Rhode Island · Plumbing licensing · official-source guide
Rhode Island licenses plumbers through the Board of Examiners of Plumbers in the Division of Professional Regulation at the Department of Labor and Training, under General Laws chapter 5-20 and rule 260-RICR-30-15-9. It licenses apprentice, journeyperson and master plumbers, and the company separately. A journeyperson needs 8,000 hours of Rhode Island apprenticeship plus 576 hours of instruction.
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Verify a licenseVerified against agency sources on 2026-09-12. Rules and fees change; confirm with the named authority before relying on this guide.
Rhode Island licenses plumbers through the Division of Professional Regulation inside the Department of Labor and Training, at 1511 Pontiac Ave, Cranston, RI 02920. The Division states that it handles licensing for over 30,000 people in 67 trade jobs, including electricians, hoisting engineers, pipefitters, refrigeration technicians, fire protection sprinkler fitters, sheet metal workers, plumbers and telecommunication system contractors. Inside the Division sit seven licensing boards. The Board of Examiners of Plumbers is the one that governs this trade. The others are the Board of Examiners of Electricians, the Board of Hoisting Engineers, the Mechanical Board, the Board of Telecommunications System Contractors and Technicians, the Safety Awareness Board and the State Apprenticeship Council. The Division publishes a Chief Investigator of Plumbing as a named contact. The statutory base is Rhode Island General Laws chapter 5-20, titled Plumbers, Irrigators, and Water System Installers. Section 5-20-39 moved the duties to the Department of Labor and Training, and section 5-20-40 covers investigation and prosecution of violations. The working rules are in the Rhode Island Code of Regulations at 260-RICR-30-15-9, Licensing of Plumbers, Irrigators and Water System Installers, filed with the Rhode Island Department of State. Two things follow from that structure. First, this is a genuine state license, not a registration, and the examination is run by the state rather than a municipality. Second, because plumbing sits in a chapter shared with irrigation and water filtration, several of the rules a plumber has to read are written across all three trades at once.
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Rhode Island licenses at three individual levels and adds a fourth credential aimed at the business. The regulation at 260-RICR-30-15-9 sets out master, journeyperson and apprentice for each of three trades: plumbers, irrigators, and water-filtration and treatment-system installers. It then adds Contractor Master Plumber as a separate category with its own requirements. The Department's Plumbers and Irrigators application prices them by code number. Contractor Master is 049, Master Plumber is 050, Master Irrigator is 053, Journeyperson Irrigator is 054 and Apprentice Irrigator is 055. Out-of-state Journeyperson Plumber is 051. Two restricted endorsements exist for water treatment work: Master water-filtration and treatment-system installer at 56 and Journeyperson water-filtration and treatment-system installer at 57. The Contractor Master Plumber license is the one contractors misread. Section 5-20-12.1 states that this license does not, in and of itself, permit any holder of a license to individually engage in installation, maintenance, or repair. It works alongside a contractor's license rather than replacing a master plumber license. Its test fee and license fee equal the fee for a master plumber under sections 5-20-16 and 5-20-23. Scope is enforced. Section 5-20-8 bars anyone from acting as a master plumber, employing journeypersons or apprentices, entering into contracts for installation, maintenance or repair, performing the specified acts, or advertising or representing oneself as a master, without a certificate of license in full force and effect from the Department of Labor and Training.
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Rhode Island writes the journeyperson requirement in hours, years and classroom time at once, and all three have to line up. Section 5-20-17 requires 8,000 hours of on-the-job training during a five-year period, plus 576 hours of related instruction at a training program recognized by the department. The applicant must also hold a certificate of registration in full force and effect as a registered apprentice plumber for at least four years prior to the filing of the application. The completed application is filed with the department at least fifteen days prior to the examination date. Where those hours are earned matters. The regulation is explicit: during the whole of the 8,000 hours of on the job training required by section 5-20-17(a)(2), the registered apprentice plumber must be employed as an apprentice plumber in the State of Rhode Island. Section 5-20-25 backs this with the apprentice registration rule, requiring a minimum of 8,000 hours over a period of time of not less than five years under a master or journeyperson plumber. The parallel irrigation and water filtration tracks are much shorter at 2,000 hours over not less than one year. The statute also lists alternative routes: a college or university plumbing course of two or more academic years, an associate degree in plumbing combined with two years of apprenticeship employment, or licensure from another state with equivalent requirements. Each one still lands at the same examination.
