South Dakota · Plumbing licensing · official-source guide
South Dakota licenses plumbing at state level through the State Plumbing Commission, created by SDCL 36-25-2 and housed in the Department of Labor and Regulation. It licenses the individual by grade, not the business entity. The top grade is plumbing contractor, which takes six years of experience at 1,900 hours a year and a passing score of 80 percent on the state exam.
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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.
The South Dakota State Plumbing Commission issues every plumbing license in the state. SDCL 36-25-2 created it and put five governor-appointed members on it: one plumber, one plumbing contractor, one representative of the State Department of Health, and two lay members. SDCL 36-25-6.1 continues the commission inside the Department of Labor and Regulation. The office is at 217 W. Missouri Ave., Pierre, SD 57501. What the commission licenses is a person, not a company. SDCL 36-25-1(6) defines a plumbing contractor as any person qualified and skilled in the planning, superintending and practical installation of plumbing who is registered to contract for plumbing installations. SDCL 36-25-19 lists the thirteen license types the commission sets fees for, and every one of them is a personal grade: plumber, plumbing contractor, sewer and water contractor, sewer and water installer, appliance contractor, appliance installer, manufactured and mobile home contractor and installer, underground irrigation contractor and installer, water conditioning contractor and installer, and individual and small on-site wastewater system installer. There is no separate registration for an LLC or a corporation with the commission. The plumbing license application asks for a Social Security number, a date of birth, an employer and two personal references in the plumbing industry. SDCL 36-25-17 makes the license mandatory for plumbing on any property connected to a public waterworks or sewer system, with four narrow exceptions covering your own residence, a single-family home you are building to live in, repair work where you are employed, and repair work on your own property.
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Four plumbing grades sit on top of each other. The apprentice license is the entry point and requires only a completed apprentice application showing the plumbing contractor you will work under. The third-year apprentice plumber license comes after two years and 3,800 hours of learning and assisting under a plumbing contractor, plus a passing score on a state-administered exam. ARSD 20:53:03:05 is the operative rule, and SDCL 36-25-17.2 backs it. Passing that exam lets an apprentice work without immediate and personal supervision during the third and fourth years, but only on single family dwellings. The plumber license requires four years as an apprentice at a minimum of 1,900 hours per year. The plumbing contractor license requires six years as a plumbing contractor, plumber or plumber's apprentice, with at least two of those six as a contractor or plumber, again at 1,900 hours per year. Only the plumbing contractor grade lets you contract for plumbing installations and conduct the business of plumbing. There is a fifth path. SDCL 36-25-17.1 lets the commission waive certain licensing requirements for an applicant in a rural area or a municipality of less than fifteen hundred population, and ARSD chapter 20:53:09 builds a restricted license around that waiver. A restricted licensee may work only in a rural area or a municipality under fifteen hundred people.
South Dakota splits several trades out of the plumbing license, and a plumbing contractor license does not automatically carry them. Sewer and water is its own pair: the installer license takes two years as a sewer and water apprentice, and the contractor license takes one year as a licensed installer. ARSD 20:53:01:01 draws the line at the building valve and three feet inside the building wall, so the water service terminates at the water service building valve and the sewer service terminates three feet inside the wall. Appliance installation is its own pair as well, covering local connections to water and waste systems for equipment that runs on electricity or gas, and specifically not the connection and repair of sanitary plumbing fixtures. Water conditioning, underground irrigation and manufactured and mobile home work each have a contractor grade and an installer grade on the same one-year and two-year pattern. SDCL 36-25-24.1 limits underground irrigation to any nonagricultural irrigation system, which means lawn and grounds systems rather than field irrigation. Septic is separate again. SDCL 36-25-17.3 says an individual and small on-site wastewater system may only be altered, repaired, constructed or installed by a person holding the individual and small on-site wastewater system installer license, and that license has no stated experience requirement in the commission's published requirements, only the application and fee. If you want to sell and install softeners, lawn irrigation or septic alongside plumbing, each is a separate application, exam and annual fee.
