Every state’s contractor licence lookup, and whether it works

How to use a licence lookup, in order

Ask the contractor for three things in writing: the state that issued the credential, the licence or registration number, and the classification or endorsement. “We’re licensed and insured” is not a search query. A number is.

Open the official lookup for that state from the table below — not a Google ad, not a data broker, not a directory that resells the lead. Search by the number first. Name search is a fallback, and it collides: Florida DBPR and CSLB both warn that a name query returns a cap of results.

Read the status line before anything else. Current / active / issued is the floor. Expired, suspended, revoked, inactive, or “this licence is not valid for contracting” is the end of the conversation, not the start of a negotiation.

Then read the class. A Texas electrician licence does not authorise a kitchen remodel. A California C-10 electrical licence does not authorise a general building job. A Florida CRC is a residential contractor; a CGC is a general contractor. The class is the scope.

Then look for discipline, complaints, or a “legal action” tab. If the portal does not show one, that is not a clean bill of health. It is a statement about the portal. Ask the contractor for the board’s written confirmation, and use the request path the board publishes (North Carolina: upon request; Nevada: disciplinary search; California: on the licence detail).

Finally, match the name on the licence to the name on the contract and the name on the insurance certificate. A qualifier’s personal licence and a company’s licence are different records in several states. The person who will be paid should be the person the board lists.

What the notes column is for

AL — Alabama. Residential home builders, not a general remodeling class. Confirm the board covers the job. AK — Alaska. Statewide contractor registration through Commerce. AZ — Arizona. roc.az.gov/contractor-search. Cloudflare has challenged automated fetches; the form is the official lookup. Posting lists are downloadable. AR — Arkansas. Commercial vs residential thresholds apply. Confirm the class covers a home remodel. CA — California. Fetched 2026-09-05. Page states it verifies “including complaint disclosure.” Database down Sundays 8 p.m.–Monday 6 a.m. PT. CO — Colorado. Colorado does not license residential general contractors at the state level. DORA lookup covers other professions. Cities (Denver Class C) run their own registers. CT — Connecticut. Home improvement contractor registration, not a competency exam equivalent to CSLB B. DE — Delaware. Confirm whether the credential is home improvement vs a trade. DC — District of Columbia. Home improvement contractor licensing is local to the District. FL — Florida. Board 06. No statewide query; counties page. No shareable per-record URL without a session. GA — Georgia. Residential and general contractor licensing through SOS. Confirm the division. HI — Hawaii. Contractors License Board. Island of record matters for the job. ID — Idaho. Registration / licensing regime has changed; confirm the current contractor programme on DOPL. IL — Illinois. Illinois does not license residential general contractors statewide. Roofing is licensed. Chicago Chapter 4-36 is a municipal contractor licence. IN — Indiana. Indiana does not license residential general contractors at the state level. Indianapolis / other cities may register contractors. IA — Iowa. Confirm whether the credential is a contractor registration or a trade licence for the job. KS — Kansas. No statewide residential GC licence. Roofing contractors are a separate AG programme. Cities may register. KY — Kentucky. Electrical / HVAC / plumbing are licensed; confirm GC vs trade for a remodel. LA — Louisiana. Residential contractor licensing with a project-value threshold. Confirm the threshold against the current statute. ME — Maine. Home construction / contractor programmes sit under PFR. Confirm the exact licence type. MD — Maryland. Home improvement is a distinct licence from a building contractor. A kitchen remodel is usually MHIC territory. MA — Massachusetts. HIC registration is the consumer-facing remodel credential. Construction supervisor licences are a different lookup. MI — Michigan. Residential builder and maintenance & alteration contractor licences. MN — Minnesota. Residential building contractor / remodeler licences through DOLI. MS — Mississippi. Residential vs commercial. Confirm the class covers a home remodel. MO — Missouri. Missouri does not license residential general contractors at the state level. St. Louis, Kansas City and other cities register locally. MT — Montana. Registration is not a competency exam. Confirm what the public record actually shows. NE — Nebraska. Contractor registration programme. Not equivalent to a classified licence. NV — Nevada. NSCB. Discipline is searchable; NRS 624.327 limits what is disclosed to actions that resulted in discipline. NH — New Hampshire. No statewide residential GC licence of the California type. Trades are licensed. Confirm municipal rules. NJ — New Jersey. Home improvement contractor registration. Distinct from a building contractor licence where one exists. NM — New Mexico. GB / EE / MM classifications. Confirm GB-2/GB-98 vs a specialty for the remodel. NY — New York. New York State does not license residential general contractors. New York City licenses home-improvement contractors. Upstate is local. NC — North Carolina. Fetched path 2026-09-05. $40,000 threshold under G.S. 87-1. Intermediate/unlimited classifications. FAQ: discipline disclosed upon request, not as a search field. ND — North Dakota. Contractor licensing through the Secretary of State. Confirm class and project-value bands. OH — Ohio. Ohio licenses trades (electrical, HVAC, plumbing, hydronics, refrigeration) at the state level. Residential GC is not a single statewide licence of the CSLB type. OK — Oklahoma. CIB has stated residential general contracting is not currently required at the state level. Look up electrical, mechanical, plumbing. Cities register GCs. OR — Oregon. CCB search is one of the more complete public records: endorsement, bonds, insurance, complaints. PA — Pennsylvania. HICPA registration is not a competency exam. Look up the registration; it is not a CSLB-class licence. RI — Rhode Island. Registration / licensing through CRB. Confirm residential vs commercial. SC — South Carolina. Residential builders and specialty contractors. Confirm the commission vs commercial contractor licensing. SD — South Dakota. No CSLB-equivalent statewide residential GC lookup. Confirm current DLR programmes and municipal rules. TN — Tennessee. BC / MC / CMC and residential. Confirm the monetary limit on the licence against the job. TX — Texas. TDLR does not license residential general contractors. Lookup electricians, ACR, mould, solar retailers. San Antonio Contractor Connect and El Paso Accela are municipal GC registers. UT — Utah. Construction Business Registry is a separate contact directory. LLV is the licence verification. Utah Code 63G-4-106/107 time-limits some “no actions” displays. VT — Vermont. Confirm whether the remodel needs a statewide credential or a municipal permit only. VA — Virginia. Class A/B/C contractors. Lookup is among the cleaner state portals. WA — Washington. Registration, not a competency exam. RCW 18.27. Bond and insurance display on the record. Collection bar if unregistered. WV — West Virginia. Contractor licensing through the Division of Labor. Confirm residential vs specialty. WI — Wisconsin. Dwelling contractor certification is the remodel-adjacent credential. Confirm vs a trade credential. WY — Wyoming. Wyoming does not operate a statewide residential GC licence lookup. Confirm the city or county that will inspect the lot.

