Research · Licensing
Contractor license lookup by state
51 official board searches, checked against each board’s own site (September 5, 2026), scored on a published rubric, with the states that have no general-contractor lookup named.
Written by HyreRemodel Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The finding
Contractor license lookup runs state by state: there is no national contractor license, so there is no national lookup. Each state board runs its own search, and 9 states, including Texas, Colorado and New York, have no statewide lookup for residential general contractors at all.
Of the 51 jurisdictions below, 4 portals (California, Oregon, Virginia, Washington) score 4 of 4 on our rubric. Search by license number first, check status and class, then look for discipline, which not every board shows.
Before you click a link
A lookup is a public record on a date. It is not a recommendation, a rating, or proof that the person at your door is the person on the license.
Every link goes to the issuing board, a secretary of state, or a city register labeled as a city register. Third-party “license check” sites are not a substitute and are not listed.
Rows with a date in the last column were opened or confirmed against the board’s own site on September 5, 2026. Rows marked “listed” carry the URL the board publishes and were not all re-opened in this pass. We will not present a link we did not open as freshly confirmed.
Texas remodelers are missing from TDLR because the job is not on TDLR’s program list, not because they are hiding. The same holds for residential general contracting in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, New York State, Oklahoma and Wyoming.
Florida DBPR and Utah LLV are official and usable, but they give you no stable URL to paste into an email. That is a usability finding, not a sign the license is fake.
North Carolina’s public search has no discipline column; the board’s FAQ says it is disclosed on request. Nevada discloses complaints that ended in discipline, not every complaint. Utah’s “no actions” display is time-limited by statute. Empty is not clean.
Boards move URLs and thresholds change. Confirm the current page with the issuing authority before you rely on a result for a contract.
How to use a license lookup, in order
The state that issued the credential, the license or registration number, and the class or endorsement. “We’re licensed and insured” is not a search. A number is.
Use the table below, not an ad, a data broker or a directory that resells leads. Name search is the fallback, and it collides: Florida DBPR and CSLB both cap the number of results a name query returns.
Current, active or issued is the minimum. Expired, suspended, revoked, inactive or “not valid for contracting” ends the conversation.
A Texas electrician license does not cover a kitchen remodel. A California C-10 electrical license does not cover a general building job. In Florida a CRC is a residential contractor and a CGC a general contractor. The class is the scope.
If the portal has no discipline tab, that says something about the portal, not the company. Use the path the board publishes: on request in North Carolina, the disciplinary search in Nevada, the license detail in California.
The name on the license, the contract and the insurance certificate should agree. In several states a qualifier’s personal license and a company’s license are separate records. The business you pay should be the one the board lists.
The usability rubric
The 1–4 score is our assessment of the lookup as a homeowner tool, not a grade of the board as a regulator.
- 4: usable as a homeowner tool
- You can search by license number and by name. The result shows status and class. Discipline or complaints are on the record or one click away. There is a permalink, or a result with a license number someone else can re-enter.
- 3: official and workable, with friction
- The board search exists and returns a status, but something important is missing or awkward: no permalink (Florida, Utah), no discipline field (North Carolina), or a JavaScript front end some browsers struggle with (Arizona).
- 2: official, but not a GC lookup
- The state lookup covers trades, a home-improvement registration or a city. It cannot answer “is this remodeler licensed by the state as a general contractor?” because that credential does not exist or is local. Texas TDLR is the clearest example.
- 1: no statewide GC search a homeowner can run
- There is no official statewide general-contractor lookup for residential work. City registers may exist; we name them when we have them and do not invent a state page.
