How to Renew an Oregon Plumbing License

If you have a plumber’s license in Oregon, the odds are high that you want to keep your license active. And that means taking certain steps at certain times in order to complete the renewal process required by the Oregon Building Codes Division (BCD).

That essentially means that every so often, you need to do a few things, including taking continuing education (CE). We’ll go through those steps here — but first, we want to look at the way CE requirements vary by license type.

Journeyman plumber vs. plumbing contractor requirements

Journeyman plumbers need a certain number of CE hours during each renewal cycle. Plumbing contractors do, too, but they don’t necessarily need to double-down on their hours. Residential and commercial contractors are exempt from the Construction Contractors Board’s CE requirement if their owner, officer, or employee is a state-licensed plumber.

That doesn’t mean they’re off the hook for CE entirely — it just means they only need to worry about the CE required to keep their journeyman plumber license active. So let’s take a look.

CE requirement for Oregon journeyman plumber license renewal

State rule and law says that Oregon journeyman plumber licensees need 24 continuing education hours each full renewal cycle. Your hours need to be broken into specific categories:

4 hours on Oregon rule and law
4 hours on code changes
16 code-related hours

If you’re a new licensee, the CE requirement gets modified based on how long you’ve had your license:

If your license will expire within six months of you getting it, you don’t need any CE
If it will expire within 12 months of you getting it, you need 8 CE hours
If it will expire within 24 months of you getting it, you need 16 CE hours

Also, new licensees don’t need to take a code change course.

Whether it’s your first renewal or you’ve been at this for a while, you don’t need to go to a classroom to get the hours you need. You can find state-approved education providers who offer these Oregon plumbing CE hours online and on-demand like we do, here.

Quick note: if you’re a licensed solar heating and cooling system plumbing installer, you just need eight code-related CE hours to renew.

If you think you might have taken some CE this renewal cycle but you can’t remember how many hours, you can check your credits here.

Renewing your Oregon journeyman plumber license

Once you have your 24 hours of continuing education completed, you just need to do two more things: submit the renewal application and pay the renewal fee. This is all due before your license expiration date, so check the front of your license for that date.

Theoretically, the state will mail you a renewal notice 45 days before your license will expire. If you need to update the address they have for you to ensure you get that notice, you can use their online address change form.

Whether or not you get that reminder in the mail, make sure you submit your renewal and application fee before your expiration date. You can do both online through the state’s license management portal.