Arizona runs its contractor exams through two different vendors, and the two behave nothing alike. The Statutes and Rules Exam is an open-book online course you take at home through GMetrix; the trade exam is a proctored test at PSI where you carry in the code books its content outline names. This guide sticks to what AZ ROC and its vendors actually publish — question counts, time limits, the 70 percent pass mark, fees, retake waits, the reference lists — and says plainly which numbers nobody publishes at all.
Arizona tests a person, not a company. The exam requirements belong to the qualifying party — the individual the Registrar of Contractors (AZ ROC) holds responsible for the trade knowledge behind the license — and there are two of them. The first is the AZ Statutes and Rules Training Course and Exam, universally shortened to SRE. The second is a trade exam for the classification you want. A handful of classifications add a third piece: a separate solar portion, priced and timed on its own. Everything else in the file — experience, entity, bond, background check — is covered in how to get a contractor license in Arizona; this page is only about the tests.
The sequence is the reverse of California's. In Arizona you pass first and apply second: PSI's Arizona bulletin states that licensing applications cannot be accepted until all examination requirements have been completed, and your original score reports go in with the application. Arizona Revised Statutes section 32-1122(E)(2) puts a clock on that — the written examination must have been taken not more than two years before the application.
AZ ROC describes the SRE as a computer-based open book training course and exam offered only online, through GMetrix. There is no test center option and no paper version. You work through modules on Arizona law and are tested on what the modules taught. The course listing puts the price at $61 and the scope at Title 32, Chapter 10 of the Arizona Revised Statutes plus Title 4, Chapter 9 of the Arizona Administrative Code — the contracting statutes and the Registrar's own rules. Access runs one year and is tied to one named individual, and the account name must match the person taking it or the credit does not attach. GMetrix publishes the course in English and in Spanish, and AZ ROC links both versions from its licensing page.
Two details deserve more attention than they usually get. First, AZ ROC requires at least 70 percent on the required examinations. Second, GMetrix states that at the end of the course learners have one single attempt at the final exam. Plan around that: this is not a test you casually probe to see what it looks like.
What nobody publishes is the shape of the SRE. There is no official question count, no time limit and no section-by-section weighting anywhere on AZ ROC's site or the vendor's product page, so any number you see quoted for those is somebody's guess. The closest thing to an official outline is the statute itself: section 32-1122(E)(2) says the examination covers the applicant's general knowledge of the building, safety, health and lien laws of the state, the administrative principles of the contracting business and the rules adopted by the Registrar. Read Title 32, Chapter 10 and Title 4, Chapter 9 and you have read the syllabus, free.
One conflict to know before you pay for anything. AZ ROC's licensing page says flatly that the SRE cannot be waived, because it turns on Arizona-specific statutes and rules. PSI's bulletin says the course is required for applicants not previously listed as the qualifying party on another Arizona license within the last five years, and section 32-1122(F) says the Registrar shall waive the examination requirement for a former Arizona qualifying party in the same classification inside that five-year window. If you have held an Arizona license before, call AZ ROC licensing and get your own case answered.
PSI administers the trade and solar exams under contract with AZ ROC, at a test center or by remote proctor from home. Arizona test centers are in Flagstaff, Glendale, Phoenix, Tempe and Tucson, and PSI centers elsewhere in the country take the Arizona exams too — useful if you are qualifying an Arizona license from out of state.
Unlike the SRE, the trade exams publish everything. Each classification has its own content outline giving the item count, the pass mark and the clock. A few real examples: the combined B, B-3 and CR-61 residential exam is 100 questions in 240 minutes; the combined B-1, B-2, KB-1 and KB-2 commercial exam is also 100 questions in 240 minutes; R-11 Electrical (Residential) is 110 questions in 240 minutes; R-39/C-79 air conditioning and refrigeration is 80 questions in 210 minutes, with its solar portion a separate 30 questions in 75 minutes; R-9/C-9 concrete is 50 questions in 120 minutes. The minimum passing score on every one of them is 70 percent. The same outlines break the exam into subject areas with item counts, so you can see exactly where the weight sits — the commercial building exam, for instance, allots 12 of its 100 items to safety and 14 to concrete.
These exams are reference-permitted, and that changes how you prepare. Each outline carries an allowed list and, just as importantly, a not-allowed list. Nearly every Arizona trade outline lets you bring 29 CFR Part 1926, the federal OSHA construction standards, or PSI's excerpt edition of it. The residential building exam adds the 2018 International Residential Code; R-11 adds the 2017 National Electrical Code and the 2016 edition of NFPA 72; the air conditioning exam adds the International Fuel Gas, Mechanical and Plumbing Codes; concrete adds the International Building Code and ACI 318. Editions are not decoration: for code questions the exam is scored on the edition listed, while for non-code references you may work from a later edition.
The handling rules catch people out more often than the content does. Highlight, annotate and index your references before the session, never during it — a candidate caught marking a book mid-exam is reported to AZ ROC. Tabs must be permanent, so sticky notes come out beforehand; loose papers tucked into a book are barred, and a printed reference must be bound or in a binder. A silent, nonprinting, non-programmable calculator is allowed. Five to ten unscored experimental questions may be mixed in, and they eat your clock like any other. When two sources disagree, PSI's rule is that a legal requirement outranks any other reference, and a state-specific code outranks the national one.