Official lookups: 50 states and the District of Columbia
Alphabetical. The last column shows when we opened the page (a date) or that the URL is the board’s published lookup (“listed”). Click the board name to open its search.
| State | Board (opens the lookup) | Search by | Discipline on the record? | Score (1–4) | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AL | Home Builders Licensure Board | Name / license # | Varies | 3 | listed |
| AK | CBPL: Construction Contractor | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| AZ | Registrar of Contractors | Name / 6-digit license / city / class | Yes: posting list + search | 3 | Sep 5, 2026 (form; Cloudflare on some paths) |
| AR | Contractors Licensing Board | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| CA | Contractors State License Board | License # / business name / personnel / HIS # | Yes: complaint disclosure on the record | 4 | Sep 5, 2026 resolved |
| CO | No statewide GC license: DORA trades / municipal | Trade licenses only | Trade boards | 2 | listed |
| CT | DCP eLicense: Home Improvement | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| DE | Division of Professional Regulation | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| DC | DLCP Occupational / Professional Licensing | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| FL | DBPR: Construction Industry Licensing Board | Name / license # / board & type | Complaint view under §455.225(10) | 3 | Sep 5, 2026 listed (session ASP) |
| GA | Secretary of State: Professional Licensing | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| HI | Professional & Vocational Licensing: Contractors | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| ID | Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses: Contractors | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| IL | No statewide GC license: IDFPR trades / municipal | Roofing and other trades | Trade boards | 2 | listed |
| IN | No statewide GC license: IPLA trades / municipal | Trade licenses | Trade boards | 2 | listed |
| IA | Iowa Workforce / Professional Licensing: contractors | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| KS | No statewide GC license: AG roofing registry; municipal GC | Roofing registry | AG roofing | 2 | listed |
| KY | Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| LA | State Licensing Board for Contractors | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| ME | Professional and Financial Regulation | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| MD | MHIC: Maryland Home Improvement Commission | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| MA | Office of Consumer Affairs: Home Improvement Contractor | Name / registration | On record | 3 | listed |
| MI | LARA: Residential Builders | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| MN | Department of Labor and Industry: Residential Building Contractor | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| MS | State Board of Contractors | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| MO | No statewide GC license: municipal / trade | Trade licenses | Trade boards | 1 | listed |
| MT | Department of Labor & Industry: Construction Contractor Registration | Name / registration | Limited | 3 | listed |
| NE | Department of Labor: Contractor Registration | Name / registration | Limited | 3 | listed |
| NV | State Contractors Board | Name / license # / principal | Yes: disciplinary search is separate | 3 | listed |
| NH | OPLC: Electricians / plumbers; AG consumer | Trade licenses | Trade boards | 2 | listed |
| NJ | Division of Consumer Affairs: Home Improvement | Name / registration | On record | 3 | listed |
| NM | Regulation and Licensing Department: Construction Industries | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| NY | No statewide GC license: NYC DCWP / local | NYC HIC only | NYC DCWP | 2 | listed |
| NC | Licensing Board for General Contractors | Name / license # / class | Not in the public search; disclosed on request | 3 | Sep 5, 2026 listed |
| ND | Secretary of State: Contractor Licensing | Name / license # | Limited | 3 | listed |
| OH | Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board (trades) / local GC | Trade licenses | OCILB trades | 2 | listed |
| OK | No statewide GC license: CIB trades; municipal | Trades only | Trade boards | 1 | listed |
| OR | Construction Contractors Board | Name / CCB # / personnel | Yes: complaints on the record | 4 | listed |
| PA | Attorney General: Home Improvement Contractor registration | Name / registration | AG registration | 3 | listed |
| RI | Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board | Name / registration # | On record | 3 | listed |
| SC | LLR: Residential Builders Commission | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| SD | Commission of Engineering / local; limited statewide GC | Limited | Limited | 1 | listed |
| TN | Board for Licensing Contractors | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| TX | No state GC license: TDLR trades + municipal registers | TDLR trades only | TDLR trades | 2 | Sep 5, 2026 (TDLR program list; municipal pages) |
| UT | DOPL: Construction Services | Name / license # | Yes: “no actions” is time-limited | 3 | Sep 5, 2026 listed |
| VT | Office of Professional Regulation / Fire Safety | Trade / registration | OPR | 2 | listed |
| VA | DPOR: Board for Contractors | Name / license # | On record | 4 | listed |
| WA | Labor & Industries: Contractor Registration | Name / UBI / contractor # | On record; L&I verify | 4 | listed |
| WV | Contractors Licensing Board | Name / license # | On record | 3 | listed |
| WI | DSPS: Dwelling Contractor | Name / credential # | On record | 3 | listed |
| WY | No statewide GC license: municipal / county | Local only | Local | 1 | listed |
HyreRemodel Research Desk, September 5, 2026. Official URLs only. The score is the rubric above, not a ranking of boards as regulators.
