Ask a Florida electrician how the licensing exam went and you will hear about the code book. Five hours, a hundred questions, the 2023 NEC open on the desk. What you hear less about is the second appointment: the Business exam, fifty questions on lien law and payroll tax and bonding, which every one of DBPR's eight electrical certifications has to pass. Same 75 percent bar. Separate booking. Separate study.
I wrote our course from DBPR's Candidate Information Booklet (the February 2026 edition) and the reference list that goes with it, so here is the shape of both exams in one place.
Part one: Technical/Safety, 100 questions, five hours
The Unlimited outline has nine subjects and the booklet prints a range for each:
- General Theory and Electrical Principles, 19 to 21
- Plan and Specification Reading, 7 to 9
- Wiring and Protection, 13 to 15
- Wiring Methods and Materials, 11 to 13
- Special Occupancies and Situations, 13 to 15
- OSHA, Safety, Tools and Testing, 8 to 10
- Life Safety and ADA, 4 to 6
- Signs, Outline Lighting and Structural Considerations, 2 to 4
- Alarms and Limited Energy, 14 to 16
The Residential outline is different: fourteen subjects, and seven of them are calculations (box fill, demand loads, conduit fill, neutral loads, appliance loads, service, voltage drop). Together those are 36 to 50 of the 100 questions. If you are sitting Residential, the exam is largely arithmetic with the right table.
Part two: Business, 50 questions, two and a half hours
Eleven subjects: cash flow, estimating and bidding, contracts, purchasing, scheduling, insurance and bonding, contracting laws and rules, personnel, payroll and sales tax, financial statements, management accounting. The heaviest are payroll and sales tax (6 to 8), estimating (5 to 7) and contracting laws (5 to 7).
The reference is one book, the Florida Contractors Manual, and its chapters are mostly reprints of things you can read free: Florida Statute 489 Part II and the 61G6 rules, Chapter 713 lien law, Chapter 440 workers' comp, IRS Circular E, the FLSA guide. Our Business lessons cite those sources directly.
The rules that trip people
- Open book means listed editions only. For the technical exam that is the 2023 NEC, NFPA 72-2019, NFPA 101-2018, NFPA 780-2017, the July 2020 OSHA regulations and the 2021 Contractors Manual. Other editions are allowed "at your own risk", which means the answer key does not care what your book says.
- Permanent tabs yes, Post-it flags no. Handwritten notes must be blacked out. One copy of each book.
- Retakes differ. Business gives you three attempts per authorization. Technical gives you one: fail it and you reapply to DBPR before you can book again.
- Edition change on August 21, 2027. From that date the exam moves to the 2026 NEC (and newer NFPA 72, OSHA and Contractors Manual editions). Study the book that matches your test date.
How to split your time
If you have eight weeks, I would spend five on the technical part and three on Business, and I would not leave Business for last. It is the part nobody has been practising on the job, and it is the part with the friendlier retake rule, which is exactly why people treat it lightly and then fail it twice.
The free exam on this site is twenty technical questions with the explanation and the section for each. It takes twenty minutes and tells you which of the nine subjects to start with.