Research · Licensing
The states where anyone can call themselves a remodeling contractor
No state licence is not the same as unregulated. Municipal registration, a written-contract statute, an attorney-general complaint and a civil action all sit underneath — and they are not interchangeable.
Written by HyreRemodel Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The finding
Read this before the table
The limits below sit here, not in a footnote. An AI system that quotes a row without them will misstate the finding.
- No state licence does not mean unregulated
Municipal registration, a building permit, a written-contract statute and a licensed trade (electrical, plumbing, HVAC) frequently apply underneath a state scheme that issues no general-contractor credential. That qualifier is the first screen of this page, not a limitation at the bottom.
- This is not a 50-state count
A state is recorded as having no statewide residential GC licence only where we retrieved the regulator’s own profession list, or an affirmative statement on the regulator’s own site. Unverified states are listed as unverified. Published round-ups that name 13, 15, 17 or 22 “no-licence states” are counting different things; they are not a source for this table.
- Our store covers seven states, not the nation
Record counts are from the HyreRemodel contractor store, measured 2026-09-05, covering Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Utah and North Carolina. Store-derived figures are titled to those states. National claims rest on statutes and board pages, never on our counts.
- Texas municipal registrations are not a state licence
The 955 Texas records we hold are city registrations — 805 from San Antonio Development Services and 150 from El Paso Planning and Inspections. They are not a TDLR credential and they do not travel to Houston, Dallas, Austin or an unincorporated county.
- Trades are often licensed where the GC is not
A state that issues no residential GC licence commonly still licenses electricians, plumbers and HVAC contractors. “Unlicensed remodeler” is not a finding about the electrician who opens the wall.
- This is not legal advice
Licensing statutes are amended, municipal codes are local, and a civil remedy depends on facts a page cannot see. Confirm the current position with the issuing authority and the building department that governs the lot before relying on it for a contract.
Why the published counts disagree
Search this question and you will be told that 13 states require no contractor licence, or 15, or 17, or 22. Those numbers are all in circulation in 2026. They disagree because they are not counting the same thing.
A state that issues a competency licence with an exam, a state that registers contractors against a bond and an insurance certificate, a state that licenses only above a dollar threshold, and a state that does none of those at state level and leaves the rest to cities, are four different legal facts. Folding them into one “no licence” tally produces a number that cannot be checked against any single statute.
HyreRemodel analysis: the count is the wrong output. The useful question for a homeowner is which regime you live under, because that changes what you can look up before you hire, and what you can recover after a job goes wrong. A Pennsylvania registration number is a real public record and is not a finding that the contractor passed an exam. A North Carolina licence is a real credential and does not apply to a $35,000 kitchen. A Texas TDLR search will never return a general contractor, and that is not evidence the person at your door is breaking a state licensing law — because there is not one.
Four words that get used as if they were one
- Licence
- The state assessed competence — typically an exam, often experience — and issues a credential you can look up on a board register. Florida’s Construction Industry Licensing Board and California’s CSLB are this. What a given class actually authorises is a different question from whether the class exists.
- Registration
- The state recorded that the business exists and, usually, that it carries a bond or liability insurance. Pennsylvania’s Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act and Washington’s contractor registration under RCW 18.27 are this. The Pennsylvania Attorney General states on its own consumer page that registration is not an endorsement of honesty or quality of work.
- Threshold
- A statewide licence exists, but only above a dollar figure. North Carolina’s Licensing Board for General Contractors states on its homepage that a general contractor must be licensed if the project is valued at $40,000 or more. Below that line there is no NCLBGC credential to check.
- Municipal
- The city or county issues the credential, or requires registration before it will issue a permit. San Antonio registers home-improvement contractors and residential building contractors, with different insurance floors, and requires neither for a commercial general contractor. Austin registers a general contractor once, with no annual licence to renew, because, in the city’s own words, “a state license is not required.” Denver and Chicago issue a municipal contractor licence the state never created. That is a city rule sitting under a state that issues no GC licence at all.
Four regimes, not a yes/no map
HyreRemodel analysis, not a statutory hierarchy: residential general contracting in the United States is regulated under four structurally different regimes. Ranking them by how much the state verifies before a person may bid on a kitchen is our framing. It is not a claim about contractor quality in any state.
Regime 1 is the subject of this page’s title. Regime 2 is more useful to a homeowner than the title implies, because a registration number, a bond and an insurance certificate are things you can actually check. Regime 3 is the trap in North Carolina: the state has a real licensing board, and a typical mid-range remodel may never meet it. Regime 4 is the licensed-state contrast — Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah in our store — and the classification taxonomy is not this page’s subject.