Two shortcuts exist and both are written into rule rather than left to staff discretion. ARSD 20:53:03:04 gives trade school credit. A graduate of an accredited trade school with at least a nine-month plumbing program containing at least 1,020 hours of plumbing instruction, or a graduate of a three-year accredited association apprenticeship training program, may apply to sit the plumber's exam after three years in which they accumulated 5,700 hours of experience as a plumber's apprentice. That is one year and 1,900 hours shorter than the standard four-year path. Military credit is separate and is stated on the commission's licensing page and in ARSD 20:53:03:02 in the same words: credit for military plumbing is given at the rate of one year of credit for each two years in the military, up to a maximum of five years of credit. The application requires proof. You have to name the branch, the enlistment and discharge dates, describe the military plumbing work and give a supervisor's name and contact information. The same application asks whether you graduated a plumbing trade school or program and requires documentation of completion for the credit to count. Experience that is not trade school or military has to be verified by the plumbing contractor you worked under, on the commission's Plumbing Experience Verification Form or in a signed letter carrying the same information.
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ARSD 20:53:03:07 sets the format and it is the same exam structure for the plumber and the plumbing contractor. Part 1 is questions based on the state plumbing code with the code open in front of you, and you get no more than two hours. Part 2 is questions based on the state plumbing code with the code closed, and again no more than two hours. Part 3 is drawings of plumbing fixtures on which you size all stacks, wastes and vents and insert the pipe size, with one hour allowed. The code may not be used on Part 3 for the plumber exam, but the code may be used on Part 3 for the plumbing contractor exam. The questions and drawings may differ between the two grades. The passing grade is 80 percent for plumbing contractors and 70 percent for plumbers. You may sit the exam for the same license only once every three months. For the restricted license under ARSD 20:53:03:10 the exam is code-based with the code open, and the same 80 percent and 70 percent thresholds apply. The commission grades the exams itself under ARSD 20:53:02:10. First-time candidates get ten days notice by first class mail of the time and place under ARSD 20:53:02:09, and that notice is given only once. An approved exam application expires and is cancelled six months after the approval date, and the fees are forfeited if you do not appear.
The commission runs the exam itself rather than through a national vendor. Exams are held in Pierre at any time by advance appointment, arranged by phone or email with the commission office. Sioux Falls and Rapid City sessions are not on preset dates. The commission holds them when enough applicants have accumulated to warrant the travel, and it states that eight to ten applicants is the minimum that justifies a trip. The published exam fees are set by ARSD 20:53:12:02 and repeated on the commission's exam page. Contractor exams and re-exams cost $100. Plumber and installer exams and re-exams cost $100. The third-year plumbing apprentice exam and re-exam cost $50. SDCL 36-25-19 caps any examination or reexamination fee at one hundred dollars, so the current schedule sits at the statutory ceiling for the two higher grades. First-time examinees must have both the application fee and the exam fee submitted, and must have been approved, before they can schedule in Pierre or attend a session in Rapid City or Sioux Falls. Re-exam candidates must get the re-exam fee in at least two weeks before a session to be added to it. Exam and reexamination fees are non-refundable. Applicants who need a disability accommodation file the commission's Disability Accommodation Request for Exam Application, which is published on the applications and forms page.
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ARSD chapter 20:53:12 took effect on July 2, 2025 and is the current fee schedule. Initial application fees are $50 for a contractor license, $50 for an installer or plumber license, and $20 for an apprentice license. The application fee is non-refundable and must accompany the application. Initial license fees and annual renewal fees are the larger numbers: $275 for a plumbing contractor license, $235 for a sewer and water contractor license, $200 for an appliance, manufactured and mobile home, underground irrigation or water conditioning contractor license, and $105 for a plumber or installer license. An apprentice license costs $20 for the first year, $30 for the second, $40 for the third and $50 for four or more years. A temporary license fee is $50 and it must be paid before you take the exam for the first time. A duplicate or replacement license costs $10. A license verification costs $20 per request. SDCL 36-25-19 caps an initial application fee at sixty dollars, a license verification at thirty dollars, an examination at one hundred dollars and a license or renewal at three hundred dollars, so the plumbing contractor renewal at $275 has room left under the cap. All fees are non-refundable, and a plumbing license application expires thirty days from the date the commission receives it.
