LBExamTwo organizations take money from a California contractor license applicant, and they take it for different things. CSLB takes the application and license fees, which are set by board regulation. The organization that administers the exam takes the exam fee, which is not a published dollar amount at all. Knowing which is which saves a phone call and, more usefully, tells you what a failed sitting actually costs.
What CSLB charges
Every figure below is set by the board’s own fee regulation, 16 CCR s. 811: applications under subdivision (a), initial licenses and registrations under subdivision (c), renewals under subdivision (d). Bus. & Prof. Code s. 7137 sets the ceiling each of those amounts may be raised to, so these are the current figures rather than permanent ones. Read September 2, 2026.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Original application, exam or waiver, one classification | $450 |
| Each additional classification on an original application | $150 |
| Additional classification on an existing license | $230 |
| Replacing the qualifier | $230 |
| Initial license, sole owner | $200 |
| Initial license, partnership, corporation, LLC or joint venture | $350 |
| Home Improvement Salesperson registration | $200 |
| Active renewal, sole owner | $450 |
| Active renewal, everyone else | $700 |
A veteran of the United States Armed Forces, including the National Guard and Reserve components, who was not dishonorably discharged pays half the initial license and registration fees. The statute asks for a driver’s license or state identification card with the word Veteran on its face, or a DD214 long form.
C-10 electrical contractors pay $20 on top of the active renewal fee, which the statute earmarks for enforcing the Labor Code’s electrician certification rules.
Two amounts are not CSLB’s at all. Live Scan fingerprinting carries a $32 Department of Justice processing fee and a $17 FBI processing fee, plus a rolling fee each Live Scan site sets for itself.
What sitting the exam costs
The exam fee has no published dollar figure, and that is deliberate. The statute says the fee to take an examination conducted or administered by a public or private organization shall be no greater than the actual cost of administering it, and shall be paid directly to that organization by the applicant (s. 7137(a)(2)). So the number moves with PSI’s costs and reaches you on the Notice to Schedule rather than off a web page.
One figure here is published, and it is the one that matters after a fail: rescheduling an examination costs $100, set by 16 CCR s. 811(b)(1) for an applicant who has applied for an original license, an additional classification, a change of qualifier, or an asbestos or hazardous substance removal certification. It applies whether you failed, missed the appointment, or simply want a different date at short notice.
Booking, and the two-day rule
The order is fixed and there is no way around it. File the application. Wait for CSLB to accept it and refer it for testing. CSLB mails a Notice to Schedule for Examination. Only then can you pay PSI and book, either through the PSI website or by phone. Prescheduling before the referral is not possible.
Each exam is its own appointment and its own fee, so the law and business paper and the trade paper can be sat on one day or weeks apart, whichever suits.
Moving an appointment is free if PSI has the cancellation two days before the appointment date. For a 9:00 a.m. Monday sitting, that means before 9:00 a.m. on the previous Saturday. It has to be done through the PSI website or by speaking to a person at PSI: CSLB is explicit that a voicemail or an email to either organization does not cancel anything.
The fee is forfeited if you do not cancel in time, do not appear, arrive after the start time, or arrive without the identification the rules require.
The two deadlines
Eighteen months. Your examination eligibility expires if you have not passed within eighteen months of CSLB accepting your application. After that the application is void and a new one with new fees is required, and any extension is at CSLB’s discretion. If you sat an exam within three weeks of the void date, that sitting was your last opportunity, because the retake wait alone runs past it.
Twenty-one days. A failed exam can be retaken after 21 calendar days. There is no cap on how many attempts fit inside the eighteen-month window; the cap is the window itself and the $100 that each attempt costs.
A third period is worth knowing because it works in your favor. Exam results are good for five years. Pass one paper and fail the other, and only the failed one has to be retaken and passed within that time.
What a failed sitting really costs
A $100 rescheduling fee, 21 days of waiting, and a measurable drop in the odds. Across all CSLB examinations in FY 2022/23, first attempts passed at 71 percent and retakes at 37 percent. The same gap appears in FY 2021/22 (74 and 40), FY 2020/21 (76 and 37) and FY 2019/20 (74 and 38).
The one asset a retaking candidate has that a first-timer does not is the failing score report, which breaks the result down by section against the same seven sections the study guide names. That is the sheet to plan the next three weeks from.
Sources
- CSLB Examinations Frequently Asked Questions, CSLB List of All CSLB Fees, and CSLB’s fingerprinting questions and answers, which carry the Live Scan processing fees: all three committed in the corpus as documents of
cslb-applicant-pages, read from the copy fetched September 2, 2026 - Get Licensed to Build, CSLB
- CSLB 2023 Sunset Report, pages 57 to 58, committed in the corpus as
cslb-sunset-review-report-2023 - Contractors State License Law, Business and Professions Code, Division 3, Chapter 9
- CSLB board rules, California Code of Regulations, Title 16, Division 8, s. 811