- The Number: 70% and What It Does Not Tell You
- Two Parts, One Test: Closed Book and Open Book
- What the Exam Covers
- Passing Score Is Not a Pass Rate
- Your Score Sets Your Retake Wait
- The NEC Edition Question
- Matching Your Prep to the Scoring Reality
- Fees, Eligibility, and Logistics Around the Score
- After You Pass: License and March 31 Renewal
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The North Dakota State Electrical Board (NDSEB) publishes a 70% passing grade for the journeyman examination.
- The exam runs one hour closed book plus three hours thirty minutes open book: four hours thirty minutes total.
- A failed score sets your wait: 60-69 means none, 50-59 means three months, 0-49 means six months.
- The public page does not say whether 70% applies to each section separately, so prepare to clear both parts.
The Number: 70% and What It Does Not Tell You
The passing grade for the North Dakota Journeyman Electrician examination is 70%. That figure comes from the North Dakota State Electrical Board (NDSEB), which administers the exam. If you have seen 75% quoted elsewhere, or read about an 80-question test, those details belong to other credentials and commercial prep sites, not to this exam. NDSEB has not published an exact question count in the information retrieved for this article, so you should not plan around one.
The 70% figure is clear. What is less clear is how it is applied. The public page does not say whether the 70% grade must be earned separately on the closed-book portion and the open-book portion, or whether it is calculated on a combined basis. Until NDSEB clarifies that in writing, the safest assumption is that you need to perform solidly on both parts. If you want a broader look at how demanding the test is, our guide on how hard the ND-JE exam is walks through the difficulty factors.
Two Parts, One Test: Closed Book and Open Book
The exam is not entirely open book, and it is not entirely closed book. It is a mixed format with a fixed time structure:
| Component | Time | Reference access |
|---|---|---|
| Closed-book portion | 1 hour | None; rely on what you know |
| Open-book portion | 3 hours 30 minutes | Board-supplied materials |
| Total examination time | 4 hours 30 minutes | Per your invitation |
That four-and-a-half-hour total is examination time only. It is not a count of training hours, and it does not include a separately verified practical or hands-on assessment. The exact multiple-choice versus other written item format was not published in the retrieved official exam information, so avoid prep resources that claim to know the precise item mix.
What the closed-book hour rewards
With no reference access, the closed-book portion favors candidates who have internalized fundamental electricity: relationships among voltage, current, resistance, and power; series and parallel behavior; basic circuit reasoning. You cannot look anything up, so recall speed and conceptual clarity decide your result here. Our ND-JE cheat sheet is a good place to consolidate the facts worth memorizing before test day.
What the open-book portion rewards
The longer portion rewards navigation skill. NDSEB supplies codebooks, calculators, and pencils, so you are working from the Board's references rather than your own annotated copy. Advice you may have read from other jurisdictions about tabbing a personal codebook or bringing a favorite calculator is not verified NDSEB policy. Read your invitation carefully for the supplied-reference instructions, and practice finding answers quickly in a clean, unmarked code book.
What the Exam Covers
NDSEB's published exam information names three broad subjects. These are issuer-published topics, not a weighted blueprint. NDSEB has not released percentages, per-subject question allocations, or a ranking of which area counts most. Anyone claiming to know the exact weighting is guessing.
Domain 1: Fundamental Electricity
The conceptual base of the trade, and the natural home of the closed-book hour.
- Ohm's law relationships and power calculations
- Series, parallel, and combination circuit behavior
- Alternating-current basics that support later code work
Domain 2: Laws, Rules, and Wiring Standards of North Dakota
The state-specific layer that generic national prep tends to skip.
- North Dakota licensing laws and administrative rules
- State wiring standards that apply on top of, or alongside, the national code
- Responsibilities and requirements specific to licensed electricians in the state
Domain 3: The Current Edition of the National Electrical Code
The reference-heavy subject where open-book navigation pays off.
- Locating the right article, table, and exception under time pressure
- Applying code rules to calculation and installation scenarios
- Knowing which code edition the exam is actually built on
For a deeper treatment of each area, see our complete guide to the three ND-JE content areas.
Using the apprentice curriculum as a study map
NDSEB's apprentice education requirements list 15 required core classes: Electrical Plans/Print Reading; Branch Circuit Distribution; Electrical Grounding/Bonding; Electrical Theory; Fire Alarm System; Industry Orientation (Laws & Rules); Material Identification; Mathematic; Motor Controls; Motors; National Electrical Code; Electrical Safety; Overcurrent Protection; Building Automation; and Transformers. That spelling, "Mathematic," is how the Board lists it.
Be careful with this list. It is a preparation curriculum for the ordinary apprentice-to-journeyman route, not a set of formal exam objectives, and it is unweighted. The core curriculum totals 475 required hours plus 101 elective hours, 576 in all, with the NEC class carrying 140 classroom hours. That 140-hour figure reflects classroom time, not how heavily the code is weighted on the exam. Use the list as a checklist of what a well-trained candidate should know, not as a prediction of question counts.
Passing Score Is Not a Pass Rate
These two ideas get confused constantly. The passing score is the threshold you must reach: 70%. A pass rate is the share of candidates who actually clear it. No exact-exam first-attempt or aggregate pass rate for the North Dakota journeyman examination was publicly verified, so any specific percentage you encounter online should be treated skeptically. Our page on the ND-JE pass rate explains what can and cannot be said from public information.
Your Score Sets Your Retake Wait
North Dakota does not treat every failure the same. How far you fall short determines how long you wait before sitting again:
| Score range | Waiting period |
|---|---|
| 60-69 | No waiting period |
| 50-59 | Three months |
| 0-49 | Six months |
To retest, submit the re-examination application and fee and wait for a new invitation. The Board does not provide exam reviews, so you will not get a question-by-question breakdown of what you missed. That makes your own post-exam notes valuable: write down every topic that felt shaky within hours of finishing, while the memory is fresh.