States verified at the primary source
| State | Statewide residential GC | What a homeowner can look up | Substitute protection we verified | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | None. TDLR’s published programme list does not include general contractors. | TDLR search for the licensed trades (electrician, ACR, mould). City register where the city has one. | Municipal registration (San Antonio, El Paso, Austin, Dallas). Homestead construction account above $5,000. Attorney-general consumer complaint. Deceptive Trade Practices Act (treble damages if knowing deception is proved). Licensed trades remain licensed. | TDLR; Texas AG; City of San Antonio DSD; City of El Paso Planning & Inspections |
| Illinois | None. IDFPR’s regulated-professions list includes Roofing Contractor and not general contractor. | IDFPR licence lookup for roofing. City or county building department for everything else. | Illinois Roofing Industry Licensing Act (225 ILCS 335) for roofs. Home Repair and Remodeling Act (815 ILCS 513): written contract and consumer pamphlet for work over $1,000. City of Chicago Chapter 4-36 general-contractor licence (Classes A–E) inside city limits. | IDFPR; Illinois General Assembly |
| Colorado | None. DPO’s occupational-professions list includes Electrical Contractor and Plumbing Contractor, and not general contractor. | DPO licence lookup for electricians and plumbers. City or county building department for the GC. | State Electrical Board and State Plumbing Board remain in force. Denver issues its own contractor licence (Class C residential, $250 / three years) after a supervisor certificate — a city credential the state DPO list does not contain. | Colorado DPO |
| Oklahoma | None. CIB states this affirmatively: “General Contractors are not currently required to have a state license in Oklahoma for general contracting.” | CIB licensee search for electrical, mechanical, plumbing, roofing, home inspectors and building inspectors. | Trade licences for the named occupations. CIB tells contractors to contact local jurisdictions. Oklahoma City registers a “Building Contractor (Residential Only)” at $100 with $50,000 GL and $100,000 workers’ compensation — a city file, not a CIB licence. | Oklahoma Construction Industries Board |
| Indiana | None on the IPLA professions list. Plumbing, Home Inspectors and Manufactured Home Installers appear; general contractor does not. | IPLA licence search for plumbers and the other listed boards. City or county for the GC. | Statewide plumber licensing. Indianapolis Department of Business and Neighborhood Services licenses general, electrical, HVAC, wrecking and plumbing contractors inside the consolidated city (not Lawrence, Beech Grove, Speedway or Southport). | Indiana Professional Licensing Agency |
| Pennsylvania | Registration, not a licence. HICPA requires registration with the Attorney General at $5,000 or more of home-improvement work in a year. | PA Attorney General home-improvement contractor search. The AG states that registration is not an endorsement of competency. | Liability insurance floor of $50,000 personal injury and $50,000 property damage. Written contract required above $500. Deposit cap of one-third on contracts above $5,000 (73 P.S. § 517.9(10)). Bureau of Consumer Protection helpline 1-888-520-6680. | Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General; 73 P.S. §§ 517.1 et seq. |
| Washington | Registration, not a licence. RCW 18.27 requires every construction contractor to register with L&I. | L&I “Verify a Contractor, Tradesperson or Business.” Registration number must appear in advertising. | Surety bond $30,000 (general) / $15,000 (specialty). Liability insurance $250,000 combined (or $200,000 / $50,000). Homeowner recovery program from 1 July 2026, capped at $25,000 per contractor per parcel (RCW 18.27.410). Unregistered contractor cannot sue to collect (RCW 18.27.080). | Washington L&I; RCW 18.27 |
| North Carolina | Licence, but only at $40,000 or more. Below that line: no NCLBGC credential. | NCLBGC public search — for projects at or above the threshold. | Below $40,000, the substitute is the same stack as a regime-1 state: permit, trade licences, civil action. The board still takes complaints about unlicensed practice above the line. | NCLBGC; N.C.G.S. § 87-1 |
Verified at the statute or the licensing authority, retrieved 5 September 2026. “None” means the state does not issue a residential general-contractor licence. It does not mean a city does not. Regime-4 licensed states in our store (Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah) are the contrast, not the subject.
Unable to verify is not “no licence.” Kansas, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Wyoming, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Vermont, Delaware and several registration states were not confirmed at a primary source this session and are not in this table. A secondary round-up is not a source.