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Moving from journeyperson to master in Rhode Island is a short step on paper and a documented one in practice. Section 5-20-16 requires the applicant to be a citizen or legal resident of the United States, to hold an active journeyperson license for a minimum of one year, and to submit an affidavit confirming employment by a licensed master during that period. Applications are filed at least thirty days before the examination date. The regulation states the same test: one year of experience as a licensed journeyperson, employed by a master plumber, master irrigator, or master water-filtration and treatment-system installer licensed in this state. The Department may waive the standard prerequisites where an applicant provides evidence demonstrating requisite skill, expertise, education, experience, training, and other qualities or qualifications. That waiver is discretionary and evidence based, not a form you tick. The Department's own application form states the practical documentation standard differently again. It asks master plumber applicants for verification of experience in their respective trade for at least five years together with a journeyperson's license, and journeyperson applicants for verification of at least five years experience in their respective trade plus 576 hours of related instruction approved by the Department. Indentured apprentices going for journeyperson must submit a Certificate of Completion of Apprenticeship issued by the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training Apprenticeship Office. Gather that certificate before you file rather than after, because the filing deadlines run against a fixed examination date.
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Rhode Island runs its own plumbing examinations rather than outsourcing the schedule. The regulation states that applicants shall be required to pass such examination as the Board deems necessary to test the applicant's knowledge and skills, that the Board determines passing scores, and that examinations shall be given at least three times a year at such time and place as designated by the Director. The content is published on the Department's application. The examination to be administered consists of 50 multiple choice questions based on the 2018 International Plumbing Code. That single sentence is more useful than it looks. It tells you the code edition to study, the question count and the format, which together set how you prepare. The Department adds a scheduling rule that catches people. Exams are given on a first-come, first-serve basis, and space is limited. Anyone needing interpreter services must contact Professional Regulation at least three business days before the exam date. Professional Regulation publishes a telephone number, 401-462-8580, for exam questions. Pair that with the filing deadlines in the statute. A master plumber application goes in at least thirty days before the examination date under section 5-20-16, and a journeyperson application at least fifteen days before under section 5-20-17. Miss the filing window and you are waiting for the next of at most a handful of sittings in the year, which is a real scheduling cost when a license is the gate on a hire or on a company's ability to bid.
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Rhode Island splits the cost in two: a non-refundable fee to apply and sit, and a license fee that lands when you pass. The Department's application prices the application fee at $75 for every class listed, and states that the license fee shown applies upon passing the exam. Section 5-20-16 carries the same figure for the master route: the application is accompanied by a nonrefundable application fee of seventy-five dollars. Section 5-20-17 carries it for the journeyperson route. The license fees on the application are $240 for Contractor Master (049), Master Plumber (050), Master Irrigator (053) and Master water-filtration and treatment-system installer (56). They are $72 for Journeyperson Irrigator (054), out-of-state Journeyperson Plumber (051) and Journeyperson water-filtration and treatment-system installer (57). Apprentice Irrigator carries no test and no fee. Section 5-20-23 sets the same two numbers as the biennial renewal: $240 for master plumbers, irrigators and water-filtration installers, and $72.00 for journeypersons in each of those trades. The regulation restates them. Late renewal has its own price. Both statute and regulation allow reinstatement within two years of expiration on payment of the current renewal fee plus a $12.00 administrative assessment fee for the delinquency period. So the recurring cost of a Rhode Island master plumber license is $240 every two years, and of a journeyperson license $72 every two years, plus $12 if you let it lapse.
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Rhode Island does not use a common renewal date. It uses yours, and it uses it every other year. Section 5-20-23 states that licenses expire on the birthday of the individual, with individuals born in odd years renewing on their birthday in odd years and individuals born in even years renewing on their birthday in even years. The regulation repeats it in the same terms. So a plumber born in 1988 renews on their birthday in even-numbered years, and one born in 1991 renews on their birthday in odd-numbered years. Two masters in the same company can be on opposite two-year cycles. The grace window is generous but finite. A license may be reinstated within two years of expiration on payment of the current renewal fee plus the $12.00 administrative assessment fee for the delinquency period. After that the door closes. Any license that is not renewed within two years is deemed to be forfeited, and reissue then requires a written examination application. That means a master plumber who sets the license aside for a little over two years does not pay a bigger fee to come back. They sit the examination again. For a plumbing business the operational lesson is to hold renewal dates per person in the payroll or HR calendar, keyed to the birthday and the birth-year parity, rather than to a single company renewal month. Rhode Island will not consolidate them for you.