South Dakota charges per job as well as per year, and the plumbing installation certificate is the piece contractors most often get wrong. ARSD 20:53:10:02 requires any person who performs plumbing work, except plumbing repair work, to report the work to the commission on a plumbing installation certificate form. The form costs $20 and is obtained from the commission. Before you start an installation that is subject to inspection, you send the white original to the commission office with the fee attached. You keep the yellow copy. The pink copy goes to the owner of the premises. The green copy must be posted at the job location. Failing to file the certificate before commencing work carries an administrative late fee of $100 assessed to the installer. ARSD 20:53:10:03 sets the permit fees: $110 for a single-family dwelling, $275 for a multiple family, assembly, workplace, institution, hotel, mercantile, business, storage, educational, factory or industrial structure, and $100 for any commercial facility with five or fewer plumbing fixtures. Each additional inspection beyond the three included costs $75. A permit expires two years from the date the permittee signs it, and may be extended one year for half the original fee if the request comes in before expiration. SDCL 36-25-19.2 waives the state permit in any political subdivision where a local plumbing permit has been issued, unless a state inspection is also requested.
This is the short section, and the shortness is the point. SDCL chapter 36-25 contains no bond requirement and no insurance requirement for a plumbing contractor, a plumber or any of the specialty grades. ARSD article 20:53 contains none either. The commission's licensing page lists experience, an application and a fee, and stops there. The Plumbing License Application asks about criminal history and prior license revocations; it does not ask for a certificate of insurance or a surety bond. That does not mean you will work uninsured. Two other layers put the requirement back. SDCL 36-25-16 lets any municipality make and enforce its own plumbing requirements and standards, and both of South Dakota's largest cities use that authority to demand security a plumbing contractor working statewide would not otherwise carry. Sioux Falls requires a $10,000 compliance bond as a condition of its master plumber license. Rapid City requires a valid certificate of insurance from every applicant for every trade license and sets the minimum general aggregate liability at $1,000,000, with $300,000 fire damage and $1,000,000 each occurrence. General contractors and owners on commercial jobs routinely set their own limits in the subcontract. So the practical answer for a plumbing business in South Dakota is that the state will license you without proof of coverage and your customers and your cities will not.
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SDCL 36-25-19.4 sets the expiration dates. A plumbing contractor or plumber license expires December 31. Water conditioning, appliance, sewer and water, manufactured and mobile home, underground irrigation and small on-site wastewater licenses expire June 30. Continuing education is the condition of renewal. SDCL 36-25-32 and ARSD 20:53:11:05 both require a minimum of four hours of continuing education relating to the plumbing trade during the previous license period, and the commission's continuing education page adds that two of those four hours must cover code. The requirement reaches plumbing contractors, restricted plumbing contractors, plumbers, restricted plumbers and third-year apprentice plumbers licensed by examination. An hour means at least 50 minutes of classroom time. Verification of completion has to reach the commission office before the license is renewed. An applicant coming in new by reciprocity must complete four hours of continuing education before the license is issued, not after. Two primary sources disagree on the grace period and both are current. SDCL 36-25-19.4 says an expired license may be renewed no later than six months following the date of expiration. ARSD 20:53:02:20 says licenses may be renewed upon application not later than the immediately following January 31. ARSD 20:53:12:03 adds a third marker: any licensee still performing or offering to perform licensed services sixty days or more after expiration is subject to disciplinary proceedings.
The commission publishes a Plumbing License Reinstatement Application and it prices the outcome plainly. Reinstating a plumbing contractor license costs $425. Reinstating a plumber license costs $255. The form states that plumbing licenses expire annually on December 31, and that an application to reinstate an expired license received after the immediately following January 31 is subject to initial license application requirements, which means a $50 application fee and a $100 exam fee on top. The examination itself is waived if the reinstatement application arrives within one year of expiration. Past one year, you test again. Reinstatement will not be processed without verification of continuing education completion, so the four hours you skipped while lapsed still have to be made up and documented. The form also asks whether you have been convicted of, or pled guilty or nolo contendere to, a crime of violence as defined under SDCL 22-1-2 since your last renewal, and requires the criminal complaint or indictment, the sentencing order and any evidence of rehabilitation if the answer is yes. SDCL 36-25-27 gives the commission separate grounds to refuse, revoke, suspend or limit a license, including failure to comply with local plumbing ordinances and failure to notify the commission in writing within thirty days of a denial, revocation or suspension in another jurisdiction or of any change of address or employment.
