What's on the Oklahoma Limited Electrical Contractor Exam? The Full Unlimited Outline, on the 2023 NEC

What's on the Oklahoma Limited Electrical Contractor Exam?

The Limited Electrical Contractor license is for people who run electrical work without doing it: the license prohibits journeyman work and performing or supervising field work (OAC 158:40-7-4). It is easy to assume the trade exam is scaled down to match. It is not.

PSI's candidate bulletin gives the Limited trade exam the same 13 areas, the same item counts, the same subtopics and the same references as the Unlimited Electrical Contractor exam, which in turn matches the unlimited journeyman exam. It is 100 scored items in 240 minutes, open book, and you need 70 to pass.

This is the trade portion. You also have to pass the separate 50-question Electrical Business and Law exam; see Oklahoma Electrical Business and Law requirements.

The outline (100 items)

These counts are PSI's own. The bulletin lists subtopics but no item counts for subtopics and no NEC article numbers. Up to 10 unscored experimental questions may be added; their time does not count against you.

PSI describes the scope of the exam as the design, plan, layout, installation, repair and alteration of conductors, fixtures, appliances, raceways and equipment for light, heat, power, data and communications. In other words, the full installation Code.

What this means for engineers and estimators

The Limited route draws people who know electrical systems well but come at them from the design or business side. A few areas tend to need extra time:

• Installation-detail Code areas. Raceways and boxes (7), conductors and cables (8), and grounding and bonding (10) are tested as field rules: which raceway is permitted where, conduit fill, box fill, and sizing grounding electrode and equipment grounding conductors from Tables 250.66 and 250.122.
• Special occupancies (10). Class I, II and III hazardous locations, garages and fuel dispensing, spray areas, health care, places of assembly, mobile homes and RV parks, floating buildings, and pools.
• Lighting and signs (10). Fixture installation, recessed fixtures, systems under 30 volts, and neon and electric signs.
• Safety (4) from OSHA's 29 CFR 1926 construction standards: PPE, ladders, scaffolds, excavation, fall protection and similar job-site rules.

Areas where an engineering background helps: General Electrical Knowledge (10), which is circuit theory, three-phase AC, power and cost of power; services, feeders and branch circuits (10), including voltage drop and services over 600 volts; and motors and transformers (6). Even there, the answer has to come from the Code, not from good design practice.

On the 2023 NEC, as amended in Oklahoma

The exam tests NFPA 70, 2023 edition, "as revised and adopted by the Oklahoma Uniform Building Code Commission" (OUBCC), in use on Oklahoma exams since December 14, 2024. When two legal requirements conflict, the state-specific one wins. Oklahoma changes two rules:

None of the informative annexes is adopted, so Annex C and Annex D are lookup aids, not Oklahoma law.

The 2026 NEC has no adoption or effective date in Oklahoma yet. OUBCC's 2026 NEC Technical Review Committee first met on September 9, 2026. When Oklahoma moved to the 2023 NEC, CIB gave a 90-day testing grace period before the exams switched. Study the 2023 edition until PSI publishes a new bulletin.

A study plan built on the weights

1. Learn to navigate the Code. If you have not used the NEC as a daily reference, spend the first week on its layout: Chapters 1 through 4 apply generally, Chapters 5 through 7 modify them, Chapter 8 stands alone, and Chapter 9 holds the tables.
2. Theory (10) with Ugly's Electrical References (any edition). This should be your fastest area.
3. The 10-item Code areas: installation requirements (Articles 110 and 300), services, feeders and branch circuits (Articles 210 through 230, plus 424, 426, 427 and 440), grounding and bonding (Article 250), lighting and signs (Articles 410, 411 and 600), and special occupancies (Chapter 5 and Article 680).
4. Overcurrent protection (9), mostly Article 240.
5. Conductors, raceways and boxes (15 combined). Work conduit fill and box fill with Chapter 9 and Article 314 until they are routine.
6. Motors and transformers (6), Articles 430 and 450.
7. Safety (4), General Knowledge (4) and low voltage (2) last.
8. Learn the two Oklahoma amendments cold, and tab your books. Permanent tabs and highlighting are allowed; writing in them is not.
9. Practice at exam pace. 100 questions in 4 hours is 2.4 minutes each.

Because the outlines are identical, our Limited and Unlimited contractor prep draw on the same question pool. Our free practice test gives you a feel for the questions on the 2023 NEC, and the full Limited Electrical Contractor exam prep has full-length practice exams weighted to this outline, with every answer explained. For eligibility, see Oklahoma Limited Electrical Contractor requirements; for the day itself, see exam day.