Rhode Island attaches continuing education to plumbing renewal, and it is worth reading both the regulation and the Department's notice, because they describe the same requirement from different angles. The regulation states that Master and Journeyperson Plumbers, as a condition for license renewal, shall complete seven hours of approved continuing education courses with an approved Provider during every two year license cycle. Section 5-20-23 frames it as a ceiling rather than a fixed number, requiring licensed master or journeyperson plumbers to attend and complete a course not exceeding fifteen hours prior to renewal or reinstatement. The seven-hour figure in the regulation sits inside that statutory cap. The Department's own continuing education notice says the requirement becomes enforceable beginning January 2027 and that documentation of course attendance is submitted prior to license renewal or reinstatement. The exemptions are worth knowing. The regulation exempts approved instructors who teach continuing education courses, current Rhode Island plumbing inspectors and building officials, and any individual whose years of experience as a licensed Master Plumber or Journeyperson Plumber and years of age, when combined, equal a total of eighty years. The Department's notice states the same eighty-year combined test. That last exemption is unusual and it is generous. A 55-year-old master with 25 years licensed meets it. Confirm the arithmetic against your own dates before assuming it, because the count is of licensed years, not of years in the trade.
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Rhode Island does not let a plumbing company exist without a licensed master inside it in a defined role. Section 5-20-12 gives an entity two ways to comply. Either a licensed master plumber is continuously engaged in the supervision and that licensed master is an officer of the corporation, a partner in the partnership, or a similarly authorized principal. Or the entity possesses a valid plumbing contractor's license duly issued by the Department of Labor and Training. The second route does not remove the person. An entity taking the contractor's license path must still either employ a licensed contractor master plumber who is continuously engaged in the supervision, or continuously employ a duly licensed master plumber who is continuously engaged in the supervision. The word doing the work in both routes is continuously. A master plumber who lends a name to a company without supervising its work does not satisfy the section, and neither does a master who leaves. This is why the Contractor Master Plumber license at section 5-20-12.1 exists as a separate class with its own examination. It is built for the supervising master inside a contracting entity, and section 5-20-12.1 is explicit that the license does not by itself permit the holder to individually engage in installation, maintenance, or repair. Plan succession around this. If your only qualifying master resigns, the company's authority to contract for plumbing work goes with them, not with the corporate name.
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This is the Rhode Island rule that a plumbing company is most likely to be quietly out of compliance with, because it governs the marketing rather than the pipework. Section 5-20-24 requires that in every place in this state within and from which a plumbing, irrigation or commercial water-filtration and treatment business is conducted, there shall be on display at all times a certificate of license. It then states that any sign, listing, or advertisement of any type of a master plumber, master irrigator, or master water-filtration and treatment-system installer shall contain his or her name, address, and license number, and that this information shall be included on all trucks used by a master plumber in connection with his or her business. The regulation goes further and puts a size on it. All vehicles and places of business shall be identified by the displaying of Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training issued, license class and number, under which business is conducted. Lettering must be done at a minimum size of three inches. Read the three requirements together and the scope is wide. Name, address and license number on any sign, listing or advertisement of any type. License class and number on every vehicle and at every place of business. Lettering at three inches minimum. A listing includes a directory entry. An advertisement of any type includes a website page and a printed flyer. Most plumbing vehicle wraps in this state carry a phone number in large type and a license number in small type. The regulation reverses that priority for the license number.
Beyond signage, Rhode Island puts obligations on the individual and on the paperwork. The regulation requires an individual licensee to carry his or her license or registration certificate at all times on his or her person while engaged in plumbing, irrigation or water-filtration activities, and to affix his or her plumber's, irrigator's, or water-filtration and treatment system installer's contractor license number to any contract he or she executes or any bid filed with any person. Section 5-20-8 states the same duty on the statutory side. License holders must carry the certificate on their person at all times during work and affix their license number to contracts, bids and applicable permits. That wording reaches three separate documents. Contracts, which is the residential agreement you sign at the kitchen table. Bids, which is the commercial or municipal proposal you file. Permits, which is the municipal application. Leaving the number off any of them is a defect in the document, and on a competitive bid it hands an opponent something to point at. Section 5-20-8 also names advertising or representing oneself as a master plumber as one of the acts that requires the license in the first place. So the license number is not decoration attached to a claim. In Rhode Island the claim and the number are the same regulated act, and the number is how the claim is substantiated in public.