If a link has moved, tell the research desk and we will correct it in place with a date.
What to know about each state’s lookup
- Alabama (AL)
- Residential home builders, not a general remodeling class. Confirm the board covers the job.
- Alaska (AK)
- Statewide contractor registration through Commerce.
- Arizona (AZ)
- roc.az.gov/contractor-search. Cloudflare has challenged automated fetches; the form is the official lookup. Posting lists are downloadable.
- Arkansas (AR)
- Commercial vs residential thresholds apply. Confirm the class covers a home remodel.
- California (CA)
- Fetched Sep 5, 2026. Page states it verifies “including complaint disclosure.” Database down Sundays 8 p.m.–Monday 6 a.m. PT.
- Colorado (CO)
- Colorado does not license residential general contractors at the state level. DORA lookup covers other professions. Cities (Denver Class C) run their own registers.
- Connecticut (CT)
- Home improvement contractor registration, not a competency exam equivalent to CSLB B.
- Delaware (DE)
- Confirm whether the credential is home improvement vs a trade.
- District of Columbia (DC)
- Home improvement contractor licensing is local to the District.
- Florida (FL)
- Board 06. No statewide query; counties page. No shareable per-record URL without a session.
- Georgia (GA)
- Residential and general contractor licensing through SOS. Confirm the division.
- Hawaii (HI)
- Contractors License Board. Island of record matters for the job.
- Idaho (ID)
- The registration and licensing system has changed; confirm the current contractor program on DOPL.
- Illinois (IL)
- Illinois does not license residential general contractors statewide. Roofing is licensed. Chicago Chapter 4-36 is a municipal contractor license.
- Indiana (IN)
- Indiana does not license residential general contractors at the state level. Indianapolis / other cities may register contractors.
- Iowa (IA)
- Confirm whether the credential is a contractor registration or a trade license for the job.
- Kansas (KS)
- No statewide residential GC license. Roofing contractors are a separate AG program. Cities may register.
- Kentucky (KY)
- Electrical / HVAC / plumbing are licensed; confirm GC vs trade for a remodel.
- Louisiana (LA)
- Residential contractor licensing with a project-value threshold. Confirm the threshold against the current statute.
- Maine (ME)
- Home construction / contractor programs sit under PFR. Confirm the exact license type.
- Maryland (MD)
- Home improvement is a distinct license from a building contractor. A kitchen remodel can fall under MHIC.
- Massachusetts (MA)
- HIC registration is the consumer-facing remodel credential. Construction supervisor licenses are a different lookup.
- Michigan (MI)
- Residential builder and maintenance & alteration contractor licenses.
- Minnesota (MN)
- Residential building contractor / remodeler licenses through DOLI.
- Mississippi (MS)
- Residential vs commercial. Confirm the class covers a home remodel.
- Missouri (MO)
- Missouri does not license residential general contractors at the state level. St. Louis, Kansas City and other cities register locally.
- Montana (MT)
- Registration is not a competency exam. Confirm what the public record actually shows.
- Nebraska (NE)
- Contractor registration program. Not equivalent to a classified license.
- Nevada (NV)
- NSCB. Discipline is searchable; NRS 624.327 limits what is disclosed to actions that resulted in discipline.
- New Hampshire (NH)
- No statewide residential GC license of the California type. Trades are licensed. Confirm municipal rules.
- New Jersey (NJ)
- Home improvement contractor registration. Distinct from a building contractor license where one exists.
- New Mexico (NM)
- GB / EE / MM classifications. Confirm GB-2/GB-98 vs a specialty for the remodel.
