Checked against primary sources 2026-08-25

Most of the fear is about the room, and the room is documented

You are about to sit an open book examination that fewer than one in four people passed last year. That is a real number and it is worth respecting. What is not worth carrying is the part nobody told you: what happens when you walk in, what gets you turned away at the desk, and exactly what a bad day costs.

The first thirty minutes, which are not the exam

PSI tells candidates to arrive thirty minutes before the appointment time, and says that this allows time for sign in and identification verification.

There is no grace period afterward, and both PSI and TDLR say so in their own words. PSI: if you arrive late, you will not be admitted to the examination site and you will forfeit your examination registration fee. TDLR: if you miss your exam date, or if you arrive late, you will not be able to take the scheduled examination and your examination fee will be forfeited.

You need one piece of identification, and the bulletin is specific about what it has to carry: a valid government issued identification bearing your printed name, photograph, signature or fingerprint, date of birth and expiration date. An expired driver license is accepted only when it is accompanied by a valid Texas Department of Public Safety temporary permit.

Everything you brought goes into the secure storage provided at the site before you enter the room, and PSI states that it is not responsible for the security of personal belongings. Anybody who drove you cannot wait for you in the center, inside the building, or on the building's property.

What the screen does before the clock starts

There is a tutorial, and it is free time. The bulletin states that the time you spend on the tutorial, up to fifteen minutes, does not count as part of your examination time. Use it. It is the only part of the day where nothing is being taken from you.

During the examination the minutes remaining are displayed at the top of the screen and updated as you record your answers. You can return to any question and change your response as long as time has not run out. Electronic notepads are provided.

You may leave only to use the restroom, only with the proctor's permission, and you do not receive extra time to make up for it.

No conversation of any kind is permitted once you enter the examination area.

The book, and the mistake that gets it refused at the desk

This is where people lose the day before it starts, because the rules are about the physical object rather than the edition.

On calculators, the bulletin allows only non programmable calculators that are silent, battery operated, have no paper tape printing capability, and have no keyboard containing the alphabet.

Prohibited items are listed at length and the list is broader than most people assume: phones, recording devices, electronic watches, cameras, pagers, laptops, tablets, music players, smart watches, radios, electronic games, purses, notebooks, reference or reading material, briefcases, backpacks, wallets, pens, pencils, other writing devices, food, drinks and good luck items. Hats and headgear not worn for religious reasons are prohibited, as are open sweaters, cardigans, shawls, scarves, vests, jackets and coats.

The consequence of carrying one in is not a warning. The bulletin states that any candidate possessing prohibited items in the examination room shall immediately have their test results invalidated.

You find out before you leave the building

There is no waiting by the mailbox. The bulletin states that your score will be given to you immediately following completion of the examination, and that it appears immediately on the computer screen.

If you pass you receive a notification. If you do not, the bulletin's wording is that you will receive a diagnostic report indicating your strengths and weaknesses by examination type with the score report. An official score report is printed at the site, and a duplicate can be printed later from your online account.

The threshold is seventy percent on each portion, and the portions are scored separately.

TDLR adds one clarification worth knowing: the grade report handed to you at the site is for your records only, and the testing provider sends all results to TDLR electronically. You do not have to deliver anything.

There is also a statutory backstop. Occupations Code 1305.163 requires that TDLR notify examination results not later than the thirtieth day after the examination, and that on written request the department provide an analysis of the person's performance.

What a bad day actually costs, stated plainly

The fear is usually vaguer and larger than the fact, so here is the fact.

If you fail a portion or both portions, the retake examination fee is $78.

PSI candidate information bulletin, TDLR electricians, updated 9 July 2026

That is the same figure as the original sitting, and it is the same whether you lost one portion or both.

On how soon you may go back, PSI states that you are allowed to test unlimited through your eligibility period, and TDLR states that you may retake each exam as many times as needed until you pass, though you may be responsible for additional examination fees each time.

