What's on the Iowa Residential Electrician Exam? 8 Areas, 50 Items, 2023 NEC

What's on the Iowa Residential Electrician Exam?

The Iowa Residential Electrician exam has 50 scored items and a 70% pass mark, so you need 35 right. PSI's candidate bulletin splits it into eight content areas, given as percentages only.

The outline (50 items)

Why the half items? Five of the eight areas come to half an item at 50 questions, so the real counts cannot be worked out from the bulletin. The percentages are identical to the 60-item Residential Master exam, where they divide evenly, so they may simply have been carried over. The right-hand column is our rounding to make 50, not a PSI number. Treat the two big areas as roughly 12 or 13 items each, and the four small ones as 2 or 3.

You will also see 5 unscored pretest items, with 15 extra minutes.

The bulletin gives no NEC article ranges. The area names are the titles of NEC Chapters 2 through 8, which is how we organize study, but that mapping is ours.

No law section

There is no Iowa law or rules area. Every scored item is the NEC or electrical knowledge.

Where the weight is

• Half the exam is Chapters 2 and 3. About 25 of 50 items.
• Wiring and Protection is the dwelling-wiring core: required branch circuits and receptacle outlets (210.11 and 210.52), GFCI and AFCI rules (210.8 and 210.12), basic dwelling load calculations in Article 220, service basics, and grounding and bonding.
• Wiring Methods and Materials is mostly the cable and box work an apprentice does every day: nonmetallic-sheathed cable (Article 334), securing and supporting, box fill (314.16) and conductor ampacity.
• Equipment for General Use (10): receptacles, switches, luminaires and appliances.
• General Electrical Knowledge (5) is undefined in the bulletin. Iowa law bases the exams on the NEC and on electrical theory, so know Ohm's law and basic power calculations.
• Chapters 5 to 8 together are about 10 items. Do not skip them, but do not start there.

The code: 2023 NEC as printed

The exam is on NFPA 70, the 2023 NEC. The only book you may bring is the 2023 NEC or the 2023 NEC Handbook, and PSI has used this edition since January 1, 2024.

If you wire houses in Iowa, you may have noticed the rules changed in 2026. HF 2800, effective June 2, 2026, adopted the 2023 NEC in state law with Iowa changes. For dwellings, the big ones are:

• No AFCI requirement under 210.12(B) for one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses.
• Narrower GFCI rules in 210.8(A), including basements limited to unfinished, non-habitable areas, and no GFCI for sump-pump and refrigerator receptacles.
• Sections excluded: 210.52(C)(3), 230.67 and 406.4(D)(4).
• Changes to island and peninsula receptacles, paddle-fan boxes, receptacles near tubs and showers, and garage floor area in load calculations.

The exam bulletin names only the 2023 NEC, with no Iowa amendments. So on the exam, the printed 2023 rule is the answer. If a question asks whether bedroom outlets in a new house need AFCI protection, answer from the 2023 NEC, which says yes, even though Iowa law dropped that requirement in 2026. Keep the job-site rules and the exam rules in separate boxes.

A move to the 2026 NEC has been proposed (ARC 0549D) but not adopted, and no exam switch date has been announced.

A study plan built on the weights

1. Chapter 2 first, with dwellings in mind: required outlets, GFCI and AFCI as printed in the 2023 NEC, and a simple dwelling load calculation.
2. Chapter 3: Article 334, box fill and Table 310.16.
3. Chapter 4: receptacles, switches, luminaires and appliances.
4. Theory and Chapters 5 to 8, about 15 items in all.
5. Tab and highlight your 2023 NEC before exam day. No writing in it, and permanent tabs only.
6. Time yourself. 55 items in 135 minutes is just under 2.5 minutes each.

Our free practice test gives you a feel for the questions on the 2023 NEC. The full Iowa residential exam prep has full-length practice exams weighted to this outline, with every answer explained. See also Iowa residential electrician requirements and exam day.