Electrician Exam Pass Rates: Texas TDLR + California (Verified Stats)

Texas TDLR Journeyman pass rate (FY2024)

TDLR publishes Electrician Exam Statistics annually on its website. The fiscal year 2024 report (covering September 1, 2023 through August 31, 2024) shows the following Journeyman Electrician numbers:

• Total Journeyman Electrician exam attempts: 8,490
• Total passes: 2,365
• Total fails: 6,125
• Overall pass rate: 27.86% (2,365 / 8,490)
• Source: TDLR Electrician Exam Statistics, https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/electricians/elecExamStats2024.htm

What the 27.86% means for you

Roughly seven in ten attempts in FY2024 did not pass. If your attempt was one of them, you are inside a very normal distribution, not at the edge of it. The candidates who pass on retake share three habits: they read the score report, they target the bottom-2 domains, and they don’t re-study what they already knew. We wrote a separate page on this: Failed the TDLR exam? Here’s what to do next →

The March 2025 exam-format change

TDLR split the Journeyman Electrician exam into two separate portions on March 11, 2025: a Knowledge portion and a Calculations portion taken separately. FY2024 stats predate the split. FY2025 stats will use the new structure, so direct year-over-year comparison may not be apples-to-apples. We will update this page when TDLR publishes FY2025 data in detail.

California General Electrician pass rate (2022)

The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) publishes pass-rate data for its General Electrician certification exam. The most recently published year with detailed breakdowns is 2022:

• First-time pass rate: 52.95%
• Repeat pass rate: 38.02%
• Exam length: 100 questions, 4 hours 30 minutes
• Passing score: 70%
• Required experience: 8,000 hours
• Mandatory retake wait: 60 days
• Source: California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR)

Why the repeat rate is lower than first-time

The 38.02% repeat rate is counterintuitive but explainable. The first-time cohort includes everyone: the well-prepared, the average, and the underprepared. The retaker cohort is the subset who failed the first time, which by definition skews toward weaker prep. A retake rate below the first-time rate is not the exam getting harder; it is selection bias.

What this tells candidates: if you failed the first time and you change nothing about your study approach, you are statistically in the 62% who fail again. The candidates who flip to the 38% who pass are the ones who read the score report and concentrate on their bottom-2 domains in the 60-day wait window.

The June 2026 California scheduling change

DIR announced new exam scheduling procedures effective June 1, 2026. If your exam is scheduled on or after that date, verify the current procedure on the DIR Candidate Information Bulletin and with PSI before you go. We will update this page if the change affects pass rates materially in subsequent reporting.

What pass rates tell you (and don’t)

Pass rates are useful for setting expectations. They are not useful for predicting your individual outcome. Three things to keep in mind:

1. Sample composition matters. Overall rates include underprepared candidates who would fail any exam. First-time rates from a screened population (e.g., people who completed a 30-day prep plan) would be higher.
2. The exam doesn't get harder year over year unless the format changes. The 27.86% TDLR rate and the 52.95% California rate reflect candidate preparation as much as exam difficulty.
3. What you study and how you study matter more than the headline pass rate. Calculations is the largest single source of lost points on both exams. Codebook navigation is the second.

How to be in the passing percentile

The candidates who pass have three things in common, regardless of state:

1. Codebook navigation speed

They can find the rule in the NEC or CEC in under 30 seconds. Most exams are open-book and most candidates lose 30+ minutes hunting for articles. Our tabbing guide covers a minimal scheme that survives PSI scrutiny.

2. Wave-pass exam strategy

They answer easy questions first, mark the hard ones, and return in priority passes. Burning 8 minutes on question 4 because the calculation is unfamiliar is how candidates run out of time. We wrote up the wave-pass method in detail at Open-book exam strategy →

3. Calculation muscle memory

They can run voltage drop, conduit fill, motor sizing, and box fill without consulting the formula sheet. Calculations is the single largest source of lost points on both exams. Daily reps for 30 days is what gets you there.

Frequently asked questions

• What is the TDLR Journeyman Electrician pass rate?

  TDLR's published Electrician Exam Statistics for fiscal year 2024 (September 1, 2023 through August 31, 2024) show 2,365 passes out of 8,490 Journeyman Electrician exam attempts. That is a 27.86% overall pass rate. The figure is overall (includes retakers), not first-time only. Source: TDLR Electrician Exam Statistics, https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/electricians/elecExamStats2024.htm.

• What is the California General Electrician pass rate?

  Per DIR official statistics, the 2022 first-time pass rate for the California General Electrician (DIR) exam was 52.95%. The repeat pass rate was 38.02% — second-attempt candidates passed at a lower rate than first-time takers, which reflects sample bias (the retaker cohort is skewed toward weaker prep). Source: California Department of Industrial Relations.

• Why is the TDLR pass rate so low?

  Three factors drive the 27.86% figure. First, the figure is overall — it includes retakers who may fail multiple times in the same fiscal year, dragging the rate down compared to a hypothetical first-time-only number. Second, the exam is open-book but time-pressured (4 hours, 80 questions), and most candidates lose points to the calculations section, not knowledge gaps. Third, TDLR uses NEC 2023 with Texas-specific amendments, which generic NEC prep misses.

• Why do California first-timers pass at a higher rate than retakers?

  Counterintuitive but explainable. The first-time cohort includes everyone — well-prepared candidates, average candidates, and the unprepared. The retaker cohort is the subset who failed the first time, which by definition skews toward weaker prep. The 38.02% repeat rate is not telling you the exam gets harder. It's telling you that without changing study strategy between attempts, the same gaps fail you again.

• Is the TDLR exam getting harder?

  TDLR split the Journeyman exam into two parts (Knowledge + Calculations) effective March 11, 2025. FY2024 stats predate the split, so direct comparison to FY2025 will not be apples-to-apples. The split is intended to clarify domain weighting, not add difficulty per se. We will update this page when TDLR publishes FY2025 stats in detail.

• What pass rate does JourneymanIQ candidates achieve?

  We do not publish a JourneymanIQ-specific pass rate. We are a small team and the platform is new — sample sizes are not yet large enough for honest reporting. Anyone claiming a specific pass-rate uplift from a prep platform without published methodology is either guessing or marketing. If you want to know how prep affects your odds, the diagnostic shows your weak topics in 90 seconds; from there you control the rest.

Methodology and updates

All figures on this page come directly from official agency publications. TDLR pass-rate data: TDLR Electrician Exam Statistics page for the relevant fiscal year. California pass-rate data: DIR official statistics. Where a figure is cited from a third party, we link the third party and note the citation chain.

We update this page when new agency reports publish. Last reviewed: May 2026.