South Dakota does not publish a list of reciprocal states, and that absence is the finding. SDCL 36-25-21 says the commission may register a nonresident applicant without examination, on payment of the required initial application fee, examination fee and license fee, where the applicant is registered in another state and the commission determines that state's regulation of plumbers is substantially equivalent to South Dakota's. ARSD 20:53:02:21 adds the conditions. You must have been licensed by examination in the state you come from. That state must have licensure laws similar to South Dakota's. Your work there must have complied with that state's plumbing code, and that code must equal or exceed the South Dakota state plumbing code. The commission investigates and may require affidavits. If it refuses, the matter is treated as a contested case with a hearing date. The normal examination fee accompanies the application either way. The commission's reciprocity page then carves out the common case: if you were licensed by testing on the IPC or another code, you must provide verification of your current license and the experience needed to obtain it in order to be approved to take South Dakota's own examination for the same license type. South Dakota's plumbing code sits in ARSD article 20:54 and is built on the Uniform Plumbing Code under SDCL 36-25-15. An IPC-state plumber should plan on testing.
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SDCL 36-25-30 makes any person, firm or corporation violating any provision of chapter 36-25 guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor. SDCL 22-6-2 prices a Class 2 misdemeanor at thirty days imprisonment in a county jail or a five hundred dollar fine, or both. That is the criminal side. The commission has a civil route as well. SDCL 36-25-31 empowers the State Plumbing Commission to commence actions for injunction for violation of the chapter or the regulations under it as an alternative to criminal proceedings, and states that commencing one proceeding constitutes an election. The licensing consequences are separate again and reach further. SDCL 36-25-27 lets the commission refuse to issue, revoke or suspend a license, or limit the scope of any license, for failure to comply with any law or any rule or order of the commission, for failure to comply with local plumbing ordinances, and for knowingly aiding and abetting any person who is not licensed to engage in activity that requires a license. That last clause is the one that catches an established contractor who lets an unlicensed helper run a job. ARSD 20:53:12:03 adds that continuing to perform or offer licensed services sixty days or more after a license expires is itself grounds for disciplinary proceedings, so a lapse is not a technicality.
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South Dakota does not require a plumbing license number in advertising at state level. Nothing in SDCL chapter 36-25 mentions advertising, signage, vehicles, websites or written estimates, and nothing in ARSD article 20:53 imposes a display requirement on a plumbing licensee. The only posting duty the state does impose is on the job, not on the truck: ARSD 20:53:10:02 requires the green copy of the plumbing installation certificate to be posted at the job location, the pink copy to go to the property owner, and the yellow to stay with the installer. What the state does regulate is the name you trade under and the grade you claim. SDCL 36-25-1(6) reserves the term plumbing contractor to a person registered to contract for plumbing installations, and SDCL 36-25-17 bars unlicensed plumbing on any property connected to a public water or sewer system, which means advertising yourself as a plumbing contractor without that grade is the offense whether or not a number appears in the ad. The local layer is where display rules actually live. Memphis-style vehicle lettering rules do not exist here, but Rapid City and Sioux Falls both license by trade, and Rapid City requires every applicant for every license to present a valid certificate of insurance to the Building Official at the time of application under RCMC 15.04.140.
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A South Dakota plumbing contractor license does not let you work inside Sioux Falls city limits. The city licenses separately. The master plumber contractor license requires you to first hold the state plumbing contractor license, then pass the City of Sioux Falls master plumber examination. The city exam costs $75, contains 115 multiple choice questions made up of 100 questions on the currently adopted code and 15 questions divided equally across waste and vent, water and gas sizing, and requires 80 percent to pass. It is offered monthly. Once you pass you have 90 days to apply, and after 90 days you retest. The license application requires a copy of your current South Dakota Plumbing Commission plumbing contractor license and a $10,000 compliance bond. The license fee is $200, or $100 prorated if you apply in the second year of a cycle, and the license runs on two-year cycles expiring December 31 of the second year. Journeymen need both licenses too. The city states that journeyman plumbers must hold a state and a city license if working within Sioux Falls city limits, the journeyman exam is the same 115-question format, and the passing score is 75 percent. City licenses must be renewed every two years, and a journeyman license expired more than twelve months requires retesting. Sioux Falls also licenses mobile home plumbing installation contractors and irrigation contractors separately.
