PSI Services — exam vendor for Texas, California and Maryland
PSI candidate information bulletin
The bulletin is the authority on your exam — question count, time limit, what to bring, and how the practical is scored. Finding yours is harder than it should be: the documents sit behind bare numbers, and nothing on any board site tells you which number is yours. Here is the map.
Texas — 8 licences, 8 bulletins
One document per licence. Texas still requires a practical exam for every licence type, and the bulletin carries its full scored rubric — the exact criteria an evaluator marks, in order, with the time on each section.
| Licence | Written | Practical | Bulletin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class A Barber | not recorded | — | #701 |
| Cosmetology Operator | not recorded | — | #703 |
| Barber Technician | not recorded | — | #705 |
| Barber Manicurist | not recorded | — | #707 |
| Shampoo Specialist | not recorded | — | #709 |
| Hair Weaving Specialist | 40 q / 55 min | 76 min | #711 |
| Manicurist | 60 q / 90 min | 81 min | #713 |
| Esthetician | 75 q / 105 min | 101 min | #715 |
Question counts shown where we have transcribed them from the January 2026 bulletins. Barber and Cosmetology Operator are marked “not recorded” because we have not transcribed those two — open the bulletin rather than trusting a number we haven't checked. Verified 2026-08-05.
California — 6 licences, but only 2 documents
IDs 916, 930, 940, 941, 942 are the same file, byte for byte — one combined 26-page bulletin covering five licences. Only the hairstylist theory bulletin (#11070) is a distinct document. Download any of the five and you have them all; download all five and you have wasted four downloads.
| Licence | Written | Practical | Bulletin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barber | 85 q / 120 min | none | #916 |
| Cosmetologist | 100 q / 120 min | none | #930 |
| Esthetician | 75 q / 90 min | none | #941 |
| Manicurist | 60 q / 90 min | none | #942 |
| Electrologist | 50 q / 90 min | none | #940 |
| Hairstylist | not recorded | none | #11070 |
No practical column values because California has none — the state abolished the hands-on exam for every licence type on 1 January 2022. Verified 2026-08-09.
Why these are so hard to find
Three things compound. The board sites never reference the ID numbers. The PSI portal is a JavaScript application, so its served HTML contains no links to the PDFs. And — the part that makes guessing worse than useless — every unknown path under /api/ returns the application's shell with HTTP 200. A wrong guess does not fail. It looks exactly like a hit.
The reliable route is three hops through the board's own PSI client: list the tests, open one to find its bulletin reference, then fetch that bulletin. That is how every number above was obtained, and each was confirmed by reading the title off page one of the PDF it returned.
Check the number before you trust it
These are identifiers on a vendor's content API, not stable document names. Nothing guarantees #713 stays the manicurist bulletin. Every ID here returned a PDF whose title we read, on the dates shown — but open yours and confirm the title matches your licence before you study from it.
States not yet mapped
Maryland
Practical exams still required — six of them. We know the portal — test-takers.psiexams.com/mdcos — but have not mapped its bulletin IDs yet.
Common questions
What is a PSI Candidate Information Bulletin?
The document PSI publishes for a specific licensing exam. It is the authority on what that exam contains — question counts, time limits, what to bring, the rules on the day, and how the practical is scored where one exists. It is written by PSI, the exam vendor, not by the state board, which is why board pages summarise it rather than replace it.
Where do I find the PSI bulletin for my exam?
Each one sits at test-takers.psiexams.com/api/content/bulletin/ followed by a number. The number is the whole difficulty — nothing in the URL names the exam, board sites do not reference the IDs, and the portal's HTML contains no links to them. The tables on this page map every Texas and California licence to its number.
Is there one bulletin per license?
Not necessarily, and this is the thing most likely to waste your time. Texas issues 8 separate bulletins for 8 licences. California issues two documents behind six IDs: 5 of them return the identical combined bulletin covering five licences, and only the hairstylist theory bulletin is distinct.
Does the bulletin tell me if there's a practical exam?
Yes, and the answer differs sharply by state. California abolished the practical for every licence type on 1 January 2022 — its bulletin does not mention one. Texas still requires a practical for every licence and the bulletin carries the full scored rubric. Maryland also still requires one. Never assume a neighbouring state matches.
Do the bulletin ID numbers change?
They can. These are identifiers on a vendor's content API, not stable document names, and nothing guarantees a given number keeps pointing at the same licence. Every ID here was verified by fetching it and reading the title from page one — Texas on 2026-08-05, California on 2026-08-09. Re-check before relying on one.