Rhode Island handles out-of-state licensees through a documented equivalence route rather than through a published list of partner states. The regulation allows an out-of-state licensee to obtain a Rhode Island license if the requirements are the same as this state, and then sets three conditions. Submit the current out-of-state license. Obtain a statement attesting to the licensure status of the applicant during the time period the applicant held licensure, from the other state's licensing board. Submit affidavits of having successfully passed a written examination for licensure in the state in which he or she holds current licensure. Notice the third condition. Rhode Island wants proof that your existing license was earned by written examination. A license obtained by grandfathering or by registration without a test does not satisfy it on its face. Section 5-20-17 offers a parallel route on the journeyperson side, listing licensure from another state with equivalent requirements among the qualifying paths. The Department's own application carries an out-of-state Journeyperson Plumber class, number 051, at the standard $75 application fee and $72 license fee, which shows the route is administered as a normal license class rather than as an exception. The practical preparation is to get the certification letter from your home board early. It has to attest to status across the period you held the license, which takes longer to produce than a simple verification of current standing.
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Rhode Island has a second construction regulator, and plumbers need to know exactly where its line sits. The Contractors' Registration and Licensing Board states that every contractor and subcontractor in the business of building or repairing structures must register with the CRLB, including those who demolish or move residential or commercial structures. Plumbers are handled as an exception. Asked whether plumbers and electricians must register, the Board answers no, unless plumbers and electricians are contracting work outside the scope of their license issued by the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training. That is a scope test, not a trade exemption. A plumbing company that stays inside plumbing as chapter 5-20 defines it works under the Department of Labor and Training license alone. A plumbing company that takes on the bathroom remodel around the fixtures, the framing, the tile and the drywall, has stepped outside the license and into CRLB registration territory. If you do cross that line, the Board's insurance requirements apply. It requires a $500,000 Certificate of Liability Insurance indicating CRLB as the certificate holder, and workers compensation insurance for businesses with employees, also naming CRLB as certificate holder. For a service and repair plumbing business this is usually a clean no. For a plumbing company that sells whole-bathroom or whole-kitchen work, it is a live question worth settling with the Board before the first such job rather than after.
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The penalty section is short, specific and counts per person. Section 5-20-33 sets a fine of one thousand five hundred dollars for a first offense and a fine of not less than two thousand dollars for subsequent violations. It applies to individuals, firms and corporations alike, and to both licensed and unlicensed persons, so a licensed plumber who breaches the chapter is inside it as well as an unlicensed one. The sentence that raises the exposure is the counting rule: each individual person acting in violation of the provisions of this chapter shall constitute a separate offense. Send three unlicensed people to a job and the arithmetic multiplies rather than adds. The section prescribes monetary penalties only and sets no term of imprisonment. Enforcement has its own machinery. Section 5-20-33.1 covers enforcement, section 5-20-34 covers prosecution of violations, and section 5-20-40 covers investigation and prosecution of violations. Section 5-20-36 gives the state injunctions, and section 5-20-27 sets the grounds for revocation of a license, which is the sanction that actually ends a business rather than costing it money. The chapter also catches conduct that is not about pipe at all. Because section 5-20-8 lists advertising or representing oneself as a master among the acts requiring a license, marketing yourself as a master plumber before the license issues is itself the violation the penalty section prices.
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Chapter 5-20 carves out less than contractors expect, and it is worth knowing the shape of the exemptions before relying on one. Section 5-20-35 exempts the installation of automatic sprinkler systems or other fire protection appliances, and employees of public utilities, whether publicly or privately owned. It exempts farms, golf courses and nurseries performing irrigation work on their premises only. It allows municipalities and water districts to use their own employees or licensed contractors to replace water meters and meter reading devices. What is not in that list is a general homeowner exemption. Several neighboring states let an owner work on their own home without a license. The Rhode Island exemption section as published does not contain a general do-it-yourself carve out for plumbing in an owner-occupied house. On top of the state license sits a municipal permit layer. Section 5-20-26 states that nothing contained in this chapter prohibits any city or town from providing for a plumbing inspector or from requiring permits for the installation and repair of plumbing or irrigation systems, and lets the municipality charge fees for them. That section authorizes the permit and the inspector. It does not add a second local license, and it does not itself restrict who may pull the permit. The restriction on who may do the work comes from sections 5-20-8 and 5-20-9 instead. So in Rhode Island you hold one license and you deal with as many municipal permit desks as you have jobs.
