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Texas adopts the 2026 National Electrical Code® on September 1, 2026. Here's exactly which code edition your TDLR Journeyman exam will use, what actually changed, and how to be ready — without buying your study materials twice.
Texas administers the Journeyman exam as an open-book test, and the codebook you're tested on is the edition TDLR has adopted on your exam date. The adoption date is fixed:
Study and bring the 2023 National Electrical Code. This is the current exam right now.
Study and bring the 2026 National Electrical Code. Section numbers and a few rules move — see below.
The 2026 NEC is a structural reshuffle on top of rule changes, so a chunk of the work isn't learning new code — it's re-learning where the code lives. For an open-book exam, that lookup-location change matters as much as the rules themselves. The changes most likely to show up on a Journeyman exam:
There's more in the full 2026 NEC — new EV power-transfer rules (Article 624), medium-voltage harmonization, cable-tray clearances — but those are largely outside the typical Journeyman scope. For the exam, the renumbering plus the 210.8 / 110.16 changes are the ones to internalize.
Don't overthink it, and don't buy two products to cover yourself:
Most exam-prep products are sold per code edition. Buy the 2023 set now, and when TDLR flips to 2026 in September you buy the 2026 set again. That's the normal model, and it's why the transition costs candidates real money.
We built ours the other way around. One $99 purchase covers the 2023 NEC question bank today, and the NEC 2026 update is included free when TDLR transitions on September 1. Buy once, and you're set through the change — whichever side of the line your exam falls on.
Written for TDLR's 2-part exam. No credit card, no subscription. Want everything? The full course is $99, 30-day money-back, with the NEC 2026 update included free.
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September 1, 2026. Exams before that date use the 2023 NEC; exams on or after that date use the 2026 NEC. If your date is close to the transition, confirm with PSI when you schedule.
No. The fundamentals don't change. The bigger adjustment is structural — several articles were renumbered (for example, load calculations moved from Article 220 to Article 120), so your open-book lookup habits need updating more than your knowledge does.
The renumbering of Chapters 1–7, the expansion of GFCI protection under 210.8 to cover 125–250 V receptacles, and the removal of the 1,000 A threshold for arc-flash labeling under 110.16. New topics like EV power-transfer (Article 624) are mostly outside Journeyman scope.
With most products, yes — they sell per edition. With Journeyman Wireman, no. One $99 purchase covers the 2023 question bank now and includes the NEC 2026 update free when TDLR transitions on September 1, 2026.
No. If you're testing before September 1 you'll be on 2023 anyway, and even for a later test the fundamentals carry over. Starting now and switching your section-lookup practice to 2026 once you schedule is the efficient path.