The Alabama General Contractor License Exam

PSI charges $96 per examination. Four exams cost $106: Building Construction (Commercial), Highways and Streets, Municipal and Utility, and Heavy Railroad Construction. The fee applies to every registration, first attempt or repeat.

Eligibility lasts one year from the date the state receives your application, and within that year you may test an unlimited number of times. If you have not passed at the end of the year, you reapply with the board. That is more generous than many neighboring states, but the year starts when the board receives the application, not when you are cleared, so a slow review eats into it.

Register online at test-takers.psiexams.com/alcon, where registration is open around the clock, or call PSI at (855) 257-1619 on weekdays from 6:30 am to 9:00 pm or weekends from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, Central Time. Only the candidate may schedule through a customer service representative. With open seats, you can book up to 6:00 pm Central the day before.

PSI's Alabama sites are in Vestavia Hills (Birmingham), Huntsville, Mobile and Montgomery, and you can use PSI centers in other states. Cancel at least 2 days before the appointment to keep your fee. Candidates approved for ADA accommodations must schedule by phone with a registrar.

The bulletin calls it the Business and Law Examination, formerly the General Contractor Examination, and requires it of all general contractors. It has 50 questions, a 70 percent passing score and a 120-minute limit. The subject areas and item counts are:

The exam is open book with one allowed reference: the NASCLA Contractors Guide to Business, Law and Project Management, Alabama General, 3rd edition. The board's study material list points to the NASCLA bookstore and the PSI online store for the business book and to the PSI store for a limited selection of trade books.

Licensing carries the most items, so expect questions drawn from the state chapters of that guide on classification, thresholds and board procedure. Payroll and taxes come close behind. Order the book early: it has to be an unmarked copy apart from highlighting, underlining and permanent tabs, and there is no loaner at the test center.

PSI also sells an online practice exam through the same Alabama portal. The bulletin says it can be taken an unlimited number of times, with a fee for each attempt, and warns that practice exams only familiarize candidates with the question style; a strong practice score does not assure a result on the licensing exam.

Each classification you request carries its own trade exam, with its own outline and reference list in the bulletin. The list is long: carpentry and framing, concrete, masonry, roofing and sheet metal, metal building erection, highways and streets, municipal and utility, sewer and water projects, pipelines, elevators and many more.

For Building Construction (Commercial), PSI gives the NASCLA-accredited exam for commercial general building contractors: 115 questions, 81 correct to pass, 330 minutes. Its heaviest areas are Procurement and Contracting Requirements (31 items) and General Requirements (25), then Site Construction (15). Passing it lets you send a transcript through NASCLA's National Examination Database to other jurisdictions that accept the exam, though each still requires its own business and law exam.

Arrive 30 minutes early with one valid government-issued photo ID bearing your signature, matching the name you registered under. Only a silent, battery-operated, non-programmable calculator without paper tape or an alphabet keyboard is allowed. References may be highlighted, underlined and indexed with permanent tabs, but not written in, and removable tabs must come off before you start. PSI does not provide references.

A tutorial of up to 15 minutes precedes the exam and does not count against your time. One to ten unscored experimental items may appear and do count against the clock. You can return to any question and change your answer while time remains.

Your result appears on screen as soon as you finish, and a score report is emailed to you. A failing result comes with a diagnostic report by exam area, which is the best guide to what to study before your next attempt. There is no review of the exam itself; the comment feature during the exam is the only channel PSI offers for disputing a question.

The board's prime instructions add a step people miss: it is the applicant's responsibility to submit passing scores to the board. If you are applying through reciprocity, remember that only the trade portion is waived, so the Business and Law exam is still required.

ContractorPrepHQ offers Alabama Business and Law practice for $99 and trade practice for $149 with Business and Law bundled in. Each includes original questions written from the PSI outlines and references, a diagnostic, topic drills with explanations and timed exams with a readiness score, for a one-time price with lifetime access and a 30-day money-back guarantee.