Machine-readable, permalinks, and why several boards will not enjoy this paragraph

“Machine-readable” on this page means: a result you can retrieve without completing a CAPTCHA for every record, and ideally a URL that encodes the licence number. CSLB’s LicenseDetail.aspx?LicNum= is the type specimen — we store those permalinks in the California licence files. Oregon CCB and Washington L&I Verify are in the same family.

Florida DBPR is official and statewide for construction licences, and it is not permalink-friendly. The search is an ASP POST; the detail URL carries a session. Utah LLV is official and statewide for construction services, and it is gated by reCAPTCHA with no shareable per-licence URL. Arizona’s public search is a Salesforce application that has returned Cloudflare challenges to automated clients in this research pass even when the human form works.

HyreRemodel analysis: boards that hide the record behind a session are still doing the public a service that boards with no search at all are not. They are also making it impossible for a journalist, a legal-aid clinic, or this desk to cite a live record without a screenshot. That is why the usability column is not “exists / does not exist.” A search that exists and cannot be bookmarked is a different object from CSLB.

North Carolina’s portal search is usable for status and class. Discipline is not a column. The board’s own consumer material says disciplinary information is disclosed upon request. Treating a clean NC search result as “no discipline” would be a false claim about the company arising from a field the portal does not show. The clean-board-records page is built on that distinction.

What a 404 or a JS-only board means for a homeowner

If the official URL in this table 404s when you open it, the board moved the search. That happens. Do not fall back to 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. We update this table in place with a retrieval date.

If the page loads as a blank application, you are usually looking at a JavaScript front end (Arizona ROC, some eLicense portals). Give it a moment, or try another browser. A blank screen is not evidence that the contractor is unlicensed.

If the search returns nothing for a number the contractor gave you, do not assume fraud on the first miss. Try the name. Try without leading zeros (Arizona wants six digits including leading zeros). Try the qualifier’s name rather than the DBA. Then stop. If the number still does not exist, you do not have a licence to check. That is the point at which you do not sign.