Checked against primary sources 2026-08-24

You can find out where you stand before you spend anything

The useful fact here is procedural rather than legal. There is a way to ask the question first, it costs ten dollars, and the department has ninety days to answer it.

Ask first, in writing, for ten dollars

Tex. Occ. Code 51.4012(b) lets a person ask the department, before applying for a license at all, for a letter determining whether they would be eligible. Chapter 53 Subchapter D of the Occupations Code carries the same right against licensing authorities generally, and 16 TAC 60.42 is how TDLR runs it.

The mechanics are short. A department-approved form and a ten dollar fee (16 TAC 60.42(c)). A separate request and a separate fee for each occupational license you are after (16 TAC 60.42(d)). A letter within ninety days of the date the request is complete (16 TAC 60.42(e)), which Tex. Occ. Code 53.104(c) states as ninety days from receipt.

The letter is not a verdict. It gives the department's determination on each ground of potential ineligibility (16 TAC 60.42(f)), and where the answer is adverse, Tex. Occ. Code 53.104(b) has it set out each basis and name the factors the department relied on.

Read the limits before you lean on it.

• It is not a contested case, and under 16 TAC 60.42(h) the determination may not be appealed.
• The department is not bound by its own answer if you withheld information it did not otherwise have, or if your circumstances change afterward (16 TAC 60.42(g)).
• A letter that goes against you does not stop you applying anyway (Tex. Occ. Code 51.4012(e)).

That last one is worth sitting with. The letter is information, not a gate. Ten dollars buys you the department's current thinking, in writing, before you spend an application fee and a study year on the answer.

Why nobody can tell you the answer in advance

Because it is decided case by case, and TDLR says so in the document that would say otherwise.

Tex. Occ. Code 53.025 has every licensing authority issue guidelines on its practice under Chapter 53 and file them with the secretary of state for publication in the Texas Register. TDLR publishes those guidelines. What is striking about them is what is absent: there is no section for the electrician program, no list of offenses attached to an electrical license, and an explicit statement that the categories described are not an exclusive listing.

The guidelines send each case back to the circumstances of the criminal act and to the general statutory factors. So a page, a forum post or a school that tells you a particular conviction bars a particular Texas electrical license is stating something TDLR has not published. Treat it as somebody's guess.

What is knowable in advance is your own file, and the evaluation letter is how you get it.

What the electrical act itself says, which is very little

Chapter 1305 contains one provision on the subject. Tex. Occ. Code 1305.152(c) says the department may conduct an examination of any criminal conviction of an applicant, including obtaining any criminal history record information permitted by law.

May, and that is the whole of it. Everything with teeth in it is in Chapter 53.

The grounds, and the one that is not discretionary

Tex. Occ. Code 53.021(a) allows a licensing authority to suspend or revoke a license, to disqualify a person from receiving one, or to deny the opportunity to take an examination, where the person has been convicted of an offense that directly relates to the duties and responsibilities of the licensed occupation, an offense listed in Article 42A.054 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, or a sexually violent offense.

Two provisions pull the other way. Tex. Occ. Code 53.021(a-1) takes Class C misdemeanors out of the directly-relates ground, with a carve-out that turns on firearm licenses. Tex. Occ. Code 53.021(c) generally stops a successfully completed deferred adjudication being treated as a conviction at all, and subsections (d) and (e) carve exceptions back out of that.

Then there is Tex. Occ. Code 53.021(b), which is a shall rather than a may: a license shall be revoked on the licensee's imprisonment following a felony conviction, felony community supervision revocation, revocation of parole, or revocation of mandatory supervision.

Note what triggers it. Imprisonment, or a revocation. Not the conviction on its own.

Two sets of factors, and most people prepare for the wrong one

The five factors everybody quotes are not the ones you get to argue.

Tex. Occ. Code 53.022 lists five, and they answer one question: does this conviction directly relate to the occupation. The nature and seriousness of the crime. Its relationship to the purposes behind licensing the occupation. The extent to which a license might offer an opportunity to engage in further criminal activity of the same type. The relationship of the crime to the ability or capacity to perform the duties. And any correlation between the elements of the crime and the duties of the occupation.

Every one of those is about the offense. There is almost nothing in them a person can answer with evidence about themselves.

The seven in Tex. Occ. Code 53.023(a) are the ones about you, and they only open up once the authority has already decided the conviction does directly relate. The extent and nature of past criminal activity. Your age when the crime was committed. How much time has passed since the last criminal activity. Your conduct and work activity before and after. Evidence of rehabilitation, including while incarcerated. Compliance with any conditions of community supervision, parole or mandatory supervision, at Tex. Occ. Code 53.023(a)(6). And other evidence of fitness, including letters of recommendation.

Tex. Occ. Code 53.023(b) then puts the work on you rather than on the department: the applicant has the responsibility, so far as possible, to obtain and provide those recommendations. Nobody gathers them on your behalf.

So if you are preparing a request, build it on 53.023 and treat 53.022 as the ground you are standing on rather than the case you are making. The evaluation letter closes the loop, because Tex. Occ. Code 53.104(b) makes an adverse letter name the factor it turned on.

Restricted licenses

A restricted license is a common outcome rather than an exotic one. It comes from Chapter 51 Subchapter G of the Occupations Code, and 16 TAC 73.71 sets what it means on a job site.

16 TAC 73.71 puts duties on both sides of the supervision. The holder complies with any condition the commission or executive director imposed. A licensee supervising a restricted license holder uses reasonable care to see that those conditions are met. And before performing any work, the holder tells their employer what conditions are on the license.

That last duty runs from the holder outward. The employer is not expected to ask.

One rule that is a flat bar, and it is a small one

16 TAC 73.27(a) issues a temporary apprentice license only to an applicant who has not been convicted of a criminal offense and who pays the required fee.

Read the scope of that before it alarms you. It is the temporary license, valid for twenty-one days and not renewable (16 TAC 73.27(b)). It exists so somebody can start work while the real application is in processing.

The ordinary electrical apprentice license is not conditioned that way. It goes through the same Chapter 53 analysis as every other license in the program, factors and all.

What this page cites

• 16 TAC 60.42 Criminal history evaluation letters. Form and ten dollar fee at (c), separate request per license at (d), ninety days at (e), determination on each ground at (f), the two limits at (g) and (h). Read 24 August 2026.
• Tex. Occ. Code 51.4012 The TDLR determination letter. The right to ask before applying at (b), and the rule at (e) that an adverse letter does not prevent a later application.
• Tex. Occ. Code 53.021 Grounds for denial or revocation, the Class C carve-out at (a-1), the deferred adjudication rule at (c), and the mandatory revocation at (b).
• Tex. Occ. Code 53.022 The five factors that decide whether a conviction directly relates to the occupation.
• Tex. Occ. Code 53.023 The seven factors weighed after that, and the applicant's own burden at subsection (b).
• Tex. Occ. Code 53.104 What the letter has to contain, and the ninety day deadline.
• TDLR, criminal conviction guidelines No section for the electrician program, no offense list attached to an electrical license, and the categories described are not an exclusive listing. Read 24 August 2026. source
• Tex. Occ. Code 1305.152 The department may examine an applicant's criminal convictions.
• 16 TAC 73.71 Restricted licenses, and the duty to inform an employer before performing work.
• 16 TAC 73.27 Temporary apprentice license conditions, and the twenty-one day term.