Nobody publishes a waiting period between attempts. Read that as an absence of a rule rather than a rule: what constrains your next attempt is the appointment calendar and your own readiness.

The clock that does exist is the eligibility window. TDLR gives applicants one year from the date it received the application to satisfy every requirement including the examination. Count from that date.

• If it already happenedRead the score report before you rebook

  It names the half you lost and roughly where. Most people book the next date without opening it.

The number that makes people nervous, and the number underneath it

TDLR publishes examination statistics every fiscal year, and fiscal 2025 covers 1 September 2024 to 31 August 2025.

The agency describes its own examination the same way. In the rule it adopted in June 2026 to open a faster route into the trade, TDLR wrote that historically, the first time passage rate for the journeyman electrical examination has been less than 30 percent, and named the resulting shortage of journeymen as the reason for the rule.

Now the number underneath it. The calculations portion fails harder than the knowledge portion, by four percentage points, and the two halves fail for different reasons. The knowledge portion is lost to search speed on a book that was open the whole time. The calculations portion is lost to method, which is usually a step skipped rather than arithmetic done wrong.

That distinction is the useful part of the statistic. It means the question is not whether you are the kind of person who passes. It is which of two specific, fixable things you are currently slow at, and there is a way to find that out at a desk instead of at a testing center.

There were also 2,382 no shows across those examinations. Some of those were the identification, the arrival time and the two day cancellation deadline further down this page.

If you need the day changed

You can move an appointment without losing the fee if the cancellation notice reaches PSI two days before the scheduled date. The bulletin's own example is that for a Monday appointment, the notice would need to be received on the previous Saturday.

A voicemail or an email does not count. The bulletin says to use the PSI website or to call and speak directly to a customer service representative.

Four things forfeit the fee, and they are worth reading as a list rather than a paragraph:

• Not cancelling two days before the scheduled date
• Not appearing for the appointment
• Arriving after the examination start time
• Not presenting proper identification when you arrive

Every one of those is avoidable the week you book.

If you need the room changed

PSI states that all of its examination centers are equipped to provide access in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and that a candidate with a disability, or one who would otherwise have difficulty taking the examination, should request alternative arrangements. TDLR's own wording is that every reasonable accommodation will be made in meeting a candidate's needs.

Neither the bulletin nor TDLR publishes a deadline for making that request. Since there is no published number of days, the safe reading is to ask as early as you can rather than as late as you are allowed.

What to do with all of this

Being nervous before an examination that four out of five people fail on the calculations half is not a character flaw and it is not a thing to fix. What it is is a signal pointing at the unknowns, and most of the unknowns above have a published answer.

Work through the list in order. Check the expiration date on your identification. Buy or confirm a softbound book with publisher tabs. Put the arrival time in your phone as thirty minutes earlier than the appointment. Know that the score appears on screen before you stand up, and that a fail comes with a report naming what went wrong.

Then the only thing left is the part that was always the real question, which is whether the method is there. That one is answerable at a desk.

• Free, no accountTwenty four questions, then the two areas to work on

  Not a score. A short paper that ends by naming where your time and your method are going.

• Free, no accountThirty questions against a clock

  Mixed to the published blueprint and weighted the way the real paper is. Answers withheld until you submit, then every miss worked through.

What this page cites

• PSI candidate information bulletin, TDLR electricians Updated 9 July 2026. Arrival, identification, prohibited items, code book and tab rules, calculators, scoring, retakes, cancellation and accommodations.
• TDLR examination page Late arrival, retakes, the one year eligibility window, and the score report being for your records only.
• TDLR examination statistics, fiscal year 2025 Passes, failures and pass rates by examination.
• Texas Register, adopted rules, 26 June 2026, TRD-202602382 TDLR's statement on the historic first time passage rate.
• Tex. Occ. Code 1305.163 Notification of results within thirty days, and analysis of performance on written request.