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Rhode Island publishes an online license lookup and the Department links it directly from its Professional Regulation page. The Division's license lookup runs at dltweb.dlt.ri.gov/profregsonline, alongside its applications page and its examination information page. That is the record a customer or a general contractor checks, and it is why the number on your vehicle and your estimate is worth getting right. A license number that does not resolve in the Department's own system is worse for a plumbing company than no number printed at all. There are two other checks a customer can make without any system at all, because Rhode Island wrote them into the rules. The first is the certificate on the wall. Section 5-20-24 requires that in every place from which a plumbing business is conducted there shall be on display at all times a certificate of license. The second is the certificate in the technician's pocket, since the regulation requires an individual licensee to carry the license or registration certificate at all times on his or her person while engaged in plumbing work. For commercial and municipal work the check happens on the paperwork. The regulation requires the contractor license number on any contract executed and any bid filed, and section 5-20-8 adds applicable permits. Awarding authorities read those numbers. Treat the lookup entry, the wall certificate, the pocket certificate and the number on the bid as one system, because that is how Rhode Island enforces it.
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These are common details other guides publish about Rhode Island, but we could not verify them from the agency source. Confirm them directly before relying on them.
Yes. Licensing runs through the Division of Professional Regulation in the Department of Labor and Training, under the Board of Examiners of Plumbers, with the statute at Rhode Island General Laws chapter 5-20 and the working rules at 260-RICR-30-15-9. The Division licenses the individual at apprentice, journeyperson and master level, and also licenses the business through section 5-20-12 and the Contractor Master Plumber class.
Section 5-20-17 requires 8,000 hours of on-the-job training during a five-year period plus 576 hours of related instruction at a training program recognized by the department, and requires the applicant to have held a certificate of registration as a registered apprentice plumber for at least four years before filing. The regulation adds that the whole 8,000 hours must be worked as a registered apprentice plumber in Rhode Island.
One year. Section 5-20-16 requires an active journeyperson license for a minimum of one year plus an affidavit confirming employment by a licensed master during that period, and the regulation states the same one year of experience as a licensed journeyperson employed by a licensed master. The master application must be filed at least thirty days before the examination date.
The Department's Plumbers and Irrigators application states that the examination consists of 50 multiple choice questions based on the 2018 International Plumbing Code. The regulation says examinations are given at least three times a year at times and places designated by the Director, and that the Board determines the passing score. Seats are first come, first served and space is limited.
A non-refundable application fee of $75 applies to each class, and the license fee is paid on passing. Master Plumber, Contractor Master, Master Irrigator and Master water-filtration installer are $240. Journeyperson classes are $72. Section 5-20-23 sets the same $240 and $72.00 as the biennial renewal fees, with a $12.00 administrative assessment for a delinquent period.
On your birthday, every two years, in the parity year matching your birth year. Section 5-20-23 states that individuals born in odd years renew on their birthday in odd years and individuals born in even years renew on their birthday in even years. A license not renewed within two years of expiration is deemed forfeited and reissue then requires a written examination application.
Yes. The regulation requires Master and Journeyperson Plumbers to complete seven hours of approved continuing education with an approved Provider during every two year license cycle, and section 5-20-23 caps any required course at fifteen hours. The Department's notice states the requirement becomes enforceable beginning January 2027. Approved instructors, Rhode Island plumbing inspectors and building officials are exempt.
Yes. Both the regulation and the Department's continuing education notice exempt an individual whose years of experience as a licensed Master Plumber or Journeyperson Plumber and years of age, when combined, equal a total of eighty years. Count licensed years rather than years in the trade before relying on it.
Section 5-20-24 requires any sign, listing or advertisement of any type of a master plumber to contain name, address and license number, and requires that information on all trucks used in the business. The regulation adds that all vehicles and places of business shall display the Department-issued license class and number, with lettering at a minimum size of three inches.
Yes. The regulation requires an individual licensee to affix the contractor license number to any contract executed and any bid filed with any person, and section 5-20-8 adds applicable permits. The same rules require the licensee to carry the license certificate on their person at all times while working, and to display a certificate of license at the place of business.
Only if you work outside the scope of your plumbing license. The CRLB states that plumbers and electricians do not need to register unless they are contracting work outside the scope of the license issued by the Department of Labor and Training. If you do register, the Board requires a $500,000 Certificate of Liability Insurance naming CRLB as certificate holder, plus workers compensation if you have employees.
Section 5-20-33 sets a fine of $1,500 for a first offense and not less than $2,000 for subsequent violations, applying to individuals, firms and corporations, licensed and unlicensed alike. Each individual person acting in violation constitutes a separate offense, so penalties multiply by head count on a job. The section prescribes no term of imprisonment.
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