- New York (NY)
- New York State does not license residential general contractors. New York City licenses home-improvement contractors. Upstate is local.
- North Carolina (NC)
- Fetched path Sep 5, 2026. $40,000 threshold under G.S. 87-1. Intermediate/unlimited classifications. FAQ: discipline disclosed upon request, not as a search field.
- North Dakota (ND)
- Contractor licensing through the Secretary of State. Confirm class and project-value bands.
- Ohio (OH)
- Ohio licenses trades (electrical, HVAC, plumbing, hydronics, refrigeration) at the state level. Residential GC is not a single statewide license of the CSLB type.
- Oklahoma (OK)
- CIB has stated residential general contracting is not currently required at the state level. Look up electrical, mechanical, plumbing. Cities register GCs.
- Oregon (OR)
- CCB search shows endorsement, bonds, insurance and complaints on one record.
- Pennsylvania (PA)
- HICPA registration is not a competency exam. Look up the registration; it is not a CSLB-class license.
- Rhode Island (RI)
- Registration / licensing through CRB. Confirm residential vs commercial.
- South Carolina (SC)
- Residential builders and specialty contractors. Confirm the commission vs commercial contractor licensing.
- South Dakota (SD)
- No CSLB-equivalent statewide residential GC lookup. Confirm current DLR programs and municipal rules.
- Tennessee (TN)
- BC / MC / CMC and residential. Confirm the monetary limit on the license against the job.
- Texas (TX)
- TDLR does not license residential general contractors. Lookup electricians, ACR, mold, solar retailers. San Antonio Contractor Connect and El Paso Accela are municipal GC registers.
- Utah (UT)
- Construction Business Registry is a separate contact directory. LLV is the license verification. Utah Code 63G-4-106/107 time-limits some “no actions” displays.
- Vermont (VT)
- Confirm whether the remodel needs a statewide credential or a municipal permit only.
- Virginia (VA)
- Class A/B/C contractors. Scores 4 on our rubric.
- Washington (WA)
- Registration, not a competency exam. RCW 18.27. Bond and insurance display on the record. Collection bar if unregistered.
- West Virginia (WV)
- Contractor licensing through the Division of Labor. Confirm residential vs specialty.
- Wisconsin (WI)
- Dwelling contractor certification is the remodel-adjacent credential. Confirm vs a trade credential.
- Wyoming (WY)
- Wyoming does not operate a statewide residential GC license lookup. Confirm the city or county that will inspect the lot.
Texas: the lookup that does not exist
TDLR’s program list does not include residential general contracting. A search at tdlr.texas.gov/LicenseSearch is the right tool for an electrician, an AC contractor, a mold remediator or a residential solar retailer. It cannot tell you whether a remodeler is licensed by Texas, because Texas issues no such license.
Our store’s 955 Texas records all come from cities: 805 San Antonio Contractor Connect registrations and 150 El Paso Accela registrations, measured September 5, 2026. They mean nothing in Houston, Dallas, Austin or an unincorporated county.
What to check in Texas instead: (1) the city that will inspect the work, (2) the Comptroller’s franchise-tax and sales-tax record for the business, (3) TDLR or TSBPE for any trade that opens a wall, and (4) the documents Property Code Chapter 53 already requires.
The Texas contractors page walks through each with named city records.
The remodeler and the trades are separate lookups
The remodeler (may have no state license)
In Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, New York State, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming, a residential general contractor can be a business with a city registration, an entity filing and a contract, and no state number to type into a box.
In those states, follow up any “licensed and insured” claim: licensed by whom, as what, and which city will inspect the work?
The trades inside the remodel (can be state-licensed)
Electrical, plumbing and HVAC can be licensed by the state even where the general contractor is not: Texas licenses electricians and AC contractors through TDLR. A new circuit behind the drywall is a trade-license question.
Run the trade lookup for whoever will touch that system. A GC registration does not replace a trade license, and a trade license does not make someone a general contractor.
