- What the ND-JE Actually Is
- Who Issues It and Where You Test
- The Mixed Closed-Book and Open-Book Format
- The Three Published Exam Subjects
- The 15-Topic Apprentice Curriculum as Preparation Material
- Who Can Sit for the Exam
- Fees: Application, License, and Renewal
- NEC Edition Confusion: Adoption vs. Exam Cutover
- Passing Score and Retake Waiting Periods
- Keeping the License: The March 31 Deadline
- Sequencing Your Preparation
- Frequently Asked Questions
- ND-JE here means the North Dakota journeyman electrician license exam administered by the North Dakota State Electrical Board (NDSEB).
- The exam runs four hours thirty minutes: one hour closed book, then three hours thirty minutes open book.
- The published passing grade is 70%, and NDSEB supplies codebooks, calculators, and pencils.
- The exam application fee is $25; the license issuance fee after passing is a separate $25.
What the ND-JE Actually Is
On this site, "ND-JE" is shorthand for the North Dakota Journeyman Electrician License Exam. It is the licensing examination a qualified electrician must pass to earn a journeyman electrician license in North Dakota. It is not a voluntary industry credential, a vendor certification, or a national exam. It is a state licensing gate, and passing it is one required step on the way to working as a licensed journeyman in the state.
A note on the name: "ND-JE" is a project abbreviation used on this site, not an official examination code published by the licensing board. The official credential is simply the Journeyman Electrician license. If you search the web for "ND-JE," you may encounter unrelated credentials that happen to share the same letters. Nothing in this article applies to them. Everything below concerns the North Dakota journeyman electrician license exam and the board that runs it.
If you want a quick orientation to the terminology before going deeper, our short explainers on what ND-JE stands for and what ND-JE means cover the naming question, while this article focuses on what the license exam is and how it works.
Who Issues It and Where You Test
The issuing authority is the North Dakota State Electrical Board (NDSEB), which also publishes the exam information and administers the examination. This matters for preparation because the board's rules, forms, and invitation letters are the authoritative sources. Commercial prep sites, including this one, are study aids and are not affiliated with the board.
Public board documents, including its July 15, 2026 meeting minutes, support Board-administered testing in Bismarck. That is different from the commercial testing-center model many other licensing exams use. No remote or at-home testing entitlement has been verified, so do not assume you can take the exam from your kitchen table or at a nearby commercial center. The invitation you receive from the board will state your location and what reference materials are supplied, and that invitation is the document to trust over anything you read online.
The Mixed Closed-Book and Open-Book Format
The most distinctive feature of this exam is its split structure. The total examination time is four hours thirty minutes, divided into:
- One hour closed book: no reference materials, so you rely on what you know cold.
- Three hours thirty minutes open book: you work with the references the board supplies.
Those figures are examination time, not training hours, and not a separately verified practical or hands-on assessment. Some commercial prep sites advertise an entirely open-book exam; that does not match the published format here. The closed-book hour is where unprepared candidates are most exposed, because there is nothing to look up.
What the board has not published matters too. The retrieved official exam information does not state an exact question count, the split between scored and unscored items, or the precise item format (multiple choice versus other written styles). Be cautious of any source that quotes a specific number of questions for this exam. Without official confirmation, such figures are likely borrowed from a different jurisdiction's test.
What the board supplies
NDSEB supplies codebooks, calculators, and pencils. This is a meaningful detail. Advice you may read elsewhere about bringing your own tabbed code book, personal reference sheets, or a particular calculator model comes from other jurisdictions and is not verified NDSEB policy. Practice with the kind of materials you will actually be handed, and confirm the specifics in your invitation instructions.
The Three Published Exam Subjects
NDSEB's exam information page lists three broad subjects. These are the issuer's published topics, not a detailed or weighted blueprint. No official percentages, per-subject question allocations, or "largest-weighted area" have been published, so any source claiming exact domain weights for this exam is guessing. For a deeper walkthrough of how to study each area, see our complete guide to the ND-JE content areas.