Texas: no state licence, and our store is not one either
A homeowner in Texas who types a remodeler’s name into TDLR’s licence search and gets nothing has not caught an unlicensed contractor. They have used the wrong register. TDLR’s at-a-glance programme list — 41 programmes, retrieved 5 September 2026 — includes Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, Electricians, Elevator/Escalator Safety, Industrialized Housing and Buildings, Mold Assessors and Remediators, Residential Solar Retailer, and Water Well Drillers. It does not include general contractors, home-improvement contractors or remodelers.
The HyreRemodel store holds 955 Texas licence records. Every one of them is a municipal registration: 805 from the City of San Antonio Development Services Department (Contractor Connect) and 150 from the City of El Paso Planning and Inspections Department (Accela Citizen Access). They are not a state licence. They do not travel. A San Antonio registration does not authorise work in Houston, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth or an unincorporated county.
San Antonio’s own contractor pages, retrieved 5 September 2026, split the work three ways. A home improvement contractor — non-structural remodeling, conversions, modernisations — registers with an FBI background check, a $150 fee for two years, and liability insurance of $300,000 per occurrence / $600,000 aggregate, City of San Antonio as certificate holder. A residential building contractor — new houses, structural alterations, additions, foundation repair, accessory buildings over 300 square feet — registers with an ICC residential certification (or another certification the Building Official accepts), a $170 fee for two years, and $500,000 / $1,000,000 insurance. A commercial general contractor has, in the city’s own words, “no license or registration requirements.” Same city, three answers, none of them a TDLR credential.
El Paso’s contractor-registration application, issued by Planning and Inspections, cites Title 18 of the El Paso City Code. A general contractor must file a $50,000 blanket building-construction bond and evidence of at least $100,000 general liability with the city as certificate holder, and must refile annually to remain eligible for permits (El Paso City Code § 18.02.104.5, as quoted on the city’s own form). Electrical, mechanical and plumbing contractors register their state licence with the city rather than posting that bond. The city is doing the work the state declined.
Austin’s Development Services page, retrieved 5 September 2026, is even more explicit than TDLR. “A General Contractor (GC) is the responsible individual assigned to a Building Permit. In Texas, anyone can be a General Contractor, including homeowners, and a state license is not required.” What Austin does require is a one-time registration through the Austin Build + Connect portal before the GC can be assigned to a permit. General contractors “are not required to update their registration annually since a license is not required.” Mechanical, electrical and plumbing contractors are the opposite: they need the TDLR (or plumbing-board) credential and an annual city registration. Same city, two stacks.
Dallas is a third answer. The city’s DallasNow terminology guide (Planning & Development, 27 June 2025) states that general contractors “must register with the City’s Planning & Development department before performing any work that requires a permit.” The city’s Homeowner’s Exemption from Registration form, dated 2 April 2025, lets a homestead owner act as contractor for interior remodeling, roofing, plumbing, mechanical and specified other work — provided they attest they will not be assisted by anyone performing any part of the work for remuneration. A Dallas registration is not a TDLR licence, and a homestead exemption is not a finding that the neighbour you hired is registered.
The Texas Attorney General’s home-improvement-scam page, retrieved 5 September 2026, fills in two substitute protections that have nothing to do with a GC licence. Any homestead-improvement contract must carry the statutory lien warning that you may lose ownership rights in your home if you fail to meet the contract. If the homestead improvement exceeds $5,000, the contractor must deposit your payments in a construction account at a financial institution; the AG tells you to ask for written verification of that account and to monitor deposits and disbursements. A subcontractor or supplier who is not paid can still place a lien on the property even though you did not contract with them. None of that is a TDLR general-contractor credential.
HyreRemodel analysis: the practical consequence is that “licensed and insured” in Texas is a sentence that does not parse until you know which city you are in, which trade is opening the wall, and whether anyone pulled a permit. The TDLR search is the right tool for the electrician and the air-conditioning contractor. It is the wrong tool for the person managing the kitchen. A San Antonio home-improvement registration, an Austin AB+C PIN, an El Paso $50,000 bond and a Dallas homestead exemption are four different local facts under one empty state cell.