Permalinks, captchas and why the score is not yes or no
By “machine-readable” we mean a result you can reach without a captcha on every record, ideally at a URL that contains the license number. CSLB’s LicenseDetail.aspx?LicNum= is the model; we store those permalinks in our California files. Oregon CCB and Washington L&I Verify work the same way.
Florida DBPR is official and statewide for construction licenses, but the search is an ASP form and the detail URL carries a session.
Utah LLV is official and statewide, but gated by reCAPTCHA with no shareable per-license URL.
Arizona’s search is a Salesforce app that returned Cloudflare challenges to our automated requests even while the human form worked.
A board that hides the record behind a session still serves the public better than a board with no search. But nobody (a journalist, a legal-aid clinic, or us) can cite a live record from it without a screenshot. That is why the score is not simply “exists” or “does not exist.”
North Carolina’s portal works for status and class, but discipline is not a column; the board discloses it on request. Reading a clean North Carolina search as “no discipline” would be a false claim about the company. The clean board records page is built on that distinction.
What to do when the link fails
If a URL in this table returns a 404, the board has moved its search. Do not click the first ad. Go to the board’s homepage (cslb.ca.gov, roc.az.gov, myfloridalicense.com, nclbgc.org, tdlr.texas.gov) and look for “verify,” “lookup” or “search licensees.” Then tell us, and we will update the row with a date.
If the page loads blank, it may be a JavaScript app (Arizona ROC and some eLicense portals). Give it a moment or try another browser. A blank screen says nothing about whether the contractor is licensed.
If a number the contractor gave you returns nothing, try the name, try the number with leading zeros (Arizona uses six digits), and try the qualifier’s name instead of the trade name.
If the number still does not exist, you have no license to check, and that is the point at which you do not sign.
How we keep the table current
We re-open every official URL at least quarterly, or sooner if a board announces a new portal. The Checked column shows which rows we opened on the retrieval date.
A broken link reported by a reader, a statute that changes who is licensed, or a board moving to a new portal. If Texas created a residential GC license, the Texas row would change at the top of the page, not in a footnote.
We will not swap an official URL for a third-party scraper because the official page is clumsy, and we will not call a state “unlicensed” because its search is slow.
Questions
How do I check a contractor license by state?
Why doesn’t Texas have a contractor license lookup?
Is a license lookup enough to hire someone?
What if the lookup shows no disciplinary actions?
Can I search by ZIP code?
Do you charge for these lookups?
How often is this table updated?
What about home-improvement salesperson registrations?
Written and audited by
HyreRemodel Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a remodeling contractor and not a sales floor.
We read the statute, the licensing register or the municipal fee schedule ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify.
This program is new, and the counts below are small: they are what we have actually published, not what we intend to.
- 7
- studies published
- 7
- states in the contractor store we measure against
- 264
- source documents linked from these pages, 101 of them on .gov domains
- 22,183
- license records measured September 5, 2026
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Licensing facts come from the issuing board or the statute that creates the credential. Permit-fee facts come from the municipality that publishes the schedule. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we open the source and record the date.
- Our own store is titled to the states it covers. We hold verified contractor records for seven states. An asset that rests on those records is titled to those states. National claims rest on federal or state-agency data (Census, BLS, EPA), never on our counts.
- Absence of a record is not a finding about the company. A board that does not publish disciplinary history in a form we retrieved is excluded from any “clean record” claim. Unable to verify is not unlicensed. Not required is not not carried.
- Fact, calculation, analysis and recommendation stay labelled. A statute is a source fact. A count we derived from our store is a HyreRemodel calculation. What that count means is analysis. What a homeowner should do next is a recommendation.
- We do not remodel homes, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of September 5, 2026. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
You have the number. Now compare the bids.
A current license is the minimum. Bids built on the same drawings, allowances and exclusions are how you tell a complete remodel quote from a thin one.
HyreRemodel does not do remodeling work and has no commercial relationship with any licensing board named here. A lookup result is not a recommendation. Confirm the current record with the issuing authority. If a URL has moved, tell us and we will correct it in place with a date.