What the ladder means for strategy
A near miss is cheap in time but still costs another application fee. A deep miss costs months. The practical lesson is to avoid sitting the exam before you can consistently score above 70% on realistic practice questions, since the penalty for a weak first attempt can stretch to half a year. If you are weighing readiness, our ND-JE study guide lays out a full first-attempt approach.
The NEC Edition Question
Code-version timing is one of the most confusing parts of preparing right now. The 2026 Laws, Rules, Wiring and Conveyance Standards took effect July 1, 2026, and reference NEC 2026 and NFPA 101 (2024). Yet older general Laws & Rules webpage text still refers to NEC 2023. Meanwhile, the Board's July 2026 newsletter (NDSEB Connections, Issue 286) says exams were being updated with NEC 2026 questions for introduction in early fall 2026.
The important point: legal adoption of a code edition on July 1 is not proof of the date your exam converts. Neither the newsletter nor the July meeting minutes establishes the exact cutover for any individual journeyman exam. So the instruction is simple and firm: confirm the code edition in your Board invitation and in the references supplied at the testing site, and study from the edition you will actually be tested on.
Key Takeaway
Do not study NEC-only. State-specific wiring rules remain part of the published exam subjects, and an exam in transition between code editions is exactly when a candidate who memorized the wrong edition loses points. Verify the edition first, then build your prep around it.
Matching Your Prep to the Scoring Reality
Because the exam splits into a short closed-book section and a long open-book section, the most efficient schedule front-loads what you must memorize and back-loads what you must navigate. Here is one way to sequence an eight-week lead-up, tied to the three published subjects:
Fundamental electricity, closed-book mode
- Drill circuit relationships and math without notes, since this is what the one-hour portion tests
- Revisit the apprentice core areas of Electrical Theory and Mathematic
North Dakota laws, rules, and wiring standards
- Read the current Laws, Rules, Wiring and Conveyance Standards directly
- Note where state requirements differ from or add to the national code
NEC navigation and application
- Practice locating answers in a clean codebook against a clock
- Work grounding/bonding, overcurrent protection, motors, and transformers problems
- Include fire-alarm and hazardous-location topics, which are common study examples but not confirmed exam weightings
Full-length mixed rehearsal
- Simulate one closed-book hour followed by a long open-book session
- Confirm the code edition and testing instructions in your invitation
If you want timed questions that reflect this format, the ND-JE practice test site is built for that kind of rehearsal, and you can pair it with a review of the structure in our study guide.
Fees, Eligibility, and Logistics Around the Score
Clearing 70% is only one part of the process. Several administrative steps determine whether you ever get to sit the exam, and where.
What it costs
The journeyman examination application or reapplication fee is $25. If you pass, license issuance is a separate $25, and annual renewal is another $25. These are government application and license charges, not a verified all-inclusive testing package. The 2026 rules permit a separate examination-provider charge if one is required, but no separately assessed current provider fee was verified. No member versus non-member price distinction is published. For the full picture, see our ND-JE certification cost breakdown.
Who can apply
Eligibility centers on 8,000 qualifying hours over at least three years as a registered apprentice under a contracting master or master of record, in a jurisdiction with similar licensing and inspection rules, plus successful approved apprentice training. At least 4,000 of those hours must be qualifying installation experience. An approved electrical-school program of at least two years can earn 2,000 hours of experience credit. Category caps include 1,000 repair hours, 1,000 fire-alarm hours, 2,000 process-control or power-limited hours, and 2,000 approved military hours, and up to 3,000 Class B experience hours may count under stated conditions. Employers verify your experience on the prescribed Employment Verification form (SFN 11845). Details are in our ND-JE requirements guide.
How scheduling works
Apply and receive approval before choosing an examination date. Your invitation identifies available dates and permits testing within six months. If you cancel or fail to attend, you must submit a new application and fee. Board-administered testing is supported in Bismarck, and no remote or at-home testing entitlement was verified, so do not assume a commercial or online delivery route. Our exam dates and scheduling guide covers the deadlines in more detail. The Board's July 2026 newsletter also directs applicants to obtain the latest posted forms, so do not rely on an older printed revision.
After You Pass: License and March 31 Renewal
Passing the exam does not itself make you licensed; the separate $25 license issuance step follows. After that, the journeyman license renews annually and expires March 31, with renewal opening January 1. Renewal requires eight approved continuing education hours, including at least four code hours, and credit must be on file. The course provider has 15 days to submit its completion roster, so verify the recorded credit with NDSEB rather than assuming it posted. An expired license requires a reinstatement fee equal to the annual license fee.
Frequently Asked Questions
NDSEB's published passing grade is 70%. The public page does not clarify whether that grade is applied separately to the closed-book and open-book sections, so prepare to perform well on both.
Both. It consists of one hour closed book plus three hours thirty minutes open book, for four hours thirty minutes of examination time. It is not entirely open book.
NDSEB did not publish an exact question count in the exam information retrieved for this article. Claims of a specific number, such as 80 questions, come from other credentials or commercial sources and should not be trusted for this exam.
It depends on your score. A score of 60-69 carries no waiting period, 50-59 requires three months, and 0-49 requires six months. You must submit the re-examination application and fee and receive a new invitation.
NDSEB supplies codebooks, calculators, and pencils. Advice about bringing personal references or tabbing a book comes from other jurisdictions and is not verified NDSEB policy. Follow the supplied-reference instructions in your invitation.
For a broader introduction before you commit to a study plan, start with our overview of the ND-JE certification, then test yourself on the practice exam site to see where your 70% gap, if any, actually lies.