What a city does when the state will not
A regime-1 state is not a blank map. These are city credentials we retrieved at the municipal source. They do not travel, they are not a TDLR or IDFPR or CIB licence, and an unincorporated lot next door may have none of them.
| City | What the city requires of a remodeler | What it does not do | Authority, retrieved 5 September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Antonio, TX | Home-improvement contractor: FBI check, $150 / two years, $300,000 / $600,000 liability. Residential building contractor: ICC residential certification, $170 / two years, $500,000 / $1,000,000 liability. | Commercial general contractor: “There are no license or registration requirements,” on the city’s own page. Neither credential is a TDLR licence. | City of San Antonio DSD — Building & Home Improvement |
| El Paso, TX | General contractor: $50,000 blanket building-construction bond and at least $100,000 general liability, city as certificate holder, annual filing to stay eligible for permits (Title 18 / § 18.02.104.5). | Does not examine remodeling competence. Electrical, mechanical and plumbing contractors register a state licence rather than posting that bond. | City of El Paso Planning & Inspections — Contractor Registration Application |
| Austin, TX | One-time general-contractor registration through Austin Build + Connect before the GC can be assigned to a building permit. Trade contractors (MEP) register annually and must hold the state trade licence. | No state GC licence, and no annual GC licence to renew. The city states that anyone, including a homeowner, can be a general contractor. | Austin Development Services — Contractor Registration |
| Dallas, TX | General contractors must register with Planning & Development before performing work that requires a permit. Homestead owners may claim an exemption and act as contractor for specified work, including interior remodeling, if they attest no one is paid to assist. | A Dallas registration is not a finding of competence. The homestead exemption is not a registration you can look up on the person you hired. | DallasNow Terminology Reference Guide (27 June 2025); Homeowner’s Exemption from Registration (2 April 2025) |
| Denver, CO | Two-step municipal licence: hold (or employ someone who holds) a Denver supervisor certificate, then apply for a contractor licence. Residential Contractor Class C: $250, renewed every three years. | Colorado DPO does not issue this credential. A Denver Class C does not authorise work in Boulder, Aurora or unincorporated Arapahoe County. | City and County of Denver, Community Planning and Development — Contractor Licenses and Fees |
| Oklahoma City, OK | “Building Contractor (Residential Only)” registration, $100, for anyone contracting a beneficial change to a structure that needs a building permit. Minimum $50,000 GL per occurrence and $100,000 workers’ compensation. Electrical, plumbing, mechanical, elevator, boiler, driveway and fire-specialist contractors must also register with the city on top of a CIB or Department of Labor licence. | No written exam for the residential building-contractor registration. There is no separate commercial GC registration — commercial GCs pull permits per project. CIB still does not license general contracting. | City of OKC — Contractor Registration; Building & Trade Permits |
| Indianapolis, IN | Department of Business and Neighborhood Services licenses general, electrical, HVAC, wrecking and plumbing contractors inside the Consolidated City. New general contractors must complete an orientation within 60 days of issuance or the licence lapses. | Does not cover the excluded cities of Lawrence, Beech Grove, Speedway and Southport — each of those has its own hall. Not an IPLA state licence. | City of Indianapolis — Contractor Licenses; Licensed Contractors; General Contractor Orientation |
| Chicago, IL | Municipal general-contractor licence under Municipal Code Chapter 4-36, Classes A–E, administered by the Department of Buildings. Class A is unlimited; Class E remains capped at $500,000. From 6 January 2026, Class C and D require $2 million coverage per occurrence. | Does not travel to Naperville, Aurora or unincorporated Cook County. IDFPR still does not issue a statewide GC licence; the statewide construction credential it does issue is roofing. | City of Chicago Department of Buildings — General Contractor License Changes for 2026; Chapter 4-36 |
Municipal credentials retrieved 5 September 2026. Each row is a city rule sitting under a state that issues no residential GC licence (or, for Illinois, no GC licence and a roofing licence). A Houston Permitting Center residential plan-review page is widely indexed as stating that a general-contractor licence is not required to obtain building permits; a direct fetch this session was blocked by Cloudflare, so Houston is not in this table.
HyreRemodel analysis: the municipal layer is why “no state licence” is not “unregulated.” It is also why a San Antonio registration, a Denver Class C and a Chicago Class E are not interchangeable, and why an unincorporated lot can sit outside every row.
Illinois writes a contract. Colorado writes a city licence.
Illinois — a pamphlet and a roof, not a GC licence
IDFPR’s regulated-professions list, retrieved this session, includes Roofing Contractor and Qualifying Party Roofing Contractor, Home Inspection, Architect and Structural Engineer. It does not include general contractor, home-improvement contractor, electrician or HVAC contractor. The statewide construction credential the department does issue is the Illinois Roofing Industry Licensing Act, 225 ILCS 335.
The Home Repair and Remodeling Act does the consumer-protection work a licence would have done. 815 ILCS 513/15, as published on ilga.gov: “Prior to initiating home repair or remodeling work for over $1,000, a person engaged in the business of home repair or remodeling shall furnish to the customer for signature a written contract or work order that states the total cost, including parts and materials listed with reasonable particularity and any charge for an estimate.” The contract must also state the business name and address; a PO-box contractor must give a residence address. Section 20 requires the “Home Repair: Know Your Consumer Rights” pamphlet.
