Key takeaways
- The licences are not one ladder. Apprentice, residential wireman, journeyman, and master form a progression, while lineman and sign electrician are separate trades.
- A residential wireman may only perform electrical installations in single-family and multifamily dwellings not exceeding four stories. That is statute, not custom.
- The electrical contractor licence, the TECL, belongs to a business rather than a person, and the business must be or employ a Texas master electrician.
- A master electrician may be assigned to only one electrical contractor unless they own more than 50 percent of it.
TDLR issues nearly a dozen electrical credentials, and homeowners and new apprentices both tend to read that list as a single ladder with master at the top. It is not. Some of these are steps in a progression, some are separate trades that happen to involve electricity, and one of them is not held by a person at all.
Here is what each one actually permits.
The progression: apprentice, wireman, journeyman, master
These four are the path most electricians in San Antonio are on.
An apprentice electrician is licensed to perform electrical work under the general supervision of a master electrician, journeyman electrician, or residential wireman. There are no experience qualifications and no examination requirements to apply. This is the entry credential and it exists so that people learning the trade are accounted for and supervised rather than invisible.
A residential wireman qualifies with 4,000 hours of on-the-job training under a master electrician or residential wireman, or through a career and technology education pathway, plus an exam. The scope is set in statute: the Texas Occupations Code defines a residential wireman as a person who may only perform electrical installations in single-family and multifamily dwellings not exceeding four stories. That four story line is a real boundary, not a rule of thumb.
A journeyman electrician qualifies with on-the-job training under a Texas licensed master electrician, testing permitted at 7,000 hours and licensure requiring 8,000, plus an exam. A journeyman is not limited to dwellings, which is the practical difference that opens commercial and industrial work.
A master electrician requires 12,000 hours under a master electrician and requires having held a journeyman licence for at least two years. Master is the supervision credential. It is what lets someone supervise other electricians, and it is the licence an electrical contracting business is built on.
Two posts on this site cover Texas licensing and they answer different questions on purpose. This one is the credential system: what exists, what each licence permits, and where the boundaries between them sit. If your question is instead how to get from no licence at all to a working career, with the order of steps, the fees, and the hours, that is how to become a licensed electrician in Texas, and it is the authority on the path. Come back here when you need to know what a given licence actually lets you do.
The one that belongs to a company
The electrical contractor licence, commonly called a TECL, is the one that confuses people most, because it is not a personal credential at all. The Occupations Code defines an electrical contractor as a person engaged in electrical contracting, and in practice the licence is issued to the business.
The requirement that ties it back to the individual licences is direct: an applicant for an electrical contractor licence must be licensed in Texas as a master electrician, or employ a person licensed in Texas as a master electrician. That master is assigned to the contractor by name and licence number on the application, and signs it.
There is a rule attached that matters more than it looks like. A person holding a Texas master electrician licence can be assigned to only a single electrical contractor, unless that master owns more than 50 percent of the electrical contracting business. The intent is that the assignment represents actual supervision of actual work, rather than a licence lent to several companies whose work the holder never sees.
The contractor licence also carries financial responsibility requirements: general liability coverage of at least $300,000 per occurrence combined for property damage and bodily injury, at least $600,000 aggregate, and at least $300,000 aggregate for products and completed operations, plus an election on workers compensation coverage.
For a homeowner, this is why asking whether the person at your door is licensed is only half the question. The individual holds a journeyman or master licence. The company holds the contractor licence that permits it to offer the work and pull the permit. Both should exist.
The ones that are separate trades
These share the word electrician and very little else with the residential trade.
- Journeyman lineman covers work on the equipment that transmits and distributes electricity from the source to a substation and outward. This is utility work, not building work, and it is a different career with different training.
- Journeyman sign electrician and master sign electrician cover electric signs and outline lighting. A sign contractor licence may be assigned either a master electrician or a master sign electrician.
- Journeyman industrial electrician is its own credential, and it carries a specific catch worth knowing: that experience cannot be used to qualify for a master electrician licence.
- Maintenance electrician covers electrical maintenance work within a specific employer's facilities rather than contracting to the public.
- Residential appliance installer covers connecting residential appliances, a much narrower scope than any of the wiring licences.
None of these is a lesser licence. They are answers to different questions. Someone deciding between them should be deciding based on the work they want to do rather than on which one sounds most senior.
How to check a licence
TDLR maintains a public search of licence holders, and both individual electricians and contractor businesses appear in it. If you are hiring an electrical contractor, that search is a two minute check that tells you whether the company is licensed and in good standing. If you are taking a job, it tells you whether the shop you are about to give four years to is actually structured to log your hours.
That second use is the one apprentices skip and should not. Your hours are only worth something if they are worked under a qualifying licence holder who will verify them in writing later.
Why any of this matters to a homeowner
Because the permit follows the licence. In San Antonio an electrical permit is pulled by a registered contractor, and the registration traces back to the state licence. An unlicensed operator cannot pull your permit, which means the work is either unpermitted or permitted in your name, and neither of those is where you want to be if the house sells or a claim gets filed.
What needs a permit and why it protects you is covered in electrical permits in San Antonio, and the paperwork trail matters more than most homeowners expect when an insurer gets involved, as we laid out in your insurer flagged your wiring.
We hire against this structure rather than around it. The master electrician seat here is a real supervision role that includes serving as License Holder of Record, and the wireman and journeyman roles are scoped to what those licences actually permit. Everything open is on the careers page.
On the customer side, that licensing structure is what stands behind panel upgrades and electrical inspections across the metro, including Schertz and the rest of the corridor.