How to Complete the California RPE Verification Form for SLP Licensure

California PE work experience verification runs through the Work Experience Engagement/Reference process in the BPELSG Connect online portal. You complete Part A for each engagement describing what you did, then a licensed professional engineer who supervised or observed that work completes Part B to confirm it. The Board will not begin reviewing your application until at least four engagements/references have been completed.¹

How Many Months of Experience You Need to Document

The baseline is six years of qualifying engineering experience, but your degree reduces that number.² Your engagements collectively need to cover:

24 months of qualifying work after graduation, with a bachelor’s from a Board-approved curriculum.
12 months after your bachelor’s graduation, with a master’s or PhD from a Board-approved curriculum.
48 months after graduation, with a bachelor’s from a non-approved engineering curriculum or an approved engineering technology curriculum.
Roughly 14 to 17 years, with no qualifying degree, depending on the education you do have.

Education credit tops out at five years total: up to four years for an approved engineering degree, up to five for a postgraduate degree from a school with an approved curriculum, and up to one for qualifying teaching experience.² If you are claiming education credit, the work experience you document must come after graduation.³

What Counts as Qualifying Experience

Not every month you were employed as an engineer will count. Qualifying experience means engineering work in the branch you are applying for that required you to use sound judgment and make engineering decisions.¹ The Board explicitly excludes overtime, training, orientation, non-engineering tasks, and student summer work. Your qualifying months on each engagement equal total months worked minus the non-qualifying time.⁴

Time is also calculated on an actual-time basis capped at 40 hours per week. Working 60-hour weeks will not give you extra qualifying months.³ For civil engineer applicants, the work must meet the statutory definition of civil engineering and must have been performed with a licensed civil engineer in responsible charge. Tasks that an unlicensed person could perform, such as construction supervision, project scheduling, or general administration, do not count.⁵

Filling Out Part A

You complete Part A directly in BPELSG Connect under the Experience tab of your application. Before you start entering an engagement, have ready: your employer’s name, the exact start and end dates, total months worked, how many of those months were non-qualifying, and the contact information for the reference who will verify it.

The description of engineering experience is the piece evaluators scrutinize hardest. Write about what you personally did, not what your team accomplished. Use first-person phrasing like “I designed” or “I calculated” rather than “we performed.” The Board is looking for evidence that you exercised independent judgment and applied engineering principles, so describe the specific technical decisions you made and the engineering analysis you performed. Vague or general descriptions are one of the most common deficiencies that delay applications.⁵

Description quality directly affects your credit. Evaluators may reduce or reject the months claimed for an engagement if the narrative does not demonstrate qualifying work. Providing false information on an engagement record is a misdemeanor under Business and Professions Code Section 6787, which prohibits giving false evidence to the Board when seeking licensure.²

Who Can Serve as a Reference

You must provide at least four professional references, and none of them can be a relative by birth or marriage.⁶ Each reference must be authorized to practice in the same engineering discipline you are applying for and must have personal knowledge of your qualifying experience. If you worked in a family business and need to list a relative, you can include that person, but you still need four non-relative references on top of them.¹

The Board can waive the licensed-engineer requirement for disciplines other than civil engineering or land surveying, but only when the applicant had no association with licensed professionals in the work environment.⁶

Civil engineer applicants face a strict trap here. If your reference does not indicate they were in responsible charge of your engineering work during the engagement, the Board will still accept them as a reference, but the months you claimed for that engagement will not count.⁵ Pick a reference who actually held responsible charge of the work, and confirm they will say so on Part B.

Foreign experience and education are considered if the Board deems them equivalent to California’s minimum requirements.⁷ Expect additional scrutiny of a foreign reference’s licensure status in their jurisdiction.

How Part B Verification Works

Once you submit your application in BPELSG Connect, each reference you listed receives an automated email with a link to complete Part B. The reference confirms their relationship with you, describes the professional supervision they provided, and validates the experience you claimed in Part A.⁸ Your application will not be reviewed until the minimum four references have responded.¹

You can monitor Part B status from your dashboard. Click the link under the Status column, then select the Reference tab. If a reference is still pending, use “Resend” to trigger the email again. The Board recommends following up directly with any reference who has not responded within two weeks.⁸ You will not be able to see how a reference responded, only whether they completed Part B.

Reach out to each reference before you submit. Tell them the Board email is coming, explain what it is, and ask them to complete it promptly. References blindsided by an unfamiliar state agency email tend to ignore it, and that single delay can stall the entire application.

Deficiencies That Stall the Verification

The most common deficiencies on the experience side are references who have not completed Part B and Part A descriptions that are too vague for evaluators to credit as qualifying work.⁵ Applications with resolved deficiencies do not get priority over new applications sent to technical review, so a problem caught late pushes you to the back of the queue. Current review time is approximately five to six months from submission, and longer if there are deficiencies.⁹

Work experience verification is one piece of the PE application. You will also need to pass the Laws and Rules exam, complete fingerprinting, submit official transcripts, and, for civil and geotechnical applicants, sit for state-specific exams before licensure. Focus the verification process on getting Part A narratives specific, picking references who held responsible charge, and confirming they will respond to the Board’s email.

1
Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Work Experience Engagement/Reference Instructions for Professional Engineer Applicants
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Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. 2026 Professional Engineers Act
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Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Professional Engineer Application
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Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Work Experience Engagement/Reference Instructions for Professional Engineer (PE) Applicants
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Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Application and Licensing BPELSG Connect Frequently Asked Questions
6
Legal Information Institute. Cal. Code Regs. Tit. 16, 427.10 – References for Professional Engineer
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California Legislative Information. California Code Business and Professions Code 6788 – Offenses Against the Chapter
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Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Professional Engineer (PE) Application Instructions
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Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Application and Licensing Frequently Asked Questions