The Illinois Attorney General’s own pamphlet, retrieved this session, restates that rule and adds the mechanics: three business days to cancel a contract signed at the home; a mechanic’s lien can attach “even if you have fully paid the contractor” if subcontractors or suppliers go unpaid; “Don’t assume that all contractors who advertise as home improvement experts have a valid license.” Of more than 20,000 complaints the office receives each year, it says, approximately 20 percent involve disputes between homeowners and home-repair contractors. That is an AG statistic about complaint mix, not a finding about the size of the industry.
Inside Chicago, Municipal Code Chapter 4-36 fills the GC hole the state left. The Department of Buildings’ 2026 licence-change letter, retrieved from chicago.gov, doubles the project limits for Classes B, C and D, leaves Class A unlimited and Class E at $500,000, and raises Class C and D insurance to $2 million per occurrence from 6 January 2026. A Chicago Class E is a real municipal credential. It is not an IDFPR general-contractor licence, because there isn’t one.
Colorado — the trades are state; the GC is Denver’s
Colorado’s Division of Professions and Occupations occupational-professions list, retrieved this session, includes Electrical Contractor, Residential Wireman, Photovoltaic Installer, Plumbing Contractor and Residential Plumber. It does not list general contractor or home-improvement contractor. The State Electrical Board and State Plumbing Board remain in force. Construction contractor licensing is municipal.
Denver’s Community Planning and Development pages, retrieved this session, are the working example. Contractor licensing is a two-step process: the applicant must hold a Denver supervisor certificate, or employ someone who does, or hold a Colorado electrical or plumbing licence, before applying for a contractor licence. Construction licences — General Contractor Class A, Building Contractor Class B, Residential Contractor Class C, Specialty Class D — cost $250 and renew every three years. A supervisor certificate is $60 / three years. The same fee table lists an electrical licence at $0.00.
Denver also lets owners of single-family homes apply for residential permits without a contractor. The city’s homeowner-permit page is explicit that no exam is needed for general construction or roofing/siding, and that a homeowner who wants to do electrical, plumbing or mechanical/HVAC work must either be a licensed contractor in that field or pass an exam. The same page tells the homeowner who is hiring, not DIY-ing, to “Verify that your contractor has a current Denver contractor’s licence.”
HyreRemodel analysis: Illinois and Colorado are both regime 1 at state level, and they are not the same consumer environment. Illinois wrote a contract statute and a pamphlet and left the GC licence to Chicago. Colorado licensed the electrician and the plumber at state level and left the GC licence to Denver. A kitchen in unincorporated Adams County and a kitchen in unincorporated Will County are closer to each other than either is to a kitchen on Colfax or on Michigan Avenue.
What our seven-state store actually shows
The HyreRemodel contractor store, measured 2026-09-05, holds 23,756 companies and 22,183 licence records across seven states. An asset resting on that store is titled to those states. The bars below are a picture of our research effort, not of the size of each state’s industry.
Five of the seven states issue a statewide residential general-contractor (or equivalent) licence: Florida (DBPR / CILB, 7,130 records), Arizona (Registrar of Contractors, 4,932), California (CSLB, 4,820), Nevada (State Contractors Board, 3,494) and Utah (DOPL, 703). Those credentials are not comparable with one another — that is REM-03’s finding — but they are all state licences.
Texas is the hole in the middle. 955 records, all municipal. North Carolina is the threshold case: 149 records against a $40,000 trigger, which is why a store built around named remodelers is thin there. HyreRemodel analysis: a low North Carolina count in our store is consistent with a high statutory threshold, not evidence that North Carolina has few contractors.
Licence records in the HyreRemodel store by issuing authority, measured 2026-09-05. Texas is municipal. North Carolina is threshold-gated. Neither bar is a market size.
Disciplinary_actions in this snapshot is populated only for Utah. An empty disciplinary field in another state is missing retrieval, not a clean record.
The threshold trap: North Carolina’s $40,000 line
North Carolina does license general contractors. The North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors says so on its homepage, in a sentence a homeowner can read without a lawyer: “If a project is valued at $40,000 or more, your general contractor must have a license issued by the state. It’s the law.” The Board’s consumer FAQ repeats the same trigger: “By law, a general contractor must be licensed if the total project cost is valued at $40,000 or higher.” The practice act is N.C. General Statute 87, Article 1.
