Oregon Limited Residential (LR) License Guide

The Limited Residential license is Oregon's residential-focused electrician license. If you want to wire houses — not commercial buildings, not industrial plants — this is the card that gets you working.

What an LR can do

An LR electrician performs electrical work on dwellings of three floors or fewer, working under a general supervising electrician. That covers the houses, duplexes, and small multifamily buildings where most residential electricians spend their careers.

How to qualify

Oregon offers several pathways, including completion of an approved Oregon apprenticeship (BCD Form 440-2570). One thing most apprentices don't know: you don't have to finish the four-year general journeyman program first. Apprentices enrolled in the general program can sit for the LR exam, pass, hold the LR card, and keep going in the program. Check the current application for the full list of pathways and hour requirements — they change.

The exam

• 52 questions, multiple choice — 3-hour time limit — 75% to pass
• Tests the 2026 NEC with Oregon amendments
• Open book. Your authorization letter comes with the list of approved testing material. Bring those books and a silent, non-programmable, non-printing calculator. Scratch paper is provided.
• Exams run at BCD test sites around the state, including Bend, Eugene, Hermiston, Klamath Falls, Ontario, Pendleton, Portland, Roseburg, Salem, and White City.
• You must test within 60 days of your authorization letter. If you fail, there's a 30-day wait before you can retest. Grading takes about two weeks.

How to pass it

The LR exam is a code-navigation test as much as a knowledge test. Fifty-two questions in three hours gives you about three and a half minutes per question — enough time if you know where to look things up, not enough if you're hunting through the book cold.

Practice before test day. Take the free 10-question timed code math test and see how fast you can find answers in the book. When you're ready for the full run, the Oregon Residential Journeyman Study Pack has a 52-question, 3-hour practice exam set up like the real one.