What's on the Louisiana Electrical Contractor Exam? All 13 Areas and the 2023 NEC Gap

What's on the Louisiana Electrical Contractor Exam?

PSI publishes the outline for the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors (LSLBC) Electrical Statewide trade exam as 13 areas with the number of scored items in each. It is 100 scored items, and you need 70 to pass.

The outline (100 items)

These counts are PSI's own and add up to 100. The Louisiana outline gives area names and counts only: no subtopics and no NEC article ranges. Any mapping of areas to Code articles, including the one in the study plan below, is ours, not PSI's. One to ten unscored experimental questions are added on top.

No business or law on it

None of the 13 areas is business, law or Louisiana statute, and no Louisiana law is on the reference list. That material is covered by the separate Louisiana Business and Law online course, not by this exam. Every scored item is electrical theory, the Code or job-site safety.

On the 2023 NEC, not the Louisiana code

This is the part that catches people. The exam's Code reference is NFPA 70, National Electrical Code, 2023 edition, and "for Code questions, the examinations will be based only on the edition of the Code book that is listed."

But Louisiana enforces the 2020 NEC, in effect since January 1, 2023. The state's code council (the Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council) plans to move to the 2023 NEC on January 1, 2027: a Notice of Intent ran in the Louisiana Register on August 20, 2026, but the final rule has not been published yet. So the exam is a code cycle ahead of what inspectors enforce today.

Two consequences for studying:

• Study the 2023 edition, even if the jobs you work on are still inspected to 2020.
• Study the unamended NFPA 70. The draft Louisiana rule includes amendments, such as dropping GFCI for HVAC equipment under 210.8(F). The outline does not cite them, and it is not confirmed that they are tested. Build to the national 2023 text.

One oddity: the PSI outline says the 2023 NEC is "as revised and adopted by the Oklahoma Uniform Building Code Commission." That is a copy-and-paste error. The Louisiana outline is the same 13 areas, with the same counts, as the Oklahoma electrical exams PSI gives, and the Oklahoma line came along with it. Do not study Oklahoma's amendments for this exam.

Where the weight is

• The weight is spread evenly. Seven areas carry 9 or 10 items each, and nothing is more than 10%.
• General Electrical Knowledge (10) is theory: Ohm's law, power, AC and three-phase circuits. Ugly's Electrical References is allowed (2011, 2014 or 2017 edition) and carries the formulas.
• Lighting and Signs (10) is a full tenth of the exam.
• Special Occupancies and Equipment (10) explicitly includes swimming pools.
• Low Voltage, Alarms, Signaling, and Communications is only 2 items.
• Safety (4): the safety reference on the list is 29 CFR 1926, the OSHA construction standards.

A study plan built on the weights

1. Theory first. Ten items. Work Ohm's law, series and parallel circuits, power, three-phase and voltage drop with Ugly's open.
2. The 10-item Code areas: installation requirements (we would start with Articles 110 and 300), services, feeders and branch circuits (210 through 230), grounding and bonding (250), lighting and signs (410 and 600) and special occupancies (Chapter 5 and Article 680).
3. Overcurrent protection (9), mostly Article 240.
4. Conductors, raceways and boxes (15 combined). Practice conduit fill and box fill.
5. Motors and transformers (6), Articles 430 and 450.
6. Safety (4) from 29 CFR 1926, and a light pass over the 2 low-voltage items.
7. Tab and highlight your books before the exam. Highlighting, underlining, annotating and permanent tabs are allowed beforehand; no writing during the exam.
8. Sit a timed, full-length exam. 100 questions in 4 hours is 2.4 minutes each.

Our free practice test gives you a feel for the questions on the 2023 NEC. The full exam prep has full-length practice exams weighted to this outline, with every answer explained. For the day itself, see Louisiana Electrical Contractor exam day.