10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Electrician

Published: September 2026 | Reading Time: 10 minutes

The questions to ask before hiring an electrician take about ten minutes on the phone, and they filter out most of the people you would later regret letting near your panel. Electrical work is the one trade where a bad hire does not just cost money — unqualified work causes fires, fails inspections, and can complicate an insurance claim years later.

What follows is the list, in the order worth asking it, with what each question is actually testing and what a good answer sounds like. Pay attention to how comfortably someone answers, not only to what they say — a company that has answered these a thousand times will not hesitate.

1. Are you licensed in this state, and what is your licence number?

Ask for the number and the exact name it is registered under, because businesses often trade under a different name than the licence holder. Then check it yourself on the issuing authority’s online lookup rather than trusting a card or a van.

The Electrical Safety Foundation International is blunt that not all electricians are the same, and lists state licensing alongside four to five years of hands-on training and current knowledge of state electrical codes as the baseline for a qualified professional. Confirm the licence is active rather than expired or suspended, and ask the board whether complaints are attached to it.

2. Do you carry liability insurance and workers’ compensation?

These cover different things and people conflate them constantly. General liability pays if the work damages your property — a fire, a flooded ceiling, a ruined floor. Workers’ compensation covers injury to the electrician while on your property, and without it an injured worker may look to the homeowner.

Ask for a certificate of insurance sent directly by the insurer or the agent, not handed to you as a photocopy. Then call the agent named on it and confirm the policy is current. It takes five minutes, and it is the difference between assuming you are covered and knowing it.

3. What licence level will actually be doing the work?

The person who quotes is not always the person who turns up. Electrical licensing is tiered, and each tier is a real difference in training rather than a title.

Level	What it represents	Suits
Apprentice	Working through supervised training hours	Assisting; should not be unsupervised on your job
Journeyperson	Completed the apprenticeship and passed the licensing exam	Most routine household work
Master	Years beyond journeyperson plus a master exam	Panels, service upgrades, permitted work, difficult faults

You are not asking for a master on every job — swapping a light fitting does not need one. You are asking so that nobody diagnoses a panel fault on their second month in the trade, and so a supervised apprentice is not left alone in your house.

4. Will you pull the permit, and is the fee inside your price?

Panel replacements, service upgrades, new circuits, rewiring and generator installations commonly need a permit and an inspection, though thresholds are set locally. A qualified electrician obtains the necessary permits as a matter of course; ESFI lists exactly that among the practices that separate a professional from someone cheaper.

An electrician who asks you to pull the permit yourself is shifting liability onto you, and sometimes signalling they cannot pull one. Unpermitted electrical work surfaces at the worst moments — during a sale, at an insurance claim, or at the next inspection.

5. How do you charge — hourly, flat rate, or per job?

Hourly suits diagnostic work where nobody yet knows the cause, and the risk of a slow day sits with you. Flat rate suits defined tasks like fitting a ceiling fan, and removes that risk in exchange for a rigid scope.

Ask the follow-up that most people skip: what is the minimum charge? Most electricians apply a one to two hour minimum, so a ten-minute fix is billed as an hour or more. That single answer changes how you should plan the visit — and it is the reason bundling several small jobs together is the easiest saving available. If you want the current national ranges before you weigh a quote, our breakdown of what an electrician costs per hour and per job sets them out.

6. Is there a service call fee, and is it credited against the work?

Most companies charge to come out and diagnose. The number itself matters less than what happens to it: some credit the fee against the repair once you approve the work, and some charge it on top.

Ask about travel separately. A few companies bill a trip charge that does not come off the labour time, which means a low hourly rate can quietly cost more than a higher one with travel included. Two quotes with identical hourly rates routinely land a couple of hundred dollars apart on these two answers alone.

7. Can I see the scope in writing before you start?

A verbal number is not something you can dispute. The Federal Trade Commission’s guidance for hiring contractors is to get written estimates describing the work, the materials, the timeline and the price, and to make sure every blank space is filled in before you sign anything.

What the written scope should contain

• Business name, address, phone and licence number
• The work described specifically, with diagnosis separated from repair
• Labour shown separately from materials, and the pricing model named
• Devices and fittings by brand and grade
• Who pulls the permit and whether the fee is included
• Whether drywall repair and painting are included or excluded
• Start and expected completion dates

Ask what is excluded rather than what is included. It is the more revealing version of the question, and the one that surfaces the open wall nobody mentioned.

8. What happens to the price if the job grows once it is opened up?

Electrical work hides its surprises behind drywall and inside panels. Aluminium branch wiring, knob-and-tube, ungrounded circuits, an obsolete panel brand or simply no spare breaker space can all turn a small job into a larger one halfway through.

A good answer describes a process: work stops, you are shown what was found, and a revised price is agreed in writing before anything continues. A vague “we’ll sort it out” is how a $300 job becomes a $1,200 invoice you did not approve.

9. What warranty do you give on parts and on labour?

These are separate promises and only one of them is really theirs. A manufacturer warranty on a breaker or fixture costs the electrician nothing. A labour warranty — they come back and fix it at no charge if it fails within a stated period — is the one that tells you whether they expect their own work to hold.

Ask for the duration on each, in writing. ESFI’s description of a qualified electrician includes standing behind their work and keeping proper documentation, and a warranty with a number attached is what that looks like in practice.

10. Can you give me references from jobs like mine?

Not references in general — references for the kind of work you are asking for. Someone who fits fixtures beautifully may rarely touch a service panel, and a panel specialist is who you want if that is the job.

When you call a reference, ask what the final invoice was against the original quote, whether the permit was pulled and passed, and whether anything needed a return visit. The FTC also suggests checking with your local consumer protection office for complaint history, which catches what references never will. The same vetting habits apply across the trades, and much of it carries over from how to check out a reliable plumber.

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Answers That Should End the Conversation

Some responses are worth more than the answer itself, because they tell you how the job will go when something is inconvenient.

• “We’re fully licensed and insured” with nothing to show for it. A slogan is not a certificate or a licence number.
• “You can pull the permit yourself.” That is your liability, not their saving.
• “No permit needed for this.” Sometimes true, but ask which rule they are relying on and verify it with your building department.
• Cash only, or the full amount before work starts. A traceable payment is your only recourse if the job is abandoned.
• Pressure to decide today. Legitimate electrical pricing survives a night of thinking.
• A diagnosis you are not allowed to see. If a rewire is recommended, ask to be shown the evidence.
• A price far below everyone else’s. It is usually corrected later by cutting scope, skipping the permit, or disappearing.

Asking These When It Is an Emergency

You will not run the full list at eleven at night, and you should not try. Compress it to three: the licence number, the after-hours rate, and whether the call-out fee is credited. Ask for the rate by text so it exists in writing, and look up the licence while they are driving.

Before that, decide whether it really is an emergency. Burning smells, scorch marks around an outlet, warm faceplates, buzzing from the panel, or losing power to part of the house while the neighbours still have theirs are worth the premium. A breaker that trips once and then holds is usually a next-morning job — switch that circuit off at the panel and sleep on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Sources

• Electrical Safety Foundation International — Qualified Electricians
• Federal Trade Commission — How To Avoid a Home Improvement Scam