Domain 1: Fundamental Electricity
The theory layer underneath everything else. Expect to be comfortable reasoning about how circuits behave, not just looking up answers.
- Core relationships among voltage, current, resistance, and power
- Series, parallel, and combination circuit analysis
- Comfort with the math these calculations require, since closed-book time rewards fluency
- Foundational concepts that also appear in motors, transformers, and overcurrent topics
Domain 2: Laws, Rules, and Wiring Standards of North Dakota
The state-specific heart of the exam, and the area where generic national prep falls short.
- North Dakota's own laws, rules, and wiring standards, not just the national code
- Licensing structure and requirements as the state defines them
- Adopted standards and how the state layers its rules over model codes
- Reading the board's published Laws, Rules, Wiring and Conveyance Standards document as a primary study text
Domain 3: The Current Edition of the National Electrical Code
Open-book does not mean easy. Speed and navigation skill decide whether you finish.
- Knowing how the code is organized so you can find answers fast
- Applying articles and tables correctly rather than hunting for a section number
- Understanding which edition the exam is actually based on (see the section on code-edition timing below)
- Specialized areas such as hazardous locations and fire alarm systems are worthwhile study examples, though they are not announced as exam sections
The 15-Topic Apprentice Curriculum as Preparation Material
NDSEB separately publishes the required core classes for its apprentice education requirements. These are not the exam's topic list, but they are a useful map of what a North Dakota journeyman-track electrician is expected to have studied. The 15 required core headings are:
- Electrical Plans/Print Reading
- Branch Circuit Distribution
- Electrical Grounding/Bonding
- Electrical Theory
- Fire Alarm System
- Industry Orientation (Laws & Rules)
- Material Identification
- Mathematic (the board's own spelling)
- Motor Controls
- Motors
- National Electrical Code
- Electrical Safety
- Overcurrent Protection
- Building Automation
- Transformers
The curriculum specifies 475 required core hours plus 101 elective hours, for a total of 576. The National Electrical Code class accounts for 140 classroom hours. Do not read that figure as an exam weighting: hours spent teaching a topic do not tell you how many exam items touch it. The separate Apprenticeship Related Training Policy describes at least 144 hours annually over four years, which also sums to 576.
Who Can Sit for the Exam
Eligibility is experience-driven. The core requirement is 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. Within that total, at least 4,000 hours must be qualifying installation experience.
Some experience categories can count toward the total, with caps:
- An approved electrical-school program of at least two years can earn 2,000 hours of experience credit.
- Repair work: up to 1,000 hours.
- Fire-alarm work: up to 1,000 hours.
- Process-control/power-limited work: up to 2,000 hours.
- Approved military experience: up to 2,000 hours.
- Up to 3,000 Class B experience hours may count under the board's stated conditions.
Documentation matters as much as hours. Employers verify your experience on the board's prescribed Employment Verification form (SFN 11845), and you submit applicable transcripts or completion evidence. For applicants whose majority experience was in North Dakota, the application identifies education routes including an accepted two-year electrical school, 576 hours of approved training classes, or a recognized professional electrical apprenticeship program. For the full qualification walkthrough, read our ND-JE requirements guide.
Fees: Application, License, and Renewal
| Charge | Amount | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Journeyman exam application (or re-exam application) | $25 | Each time you apply to test |
| License issuance | $25 | After you pass |
| Annual journeyman renewal | $25 | Each year by March 31 |
These are government application and license charges, not an all-inclusive testing package. The 2026 rules allow for a separate examination-provider charge if one is required, but no separately assessed provider fee has been verified, and no member versus non-member pricing is published. NDSEB's July 2026 newsletter directs applicants to use the latest posted forms, so do not assume an older printed form revision is the only one in circulation. For a full cost picture beyond the board charges, see the ND-JE certification cost breakdown.
