Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board (OCILB) — Plumbing and Hydronics Section, Division of Industrial Compliance, Ohio Department of Commerce administers plumbing contractor licensing in Ohio. Every figure below is verified against the board’s own official pages and dated. Who must personally hold a credential — the contractor, the business, or the individual worker — is set out under Requirements.
What it’s called
In Ohio the state credential is a PLUMBING CONTRACTOR licence, issued by the Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board (OCILB) through its Plumbing and Hydronics Section, part of the Division of Industrial Compliance at the Ohio Department of Commerce. It is not an individual plumber’s licence: OCILB licenses commercial contractors in the electrical, HVAC, refrigeration, plumbing and hydronics trades, and an employed plumber — a “tradesperson” in ORC 4740.01(E) — needs no state licence. A search for an “Ohio plumbing license,” “Ohio plumber license,” “OCILB plumbing license” or “Ohio commercial plumbing license” maps to that contractor licence. “Ohio journeyman plumber license” and “Ohio apprentice plumber license” map to nothing at the state level — those are local (city, county or township) registrations preserved by ORC 4740.12(B)(2), and a journeyman card is used in Ohio as proof of experience for the contractor exam rather than as a state licence. HYDRONICS is a separate OCILB licence in the same section, not part of the plumbing licence. Note the licence’s dual identity: it is issued in the name of the qualifying individual and then assigned to, and reissued in the name of, a contracting company (ORC 4740.07), so both a person and a company appear on the record.
License types & fees
| Type | Experience | Exam | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing Contractor (the Ohio state plumbing licence, issued by OCILB's Plumbing and Hydronics Section) | Be at least 18; be a U.S. citizen or a legal alien who produces valid documentation of lawful residence; and satisfy one of the experience routes in Ohio Revised Code 4740.06(B)(3): have been a tradesperson in the licensed trade applied for "for not less than five years immediately prior to the date the application is filed," OR be a currently registered engineer in Ohio with three years of business experience in the construction industry in that trade, OR have "other experience acceptable to the appropriate specialty section of the board." OAC 4101:16-2-01(H)(3) spells out what "other experience" can include: five years of experience in the trade even when NOT in the five years preceding the application (provided three of the five years were construction work on commercial or residential projects in that trade, and education programmes other than an Ohio-approved apprenticeship may substitute for at most one of the five years); five years as an Ohio government inspector in the trade; or being, for the five years immediately before the application, the full-time owner, partner or employee of a licensed commercial contracting company in that trade. An engineer not currently registered in Ohio needs at least five years of business experience in the construction industry in that trade. Expressly NOT acceptable experience: work as an inventory worker, counter salesperson, manufacturer representative, purchasing agent, secretary, clerk or bookkeeper, and general-contractor experience not directly related to the trade. Credit may be given for time in active military service. The applicant must also maintain contractor's liability insurance in the amount the specialty section sets (currently at least $500,000, OAC 4101:16-2-09(D)) and in only one contracting-company name, and must not have violated ch. 4740 or obtained or renewed a licence by fraud, misrepresentation or deception. | Required. Two parts — one specific to the trade applied for and one on business and law — with 70 per cent needed on each part (OAC 4101:16-2-03(B),(D)). The board must approve the application before the applicant may sit, and a BCI (Ohio) and FBI criminal records check must be completed after board approval and before the examination. OCILB's own examination application form states that approved candidates receive a PSI Candidate Information Bulletin and that all licensure exams are computer-based testing by appointment at sites throughout Ohio and the U.S. | $25 non-refundable application fee for the examination, per trade; $25 for issuance of the licence (OCILB's examination application form: "a $25 check made payable to ‘Treasurer, State of Ohio’", submitted with a copy of the exam results and proof of at least $500,000 contractor liability insurance). Exam sitting fees are charged separately by the approved testing agency (OAC 4101:16-2-02(H)). |
| Hydronics Contractor (a separate OCILB licence administered by the same Plumbing and Hydronics Section) | Same statutory and rule framework as the plumbing contractor licence — ORC 4740.06 and OAC 4101:16-2-01 apply per trade, and each trade requires its own application and its own fee. Hydronics is one of the licensed trades named in ORC 4740.01(A) and (D) and is not covered by a plumbing licence. | Required, in the hydronics trade, on the same two-part (trade plus business and law) structure. A passing business-and-law score is credited for three years from the date the licence is issued if the holder later applies to sit for another ch. 4740 examination (OAC 4101:16-2-03(D)). | $25 application per trade plus $25 issuance, on the same schedule as the plumbing licence (OAC 4101:16-2-09(A)). |
