In practice you will deal with two counters and it helps to know which is which from the start. The exams are run by Professional Credential Services (PCS) at pr.pcshq.com: that is where you create the account, apply for the exam, upload documents and get your results. Licence applications and renewals are filed online through Didaxis, the platform the Department of State uses for these boards.

The contacts that work: PCS answers at prexamen@pcshq.com, and the Board can be reached at 787-722-2121. The mailing address is Departamento de Estado, Secretaría Auxiliar de Juntas Examinadoras, Junta Examinadora de Peritos Electricistas, P.O. Box 9023271, San Juan, PR 00902-3271.

There are three licences, not one

This is where nearly everyone gets confused. There is no single electrician licence: there are three credentials and you climb them in order.

The apprentice certificate is the way in, and you can get it from age sixteen. The electrician's helper licence is the middle rung, requires being eighteen and five hundred study hours, and you work under supervision. The master electrician licence is the top one, the one that lets you sign off on an installation, and it asks for a thousand study hours plus a year working as a helper.

Knowing which rung you are on changes which jobs you can apply for today. Plenty of maintenance and construction postings ask for a helper, not a master, and that is a year or two of difference in your life.

Apprentice: from age 16

The apprentice certificate requires being sixteen at the time of filing, and having studied through the fourth year of high school or having passed the electrician apprenticeship course offered by the Department of Education or a private institution accredited by the Council on Higher Education. That course must be certified to the Board by a licensed master electrician who is a member of the association.

Three documents go with the application and they repeat at all three levels: a medical certificate bearing the Department of Health seal stating you are in good physical and mental condition to work on construction projects and with electrical devices and circuits, a negative ASUME certificate or a current payment plan, and a negative criminal record certificate from the Puerto Rico Police if you are over eighteen.

The apprentice certificate is good for two years.

Helper: 18 years old and 500 study hours

For the electrician's helper licence you must be eighteen at the time of filing and have passed the fourth year of high school.

The requirement that changes people's plans is this one: five hundred hours of study in general electricity including renewable energy, at a vocational school or technological institute in the public education system, or at a private vocational institute accredited by the Council on Higher Education. The renewable-energy part was not in the original law: it came in with Act 161-2016, and anyone who completed their application on or before 30 July 2017 is exempt from it.

Then comes a written exam with four subjects the law names one by one: Ohm's Law, general knowledge and identification of the materials used in electrical installations, knowledge of the laws that regulate the profession in Puerto Rico, and basic knowledge of the applicable regulations, the National Electrical Code (NEC) and the power authority's rules.

The helper licence is good for two years.

Master electrician: 1,000 hours and a year as a helper

The top licence requires being eighteen, fourth year of high school, being a resident of Puerto Rico, and the same three certificates as always: medical with the Health seal, negative ASUME and negative criminal record.

The training requirement rises to a thousand hours. You must have graduated from a general electricity programme with renewable energy and practical work at a vocational school or technological institute in the public system, or at an accredited private vocational institute. The alternative few people know about: graduating from an engineering programme at an accredited university also qualifies you. In both cases the programme must add up to at least a thousand hours of study and practice, and the Technical-Occupational Training Council can credit work experience toward study hours.

And on top of the hours, the law asks for real time in the field: having worked as an electrician's helper for one year, under the supervision of a licensed master electrician who is a member of the association. That year cannot be skipped.

The exam: three times a year, two parts, 70%

The master electrician exam is offered three times a year, every four months. Miss a date and the next one is four months out, so it pays to have your paperwork ready before you apply.

There are two parts, one theoretical and one practical. The minimum passing score on each part is seventy per cent, and you must pass both for the licence to be issued.

The rule that saves a lot of people: if you fail one part and pass the other, you only retake the one you failed. But the passed part expires after two years, and once that time is up you have to sit both again.

On the day of the practical exam you must bring a current copy of your helper licence. Without it they will not let you take it.

The date trap

This part kills more applications than anything else, and it has nothing to do with what you know about electricity.

Your helper licence must be current and have at least one year of validity left when you apply for both exams, and it must still be valid on the day you sit them. If you have less than a year left, renew it first and apply afterwards.

On the other side, the exam result notice has an expiry date too: you have ninety business days to file every requirement of the licence application. Miss that and the exam is void and you sit it again.

And the negative criminal record certificate is only good for one month. Pull that one last, once you already have everything else in hand.

How to upload the paperwork

The Board does not accept photographed documents. Everything must be scanned as a PDF, in colour, from the original. A phone photo of a certificate, however sharp, gets your application sent back.

Besides the three usual certificates, the helper application asks for proof of high school graduation from an institution accredited by the Department of Education, the transcript proving the five hundred hours, the notice of your passing exam result, and a sworn statement before a notary with the corresponding internal revenue stamp and a 2 x 2 photo.

The medical certificate has a specific form: it is the only one the Board accepts, and you download it from the portal itself. The ordinary health certificate used for restaurant work does not work here.

Renewing: every two years, and do not let it lapse

All three credentials last two years. Renewal must be filed at least thirty days before the expiry date.

If it does lapse, the Board may grant a short grace period on payment of a fifteen dollar penalty. After that window the renewal is denied, and to hold the licence again you must meet every requirement from scratch, as if it were the first time. Starting over because you let a month slip is expensive.

Set an alarm on your phone two months before the expiry date. It is the dullest advice in this guide and the one that saves the most money.

If you started studying before 6 March 1993

There is a separate door for people who have been at this for years. If you began your studies before 6 March 1993, the earlier law applies to you and you can apply for the master electrician exam without holding a helper licence.

What you must present in that case is a transcript confirming you were enrolled and had begun studying by that date, that you completed at least eight hundred hours of study, and that you graduated from the course. That same transcript is what you bring to the practical exam instead of the helper licence.

If you are in that group and never got licensed, the road is shorter than you think.