Los Angeles Structural Welding Certification: Where to Train and Test

If you want to weld structural steel in Los Angeles, you will hear about the city’s structural welding certification long before you finish school. The City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) runs its own welder certification, and the test is a practical one: you weld test plates in front of an approved facility and they are judged against an American Welding Society code.

The good news is that you do not have to go far to take it. Several LA-area colleges and adult schools are approved test sites, and a few run courses built around the test.

What the LA Structural Test Covers

The schools that give the LADBS test name two AWS codes:

• AWS D1.1 is the Structural Welding Code for steel. It covers the plate, beams and columns in building frames. Mt. San Antonio College tests D1.1 in both manual (stick) and semi-automatic (wire) welding.
• AWS D1.3 covers light gauge, or sheet, structural steel: thinner metal such as decking and light framing.

Most people start with D1.1, since it is the code behind the structural steel work that the name suggests. Pasadena City College calls the result the LAC D1.1 Welding License.

The LADBS certification is separate from AWS’s own certified welder program, even though both test to AWS codes. For how the national credentials work, see the welding certification guide.

LA-Area Schools That Give or Prepare You for the Test

Mt. SAC and Rio Hondo: Test Where You Train

Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut is the clearest example of a school that trains and certifies. It is licensed by LADBS to certify welders in structural steel under D1.1, both manual and semi-automatic, and in light gage steel under D1.3. Its awards include a Welder - Licensed Certificate, a Semiautomatic Arc Welding certificate and a 60-unit AS degree.

Classes pair one hour of lecture with 3 or 6 hours of hands-on lab, so most of your time is in the booth. Mt. SAC estimates tuition at $46 a unit for California residents and $334 a unit for out-of-state students, with books and materials extra.

Rio Hondo College in Whittier gives the Certified Welder Practical Exam for the City of Los Angeles in structural steel (D1.1) and light gauge structural steel (D1.3). It has a certificate aimed squarely at the test: the Welding Technology LADBS Structural Steel Certification Program, which the college estimates at $1,756 for the entire program. The full Welding Technology associate degree is estimated at $4,398.

Rio Hondo is a small program, with 8 welding awards in 2024–25, and Mt. SAC conferred 49. Pick Rio Hondo if you want the most direct, lowest-cost path to the city test. Pick Mt. SAC if you want the wider course menu and both test codes on one campus.

Short Programs Built Around the LA License

Pasadena City College names an award after the city license itself: the Los Angeles Structural Welding License certificate of achievement, at 16 units. The college says completers will be prepared for the LAC D1.1 Welding License. Pasadena also offers a 4-unit Basic Welding skills certificate and three 18- to 19-unit certificates in construction welding, TIG and MIG, and welding fabrication. It suits you if you already know you want structural work and want a short, focused course.

Tri-Community Adult Education in Covina is licensed to give the LADBS practical exams under AWS D1.1. It runs 12-week terms and lets you finish at your own pace: Certified Welder Fundamentals is 72 hours per term, and Combination Welder Training is 1,200 hours. It conferred 55 welding awards in 2024–25. Pick it if you want an adult-school route in the San Gabriel Valley.

College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita offers certification testing for both LADBS and AWS, and its SMAW classes run in 5-week segments. Its Structural Steel Welding certificate sits next to pipe, TIG and robotic welding certificates, so it suits you if you want options beyond structural.

Other LA Schools With Structural Training

These schools teach structural welding and prepare you for certification, even where they are not named LADBS test sites:

• Los Angeles Trade Technical College in Los Angeles is a Certified Welding Test Center where you can take certification exams on site. Its full-time program runs about 21 hours a week, with a SMAW Structural Steel Certificate.
• El Camino College in Torrance grades its welding work against AWS, API, ASME and ANSI criteria and offers a SMAW Structural Steel certificate and a Structural Steel Fabrication certificate.
• Cerritos College in Norwalk trains students for AWS, ASME, API and state welding certifications, with a Structural Steel Fabricator certificate. It had 278 welding awards in 2024–25, the most in California, and offers day, evening and weekend classes.
• Glendale Community College teaches most welding classes in the afternoon and evening, with an emphasis on earning a welding certification at the end.
• Hacienda La Puente Adult Education in La Puente runs a 1,080-hour Combination Welder program with a day track and a Tuesday and Thursday evening track.

How Testing Fits Into Your Training

The city test checks whether you can lay down a sound structural weld. It does not teach you to do it, so plan your path in two steps.

1. Get the booth hours first. Most people need a full course sequence in stick and wire welding on plate before a D1.1 test goes well. A 16-unit program like Pasadena’s or a structural certificate at El Camino, LATTC or Santa Ana is the usual base.
2. Test where you trained if you can. At Mt. SAC, Rio Hondo, Tri-Community, College of the Canyons or Santa Ana, the lab you practiced in is the lab you test in.
3. Add D1.3 if your target work is light framing. Mt. SAC and Rio Hondo both give it.
4. Add AWS testing for work outside the city. College of the Canyons offers both LADBS and AWS testing, which helps if you expect to work across Southern California.

Before you enroll, ask the school when it schedules the city test and whether the test fee is included in the course.

What Structural Welding Pays in California

BLS counts structural welders with all welders. In California the median was $58,060 a year, or $27.91 an hour, in May 2025. In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro the median was $56,160 ($27.00 an hour), with 7,850 people employed.

Structural skills also lead into ironwork, which paid a California median of $76,370. Read the structural welder career guide and the ironworker guide for what each job involves. For every metro’s pay, see how much welders make in California, and for tuition across the state, what welding school costs in California. To compare all programs, start with the best welding schools in California.

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