NEC Edition Confusion: Adoption vs. Exam Cutover
One of the trickiest points for 2026 candidates is the code edition. The board's 2026 Laws, Rules, Wiring and Conveyance Standards, effective July 1, 2026, reference NEC 2026 and NFPA 101 (2024). Meanwhile, some older general Laws & Rules webpage text still refers to NEC 2023. 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, and the July meeting minutes also describe exam-question updates.
Key Takeaway
Legal adoption of a code edition on July 1 is not proof that your specific exam has switched to that edition on the same day. Neither the newsletter nor the minutes establishes an exact cutover date for an individual journeyman exam. Confirm the code edition in your board invitation and in the references supplied at testing, and keep North Dakota's own wiring rules in your study plan rather than relying on NEC-only prep.
Passing Score and Retake Waiting Periods
The published passing grade is 70%. The public page does not clarify whether that threshold applies separately to each section or only to the overall result, so check your invitation or contact the board if that distinction matters to your strategy. For a closer look at the threshold itself, see our passing score explainer.
A passing grade is not a pass rate. No exact-exam first-attempt or aggregate pass rate has been publicly verified, so be skeptical of any site quoting one. Our pass rate article explains what is and is not known.
Score-dependent retake waits
| Score range | Waiting period before retesting |
|---|---|
| 60-69 | None |
| 50-59 | Three months |
| 0-49 | Six months |
To retest, you submit the re-examination application and fee and receive 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 practice-test habits more important: track weak areas before you sit, because afterward you will only have the score.
Keeping the License: The March 31 Deadline
Passing the exam is not the end of the paperwork. The journeyman license is an annual license that expires March 31, with renewal opening January 1. The annual fee is $25. Renewal requires eight approved CE hours, including at least four code hours, with credit on file. Providers have 15 days to submit their completion roster, so verify that your recorded credit actually appears with NDSEB rather than assuming it posted. An expired license requires a reinstatement fee equal to the annual license fee.
Be careful not to confuse this with the renewal timeline for other license classes, such as master or Class B, which follow different rules. Journeyman renewal is the March 31 cycle.
Sequencing Your Preparation
Because the exam mixes a closed-book hour with a long open-book block, schedule your study so the memory-dependent material is solid first and the navigation skills are drilled last. Here is one way to order it, tied directly to the three exam subjects:
Fundamental electricity and math
- Rebuild circuit-calculation fluency without notes, since closed-book time rewards it
- Revisit motors, transformers, and overcurrent theory from the apprentice curriculum
North Dakota laws, rules, and wiring standards
- Read the board's current Laws, Rules, Wiring and Conveyance Standards document directly
- Note where state rules differ from or add to the model code
NEC navigation and timed practice
- Practice finding answers quickly in the code edition named in your invitation
- Run timed sets split into a closed-book segment and an open-book segment
For a fuller study framework, see our ND-JE study guide, and when you are ready to test yourself under realistic conditions, use the ND-JE practice tests to drill each subject. If you are wondering how demanding the exam is overall, our difficulty guide gives context, and our main practice test site is the quickest way to find your weak spots before you apply.
Frequently Asked Questions
On this site, ND-JE refers to the North Dakota Journeyman Electrician License Exam, the licensing exam administered by the North Dakota State Electrical Board. "ND-JE" is a project abbreviation, not an official exam code.
Both. The published format is one hour closed book followed by three hours thirty minutes open book, for four hours thirty minutes total. NDSEB supplies the codebooks, calculators, and pencils.
The published passing grade is 70%. The public page does not say whether that applies separately to each section, so confirm the details in your board invitation. No verified pass-rate statistic exists for this exam.
The exam application is $25, license issuance after passing is a separate $25, and annual renewal is $25. These are government charges, not a verified all-inclusive package.
A score of 60-69 has no waiting period, 50-59 requires three months, and 0-49 requires six months. You submit a re-exam application and fee and receive a new invitation. The board does not provide exam reviews.