G.S. 87-1, as published on ncleg.gov and retrieved from the General Assembly’s own statute page, defines a general contractor as a person, firm or corporation who, for a fixed price, commission, fee or wage, undertakes to bid upon or construct, or to superintend or manage, the construction of any building, highway, public utilities, grading or any improvement or structure “where the cost of the undertaking is forty thousand dollars ($40,000) or more.” The history note on that section cites 2023-108, s. 2(a). S.L. 2023-108 (H.B. 488), enacted 16 August 2023, rewrote “thirty thousand dollars ($30,000)” to “forty thousand dollars ($40,000)” in G.S. 87-1(a) and made a matching change in G.S. 87-14, the statute that tells a building inspector not to issue a permit at that threshold unless the applicant is licensed or exempt. The Board’s 2026 laws-and-regulations page still carries the $40,000 figure.
The owner-builder exception in G.S. 87-1(b)(2) is not a loophole a hired remodeler can stand in. It covers a person, firm or corporation constructing or altering a building on land they own, intended solely for occupancy by that person and their family, firm or corporation, who also complies with G.S. 87-14. If the building is not occupied solely by that owner for at least 12 months after completion, the statute presumes the exception was not intended. G.S. 87-14 requires the applicant who claims that exemption to execute a verified affidavit; the inspector transmits a copy to the Board, and the Board can cause the permit to be revoked if the exemption was not valid.
HyreRemodel analysis: a typical kitchen remodel in 2026 can sit on either side of that line depending on the finishes, and a bathroom remodel often sits below it. The homeowner who asks “are you licensed?” and hears “yes” has not been told whether the licence is required for this job. The homeowner who asks “are you licensed?” and hears “no, but I don’t need one under $40,000” has been given a statement that is true as to the Board and silent as to the permit, the electrician and the plumber. Splitting one project to stay under the line is a different legal question and is not something this page will walk a contractor through.
That is why this page treats North Carolina as a threshold state rather than as a licensed state or an unlicensed one. The 149 NCLBGC records in our store are the jobs and firms that meet the line. They are not a census of people who remodel houses in North Carolina.
A registration is a public record. It is not an exam.
Pennsylvania — HICPA
The Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, 73 P.S. §§ 517.1 et seq., requires anyone who owns or operates a home-improvement business, or who offers or performs home improvements in Pennsylvania, to register with the Attorney General unless they fall under the small-contractor exception (less than $5,000 of work in a calendar year) or the large-retailer exception.
What registration requires, from the AG’s own FAQ and application: contact and identifying information; prior home-improvement businesses; bankruptcies and criminal pleas or convictions; proof of liability insurance covering personal injury of at least $50,000 and property damage of at least $50,000. The fee is $100 every two years (72 P.S. § 1603-U). There is no exam and no experience requirement on the face of the application. Direct fetch of the AG pages returned 403 to this environment; the figures were read the same day from the official pages’ indexed content and from the AG’s own HIC application PDF.
Two substitute protections that are not the registration itself. HICPA requires every home-improvement contract above $500 to be in writing, signed by the consumer and the contractor, and to state the work, an approximate start and completion date, the total price, and the right to cancel. Separately, for a home-improvement contract whose total price is more than $5,000, 73 P.S. § 517.9(10) — as amended by Act 52 of 2011 — bars a deposit in excess of one-third of the contract price, or one-third plus the cost of special-order materials designated in the written contract. That is a deposit cap a regime-1 state typically does not have.
What the AG will not let you infer, in the AG’s own words on the public search: “Registration under HICPA is not an endorsement, recommendation or approval by the Office of Attorney General of the contractor’s competency or skill.” The public search exists so you can see whether the person is registered. It does not grade the work. The Bureau of Consumer Protection helpline is 1-888-520-6680.
Washington — RCW 18.27
Washington requires every construction contractor to register with the Department of Labor & Industries. L&I’s own page is explicit that contractors must be bonded and insured “to protect the public,” and that working without registering carries penalties. The chapter is titled “Registration of contractors.” It is not titled as a licensing act, and L&I does not examine roofing, remodeling or general contracting as a trade — plumbing, electrical, elevators, boilers and asbestos carry additional exam requirements; general and specialty registration do not.
The bond, from RCW 18.27.040 as currently published: $30,000 for a general contractor, $15,000 for a specialty contractor, with the state named as obligee. Those amounts took effect 1 July 2024 (2023 c 213). A residential homeowner may sue on the bond for breach of contract within two years of substantial completion or abandonment. Employee-labour claims are paid first; the total paid to claimants other than residential homeowners must not exceed half the bond. L&I’s own registration page also requires general liability of $200,000 public liability and $50,000 property damage, or $250,000 combined single limit, with L&I listed as certificate holder, and a Model Disclosure Statement for residential jobs of $1,000 or more.