| Plumbing tradesperson / journeyman plumber / apprentice — NO Ohio state licence or registration exists | Ohio issues no state credential to the individual worker. ORC 4740.01(E) defines a "tradesperson" as "any individual who is employed by a contractor and who engages in construction, improvement, renovation, repair, or maintenance of buildings or structures without assuming responsibility for the means, method, or manner of that construction, improvement, renovation, repair, or maintenance" — and ch. 4740 licenses contractors, not tradespersons. A journeyman card or an Ohio- or USDOL-approved apprenticeship completion certificate is used in Ohio as EVIDENCE of the five years of experience needed to sit for the contractor exam, not as a state licence. Ohio law expressly leaves tradesperson registration to local government: ORC 4740.12(B)(2) preserves any local ordinance or rule that "[r]equires the registration and assessment of a registration or license fee of tradespersons who perform heating, ventilating, and air conditioning, refrigeration, electrical, plumbing, or hydronics construction, improvement, renovation, repair, or maintenance." Check the city, county or township where the work is performed. | None at the state level. | None at the state level; any local registration fee is set by the local jurisdiction. |
Who does NOT need this license — exemptions
Ohio Revised Code ch. 4740 has NO exemptions section — no “this chapter does not apply to” list of the kind most licensing chapters carry. Ohio instead limits the reach of the licence through DEFINITIONS, and through two express carve-outs inside the prohibition itself. Read the definitions first, because they are what actually excuses work. (1) WHO IS NOT REACHED — TRADESPERSONS. ORC 4740.13(A) prohibits only acting as or claiming to be “a type of contractor that this chapter licenses.” ORC 4740.01(B) defines “[c]ontractor” as an individual or contracting company that “[h]as responsibility for the means, method, and manner of construction, improvement, renovation, repair, or maintenance on a construction project with respect to one or more trades and who offers, identifies, advertises, or otherwise holds out or represents that the individual or contracting company is permitted or qualified to perform or have responsibility for” that work, AND that either performs the work or “[e]mploys tradespersons who perform” it. ORC 4740.01(E) defines “[t]radesperson” as “any individual who is employed by a contractor and who engages in construction, improvement, renovation, repair, or maintenance of buildings or structures without assuming responsibility for the means, method, or manner of that construction, improvement, renovation, repair, or maintenance.” An employed plumber is therefore outside the state licence requirement — the licence attaches to the person or company that takes responsibility and holds itself out. (2) WHAT IS NOT REACHED — RESIDENTIAL AND INDUSTRIALIZED-UNIT WORK. ORC 4740.01(F) defines “[c]onstruction project” as “a construction project involving a building or structure subject to Chapter 3781. of the Revised Code and the rules adopted under that chapter, but NOT an industrialized unit or a residential building as defined in section 3781.06 of the Revised Code.” ORC 3781.06(C)(9): “‘Residential building’ means a one-family, two-family, or three-family dwelling house, and any accessory structure incidental to that dwelling house,” and it includes such a dwelling house “that is used as a model to promote the sale of a similar dwelling house,” while it “does not include an industrialized unit as defined by division (C)(3) of this section, a manufactured home as defined by division (C)(4) of this section, or a mobile home as defined by division (O) of section 4501.01 of the Revised Code.” ORC 3781.06(C)(11) makes “[a]ccessory structure” a structure attached to a residential building and serving its principal use, “includ[ing], but … not limited to, a garage, porch, or screened-in patio.” “[I]ndustrialized unit” is defined at 3781.06(C)(3) as “a building unit or assembly of closed construction fabricated in an off-site facility, that is substantially self-sufficient as a unit or as part of a greater structure, and that requires transportation to the site of intended use,” whether installed as an independent unit, as part of a group, or incorporated with standard construction to form a completed structural entity — and it excludes manufactured and mobile homes. This is the carve-out OCILB summarises as “[i]n Ohio, residential contractors are not required to be licensed.” ITS LIMIT, WHICH REVERSES THE ANSWER FOR MANY READERS: the carve-out is only from the STATE licence. OCILB’s own guidance of February 28, 2025 states that “[m]any building departments in Ohio require state licenses for contractors to pull permits for both residential and commercial projects,” and its License Information page notes that “H.B. 434 also allows local Building Departments to require this license for residential at their level.” ORC 4740.12(B) expressly preserves local ordinances and rules that regulate the installation, repair, maintenance or alteration of plumbing systems, and that require registration and a registration or licence fee of tradespersons — subject to 4740.12(A), which forbids a political subdivision, district or state agency from requiring contractor registration and a registration or licence fee “unless that ordinance or rule also requires any contractor who registers and pays the registration or license fee to be licensed in the contractor’s trade pursuant to this chapter.” Note too that a dwelling of four or more units is NOT a “residential building” under 3781.06, so it does not fall inside this carve-out. (3) EXPRESS CARVE-OUTS INSIDE THE PROHIBITION. ORC 4740.13(C): “A contractor licensed under this chapter may install, service, and maintain the related