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Rapid City runs a Class PC plumbing contractor license under RCMC 15.24 and administers it through RCMC 15.04.140. RCMC 15.24.050 makes it unlawful to engage in the business of plumbing or act as a plumbing contractor without a valid plumbing contractor's license issued by the State of South Dakota, and unlawful to labor at the trade in the capacity of a plumbing contractor without a plumber's license issued by the Building Official. So the state license is the prerequisite and the city license is the permission. RCMC 15.04.140 requires every applicant for every license to present a valid certificate of insurance at the time of application, sets the minimum general aggregate liability at $1,000,000 with $300,000 fire damage and $1,000,000 each occurrence, and states that plumbing contractor licenses are valid for one year while Class A, B and C licenses generally run three. The license fee is set by resolution of the Common Council rather than in the code. Verification is the weak point statewide. The commission does not run a live search. It publishes PDF rosters on its consumer information page: a list of South Dakota licensed plumbers, a list of specialty licensees and a list of small on-site wastewater installers, each dated. Sioux Falls publishes its own current contractor list as a spreadsheet. Tell customers which list to open, because there is no name box to type into.
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These are common details other guides publish about South Dakota, but we could not verify them from the agency source. Confirm them directly before relying on them.
Yes. The South Dakota State Plumbing Commission, created by SDCL 36-25-2 and housed in the Department of Labor and Regulation, licenses plumbing statewide. SDCL 36-25-17 requires a license for plumbing on any property connected to a public waterworks or sewer system, with exceptions for work on your own residence and for plumbing repair work on your own property or where you are employed.
The person. Every license type in SDCL 36-25-19 is a personal grade, and the application asks for a Social Security number, date of birth, employer and two industry references. There is no separate business registration with the commission. The plumbing contractor grade is what allows a person to contract for plumbing installations and conduct the business of plumbing.
Six years as a plumbing contractor, plumber or plumber's apprentice, with at least two of those six spent as a plumbing contractor or plumber, and at least 1,900 hours in each of the six years. The plumber license below it takes four years as an apprentice at 1,900 hours per year.
Eighty percent for the plumbing contractor exam and 70 percent for the plumber exam, under ARSD 20:53:03:07. The exam has three parts: open-code questions with a two hour limit, closed-code questions with a two hour limit, and a one hour drawing section where you size stacks, wastes and vents.
The initial application fee is $50 and the exam fee is $100. The initial license fee and the annual renewal fee for a plumbing contractor license are both $275 under ARSD 20:53:12:03. A plumber or installer license is $105 a year. A license verification request costs $20 and a duplicate license costs $10.
Plumbing contractor and plumber licenses expire December 31 each year under SDCL 36-25-19.4. The specialty licenses, including sewer and water, appliance, water conditioning, underground irrigation, manufactured and mobile home and small on-site wastewater, expire June 30.
Four hours relating to the plumbing trade during the previous license period, and the commission requires two of those four to cover code. It applies to plumbing contractors, restricted plumbing contractors, plumbers, restricted plumbers and third-year apprentice plumbers licensed by examination. An hour means at least 50 minutes of classroom time.
Not at state level. SDCL chapter 36-25 and ARSD article 20:53 impose no bond and no insurance minimum. The cities do. Sioux Falls requires a $10,000 compliance bond for its master plumber license, and Rapid City sets a minimum general aggregate liability of $1,000,000 with $300,000 fire damage and $1,000,000 each occurrence.
Only case by case. SDCL 36-25-21 lets the commission register a nonresident without examination where it finds that state's regulation substantially equivalent, and ARSD 20:53:02:21 requires that you were licensed by examination there and that the state's plumbing code equals or exceeds South Dakota's. If you tested on the IPC, the commission's reciprocity page directs you to sit the South Dakota exam.
SDCL 36-25-30 makes any violation of chapter 36-25 a Class 2 misdemeanor, which SDCL 22-6-2 prices at thirty days in a county jail or a five hundred dollar fine, or both. The commission may instead seek an injunction under SDCL 36-25-31, and may refuse, suspend or revoke a license under SDCL 36-25-27.
Yes in both. Sioux Falls requires a city master plumber license on top of the state plumbing contractor license, with a $75 exam at 80 percent passing, a $10,000 compliance bond and a $200 license fee. Rapid City issues a Class PC plumbing contractor license under RCMC 15.24 and requires the state license first under RCMC 15.24.050.
Through the commission's consumer information page, which publishes dated PDF rosters of licensed plumbers, specialty licensees and small on-site wastewater installers. There is no live search box. Sioux Falls publishes its own current contractor list separately, and the commission accepts complaints about a plumber's work through its complaint page.
We can review the local market, your current search visibility, and paid-search fit before recommending any marketing work.