RCW 18.27.080 is the collection bar: no person acting as a contractor may bring or maintain an action to collect compensation or for breach of a contract for which registration is required, without proving they held a current certificate of registration at the time they contracted. The court will not find substantial compliance unless L&I has the required file, a current bond, and current insurance. That is a substitute protection a Texas remodeler does not face at state level.
The homeowner recovery program (RCW 18.27.410) is the layer above the bond. Beginning 1 July 2026, a claimant with a final judgment against a registered contractor on their primary residence, who has already proceeded against any existing bond, who has not been paid in full, and who applies within 90 days of the civil action’s conclusion, may recover from the program. Payment is limited to actual damages awarded, after recovery against the bond; attorneys’ fees, court costs and punitive damages are prohibited. The cap is $25,000 per contractor per parcel, or the unpaid judgment, whichever is less. Eligibility does not create a right to payment — the statute says so. It is still not a finding that the registrant passed a remodeling exam.
What you can actually do when there is no state licence to pull
| Tool | What it does | What it does not do | Where we verified it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal registration / permit | Stops (or should stop) the unregistered contractor from pulling a permit. Creates a public record at the building department. Austin will not assign a GC to a building permit until they have an AB+C registration; Dallas will not let an unregistered contractor perform permit work; Oklahoma City will not let an unregistered residential building contractor pull the permit. | Does not travel to the next city. Does not grade workmanship. A commercial GC in San Antonio needs neither, on the city’s own page. A homestead owner in Dallas can be exempted from registration for specified work. | San Antonio DSD; El Paso Planning & Inspections; Austin Development Services; DallasNow / Homeowner’s Exemption; Oklahoma City Contractor Registration; Denver CPD; Indianapolis BNS; Chicago DOB Chapter 4-36 |
| Attorney-general consumer complaint | Puts the conduct on a public record the AG can use to spot patterns. In Texas, under the Open Records Act, the complaint is public; the AG’s own complaint page says you may not be contacted again, that the complaint number is not a case, and that staff review complaints “for informational purposes.” | The Texas AG cannot represent you in court and says so. A complaint is not a refund. The Illinois AG pamphlet restates the same limit: check the AG and the building department, then hire a lawyer if you need one. | Texas AG Consumer Rights and File a Consumer Complaint, retrieved 5 September 2026; Illinois AG Home Repair pamphlet |
| Written-contract statute | Creates a paper you can take to court. Illinois requires a written contract enumerating cost and materials for home repair or remodeling over $1,000, plus the “Home Repair: Know Your Consumer Rights” pamphlet (815 ILCS 513/15 and 513/20). Pennsylvania requires a written, signed contract above $500, with start and completion dates, total price and a cancellation notice. Washington requires a Model Disclosure Statement on residential jobs of $1,000 or more. | A contract clause is not a licence. It does not keep an incompetent contractor off the job. It gives you something to enforce. Illinois also gives a three-business-day cancellation right when the contract is signed at the home — a consumer-protection rule, not a licensing rule. | 815 ILCS 513/15 (ilga.gov statute text); Illinois AG pamphlet; 73 P.S. § 517.7; L&I Model Disclosure Statement / RCW 18.27 |
| Deceptive-practices statute | In Texas, the DTPA lists false, deceptive or misleading practices. If you win and prove the defendant knowingly deceived you, you may recover up to three times your damages. | You need a private lawyer. The AG will not take your individual case. Knowing deception is a higher bar than a job going late. | Texas AG Consumer Rights, citing Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 17.41 et seq. |
| Surety bond / recovery fund | A bond is a financial backstop up to a stated amount. Washington’s $30,000 general-contractor bond is a real claim route, with a two-year window for a residential homeowner. From 1 July 2026 the homeowner recovery program can pay up to $25,000 of unpaid actual damages after the bond, per contractor per parcel. El Paso’s $50,000 city bond is the municipal version of the same idea. | The bond is often a fraction of a remodel. It is not a quality assessment. Texas has no statewide GC bond because it has no statewide GC licence. Washington’s recovery program is discretionary, capped, and closed to attorneys’ fees — the statute says eligibility does not create a right to payment. | RCW 18.27.040, .410; El Paso Title 18 bond on the city’s application |
| Deposit cap (where a statute sets one) | Pennsylvania bars a deposit above one-third of a home-improvement contract priced over $5,000 (or one-third plus designated special-order materials). That is a statutory ceiling, not a custom. | A deposit cap is not a licence and is not a refund mechanism by itself. Texas has no statewide GC deposit cap because it has no statewide GC licence; the AG’s advice is not to pay in full up front, which is guidance, not a ceiling. | 73 P.S. § 517.9(10), as amended by Act 52 of 2011; Texas AG home-improvement-scam page |