or interfaced control wiring for equipment and devices related to their specific license, on the condition that the control wiring is less than twenty-five volts” — so a licensed plumbing or hydronics contractor needs no electrical licence for sub-25-volt control wiring tied to its own equipment. ORC 4740.13(D): “A person is not an electrical contractor subject to licensure under this chapter for work that is limited to the construction, improvement, renovation, repair, testing, or maintenance of the following systems using less than fifty volts of electricity: fire alarm or burglar alarm, cabling, tele-data sound, communication, and landscape lighting and irrigation.” (4) LEASED AND TEMPORARY LABOUR. ORC 4740.131 (effective March 24, 2021): “Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prohibit a contractor from leasing, on a temporary or permanent basis, an employee from a professional employer organization, as defined by section 4125.01 of the Revised Code, from an alternate employer organization, as defined by section 4133.01 of the Revised Code, or from a temporary agency to perform work under the direct supervision of the contractor.” OCILB’s own gloss draws the line at 1099 workers: all tradespeople working under your licence must be employed by your company, be on your payroll and receive a W-2, or be hired from a nationally recognized temporary agency — and “[i]f you pay your help, or sub work out to any of the five specialty trades by a 1099, then they are designated as independent contractors and they must also be state licensed.” (5) NOTHING IS EXCUSED FROM THE FIRE MARSHAL. ORC 4740.06(K): “Nothing in any license issued by the Ohio construction industry licensing board shall be construed to limit or eliminate any requirement of or any license issued by the Ohio fire marshal.” (6) INACTIVE LICENSEES are relieved of continuing education and of the insurance requirement while inactive (OAC 4101:16-2-09(D); 4101:16-2-08), but an inactive licensee “shall not engage in specialty contracting or any activity for which the license is required” (OAC 4101:16-2-12(B)) — this is a suspension of obligations, not an exemption to work.
Fees
Set by each specialty section subject to controlling-board approval (ORC 4740.09), and published in OAC 4101:16-2-09(A)-(B): $25 for an application for examination; $25 for issuance of any licence; $60 for the annual renewal of each licence, or $180 for the triennial renewal of each licence; a late fee of not more than $120 for each licence not timely renewed; and a $30 penalty fee for each licence for any check or other draft instrument returned unpaid (see also ORC 4740.15). Continuing-education charges: $10 plus $1 per credit hour for each course application submitted, $1 per credit hour of instruction per attendee, and $25 for each training agency application. Every one of these fees is non-refundable and payable to the administrative section of OCILB. Reciprocity applications cost $25 non-refundable per trade, payable to “Treasurer, State of Ohio” — and each trade requires its own application and fee. Not set by OCILB and not published by it: the examination fee charged by the approved testing agency (the testing agency “may charge a fee to the applicant for those expenses associated with the examination as approved by the administrative section or set forth in contract,” OAC 4101:16-2-02(H)), and the BCI/FBI criminal records check fee, which is the fee prescribed under ORC 109.572(C)(3) and is paid to the background-check provider. ORC 4740.09 caps increases: no increase may exceed fifty per cent of the lowest fee that section set during the preceding three years, and no increase may be made more than once a year.
Exam
Two parts, both required: one part specific to the trade applied for and one part on business and law (OAC 4101:16-2-03(B)). A score of 70 per cent on EACH part is a pass (4101:16-2-03(D)); once both parts are passed, the business-and-law part is credited as passed for three years from the date the licence is issued if the holder later applies and is approved to sit for another ch. 4740 examination. The examination for each trade is scheduled at least four times a year at various locations around the state, and the approved applicant schedules the date with the approved testing agency (4101:16-2-03(A)). OCILB’s own examination application states that approved candidates “will be provided with a PSI Candidate Information Bulletin” containing scheduling instructions, and that “[a]ll licensure exams are computer based testing by appointment at sites throughout Ohio & the U.S.” Sequence: file the application with the specialty section (notarized, with the $25 fee) → the section reviews eligibility at a scheduled board meeting and notifies the applicant by mail → obtain the BCI and FBI criminal records check → register with the approved testing agency and pay its exam fee → the testing agency scores the exam initially and the specialty section verifies the final scores (4101:16-2-03(E)). A failed part may be retaken on payment of the testing agency’s fee, but ORC 4740.06(G)(1) provides the applicant “may retake the examination not less than sixty days after the applicant’s most recent examination,” and (G)(2) requires an applicant who has failed five times to reapply for a licence under 4740.06(A) before retaking. Board approval to sit expires automatically one calendar year from the date OCILB receives the completed criminal records check (4101:16-2-03(G)); OCILB’s application form states board approval is “valid for one year.” Oral examinations, other accommodations, and examination in a language other than English may be permitted on request where the section finds the applicant’s ability substantially impaired.