Costs and second chances are published too. One examination is $66, two are $116, and a solar portion on its own is $40; fees are non-refundable and an eligibility is good for a year. Your score appears on screen and arrives by email, and a failing report comes with a diagnostic of strengths and weaknesses by area. If you fail, you wait 30 days — and you cannot rebook the same day you tested. You get three attempts at an exam; after three failures the wait between attempts becomes 90 days.
Arizona accepts a national exam in place of its own trade test for specific classifications only. Per AZ ROC, applicants for KB-1 Dual Building Contractor and KB-2 Dual Residential and Small Commercial may sit the NASCLA Accredited Examination for Commercial General Building Contractors instead of the Arizona trade exam: $106 for the examination, paid to PSI, plus a $25 application fee paid directly to NASCLA. Applicants for CR-11, C-11 and R-11 Electrical may use the NASCLA electrical examination program instead, at $116 paid to PSI. PSI's own content outlines describe the same choice for B-1 and B-2 General Commercial applicants, which is broader than the AZ ROC page — if that is your classification, confirm it with AZ ROC before you register.
The NASCLA commercial building exam is a different animal: 115 questions, 330 minutes, explicitly open book, and a minimum passing score of 81 rather than a percentage. Its largest subject area is procurement and contracting requirements at 31 items, ahead of general requirements at 25 — a contract-and-paperwork exam wearing a construction jacket. Its payoff is portability: results go into NASCLA's national database and can be sent to any jurisdiction that accepts them.
Separately from NASCLA, an Arizona trade exam can be waived outright. Under rule R4-9-106(E), the Registrar may waive it where the qualifying party is or has been a qualifying party for a licensee in this state or another state, in the same classification or one the Registrar treats as comparable, within the preceding five years. You request it by filing the waiver application with your license application — AZ ROC does not pre-approve waivers — and the SRE stays on your plate either way.
Both states make you pass a state-law exam, and that is roughly where the similarity ends. Four differences are worth internalizing if you are licensed in California and heading east.
Open book at your kitchen table versus closed book at a test center. Arizona's SRE is an open book online course and exam. California's Law and Business exam is taken at a PSI center where reading materials, textbooks, notes — and calculators — are on the prohibited items list.
Published numbers versus published silence. AZ ROC publishes a 70 percent pass mark, and PSI publishes an item count, a subject breakdown and a time limit for every Arizona trade exam. CSLB publishes 3.5 hours per exam and does not publish a question count or a passing score for either of its exams.
Exam first versus application first. Arizona has you pass and then apply, with score reports attached and a two-year shelf life. California has you apply and pay the $450 application fee first; CSLB then mails a Notice to Schedule for Examination, and everything must finish inside the 18-month window that opens when the application is accepted.
Retake arithmetic. Arizona: 30 days between attempts, three attempts, then a 90-day wait. California: 21 calendar days between attempts, with no attempt limit but a hard void date.
Portability runs one way and then the other. Arizona will take a NASCLA result in place of its trade exam for the classifications above; California takes no NASCLA result, but CSLB does maintain reciprocity with Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and North Carolina, under which it may waive the trade portion for a valid license from those states — while still requiring its own Law and Business exam. Both states behave the same way on one point: the trade knowledge can travel, the state's own law exam never does.
LICENA has no Arizona question bank. Our exam banks are California-specific today, and pretending otherwise would waste your time. Two of our free banks are federal, though, and federal is federal in Phoenix exactly as it is in Fresno.
The first is OSHA construction safety. Every Arizona trade outline we checked lists 29 CFR Part 1926 among the references you may carry into the room, and safety is a scored subject area on those outlines — 12 of 100 items on the commercial building exam. Arizona also runs its own OSHA-approved State Plan through the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health, part of the Industrial Commission of Arizona. Knowing Part 1926 pays twice. Work through the free OSHA 10 and 30 construction safety practice test.
The second is EPA Section 608. If your Arizona classification touches refrigerant — the air conditioning and refrigeration family — federal rules at 40 CFR Part 82, Subpart F require technicians who maintain, service, repair or dispose of refrigerant-containing equipment to hold that certification, and AZ ROC has nothing to do with issuing it. The free EPA 608 practice test is the same test wherever you work.
Neither one substitutes for the actual Arizona material: Title 32, Chapter 10 and Title 4, Chapter 9 for the SRE, and the code books your classification's content outline names for the trade exam. Start from AZ ROC's own licensing page, which links the current PSI bulletin and the GMetrix course, and build your study list from the outline for your exact classification rather than from a generic one.
Practice what carries across state lines LICENA's exam banks are written for California — we do not have an Arizona bank. What does apply in every state is free here: OSHA 10/30 construction safety and EPA 608 refrigerant handling, with a written explanation on every answer and no sign-up.
Try the free practice test → How to get the Arizona license