Renewal & continuing education
Annual. ORC 4740.06(H): “All licenses a contractor holds pursuant to this chapter shall expire annually on the same date, which shall be the expiration date of the original license the contractor holds” — so a plumbing licence and a hydronics licence held by the same person expire together, on the anniversary of the first one issued. A valid, unexpired licence is renewed WITHOUT re-examination by applying to the appropriate specialty section not more than ninety calendar days before expiry, with the renewal fee ($60) and proof of compliance with the continuing education requirements, and by demonstrating continued compliance with the citizenship, insurance and no-fraud requirements of ORC 4740.06(B)(2), (4) and (5). A TRIENNIAL cycle exists but only through the compliant contractor program: OAC 4101:16-1-08(C) provides that programme members “may choose to renew their licenses on a triennial basis, rather than on an annual basis,” and OAC 4101:16-2-09(A)(3) prices the triennial renewal of each licence at $180. Qualifying for that programme takes one year of demonstrated compliance with ch. 4740 and its rules — timely renewal filings, timely fee payment and no disciplinary action — and it is open to existing licensees only, so a new applicant must first complete a licensure period in compliance (4101:16-1-08(B)). ORC 4740.06(M) is the statutory authority for that programme and lets the board make rules amending the continuing education requirements and the renewal schedule for it. Inactive (“escrow”) licences must also be renewed each year (OAC 4101:16-2-12(C)); OCILB states the $60 renewal fee is still owed while in escrow. TWO OFFICIAL SOURCES GIVE DIFFERENT BASELINE NUMBERS, and both are published — confirm with OCILB before relying on either. (1) The RULE, OAC 4101:16-2-08(A) (effective May 13, 2022): “Except as provided in rule 4101:16-1-08 of the Administrative Code, a licensee shall complete ten classroom hours of an approved continuing education course each year to be eligible to apply for the renewal of their license or licenses,” and (A)(1) provides that a licensee holding one or more plumbing, hydronics, HVAC or refrigeration licences “shall take the required ten hours of continuing education in any course that has been approved by any of the specialty sections” — there is no subject-matter split for plumbers, unlike the electrical trade, which must take at least five of its ten hours in electrical code. The exception referenced is the compliant contractor program: OAC 4101:16-1-08(C) grants members “a two-hour reduction in their yearly requirement for continuing education,” so members renewing annually must show eight hours and members renewing triennially must show twenty-four hours. (2) OCILB’s own License Information page states it as universal: “All trades are required to attend 8 hours continuing education classes for one-year renewal or 24 hours for 3-year renewals. The Electrical trade only must have half of their hours in code.” The eight/twenty-four figures match the compliant-contractor-program numbers in the rule, so the likeliest reading is that the board’s page describes the programme’s schedule; the rule’s baseline for a licensee outside the programme is ten hours a year. Statutory ceiling either way, ORC 4740.05(F): no continuing education curriculum “may require more than five hours per year in specific course requirements,” no contractor may be required to take more than ten hours per year, and “[t]he ten hours shall be the aggregate of hours of continuing education for all licenses the contractor holds” — holding both a plumbing and a hydronics licence does not double the requirement. Mechanics: a classroom hour is at least fifty minutes of instruction, and the remaining ten minutes may only be used for administrative duties or a break — a training agency may not accrue those minutes to start late, end early or lengthen a break (4101:16-2-08(B)). Excess hours do not carry forward to the next renewal period (4101:16-2-08(C)), and no licensee gets credit for more than ten classroom hours taken in one calendar day (4101:16-2-08(D)). Online delivery is capped: OCILB states that “[e]ffective September 1, 2018 contractors may take some online continuing education. One-year renewals can only take up to 4 hours each year online. Three-year renewals may take up to 12 hours on line. Since hours can be carried over within a three-year period, all 12 hours can be taken in one year. The same 4-hour class cannot be repeated in the same year,” and the same twelve-hour allowance applies to a licensee coming out of escrow who needs hours. Courses must come from a training agency the administrative section approved not more than one year before the course is offered (ORC 4740.05(A)(6)); course approval and training-agency approval are governed by OAC 4101:16-3-01 and 4101:16-3-03, and reporting by 4101:16-3-02. Waivers: on application within one calendar year of expiry, the specialty section may waive any portion of the requirement, or extend the time to complete it, in cases of certified illness, disability, military service, foreign residence or excusable neglect, case by case (4101:16-2-08(E)) — but where an extension is granted and the licence has expired, the licence is not reissued until the hours are done. Missing the deadline suspends the licence automatically (4101:16-2-08(F)); failure to reactivate within one calendar year revokes it automatically. Licences in inactive status carry no continuing education obligation while inactive.
How to apply
Applications are handled by Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board (OCILB) — Plumbing and Hydronics Section, Division of Industrial Compliance, Ohio Department of Commerce. Start at the official application page .