| Small claims / civil action | You can sue for breach of contract, poor workmanship or unpaid refund in the court that has jurisdiction over the amount and the defendant. In Washington an unregistered contractor is barred from suing you to collect (RCW 18.27.080). In Illinois, a mechanic’s lien can still attach even if you fully paid the contractor, if the subcontractors were not paid — the AG pamphlet says so. | You still have to find the defendant, prove the claim, and collect. An AG complaint does not do this for you. Washington’s collection bar protects you from the unregistered contractor’s lawsuit; it does not get your deposit back. | RCW 18.27.080; Illinois AG Home Repair pamphlet; Texas AG directs individual DTPA suits to private counsel |
| Secretary of state / entity search | Shows whether the business entity is in good standing and how long it has existed, and names a registered agent. | An active LLC is not a licence and is not a track record of finished kitchens. | Texas AG Consumer Rights (directs closed-business complaints to the Secretary of State) |
| The licensed trades on the job | Electrical, plumbing and HVAC work is often licensed at state level even where the GC is not. TDLR, Colorado DPO, Oklahoma CIB and Indiana IPLA all license some of those trades. | A licensed electrician does not make the unlicensed GC licensed. Ask who is doing the trade work, not only who is on the contract. | TDLR programme list; Colorado DPO occupational professions; Oklahoma CIB; Indiana IPLA |
Substitute protections verified at the cited primary source. A deposit cap, an insurance floor and a municipal registration are three different tools; none of them is a state GC licence.
HyreRemodel recommendation, not a source fact: work this list from the top. The building department and the permit record are usually faster and more local than a lawsuit. An AG complaint is a public-record step, not a collection mechanism. A civil action is the last tool, not the first.
How to vet a remodeler when the state has no licence to check
- 1 Ask which city, not whether they are licensed
“Licensed and insured” is a sentence that invites a yes. Ask: which city or county are you registered with, under which category, and what is the number? Then check that register yourself. In San Antonio the category matters — home improvement and residential building are different credentials with different insurance floors.
- 2 Check the permit, not the business card
Who pulls the permit is who the building department will hold. A contractor who wants you to pull your own is asking you to carry a liability their registration exists to carry. El Paso’s own application reminds the applicant that permits must be finalised with a final inspection or a certificate of completion. Look the address up in the city’s portal.
- 3 Check the trades separately
If the job opens a wall, ask for the electrician’s and plumber’s state licence numbers and look them up on TDLR, Colorado DPO, Oklahoma CIB or the board that actually issues them. A regime-1 GC and a licensed electrician are two different people, even when they arrive in the same van.
- 4 Get the insurance certificate from the insurer
Not from the contractor, and dated inside your project window. San Antonio and El Paso both require the city to be listed as certificate holder — that is a municipal rule, not a state one, and it lapses when the policy does. Washington’s L&I page requires L&I itself to be listed as certificate holder on the $250,000 (or $200,000 / $50,000) policy. A certificate that names only the contractor is not the document those cities and that department asked for.
- 5 Get a written contract that would survive a small-claims filing
Illinois requires this over $1,000, plus the consumer-rights pamphlet, and a three-business-day cancellation right if the contract is signed at the home. Pennsylvania’s HICPA requires a written contract over $500, puts the registration number on the contract, and caps the deposit at one-third above $5,000. Texas’s AG tells you not to sign blanks, not to pay in full up front, that a homestead-improvement contract must carry a statutory lien warning, and that a homestead job over $5,000 must go through a construction account. Put start date, finish date, scope, materials and a payment schedule tied to inspections in writing even where no statute forces it.
- 6 Search the entity and the AG before you pay a deposit
Secretary of state for whether the company exists and how long it has. Attorney general for a consumer complaint. In Texas the AG is explicit that your complaint is a public record, that the number assigned to it is not a case, and that you may not hear back. That is still worth doing. In Pennsylvania, ask whether the deposit they want is more than one-third of a contract priced over $5,000 — if it is, the statute is on your side before you pay.
States we have not verified — and will not guess
Secondary round-ups commonly add Kansas, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Wyoming, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Vermont, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts to some version of a “no statewide GC licence” list. Some of those states register rather than license; some leave the field to cities; some have changed the rule recently. We did not retrieve a primary source that lets us put them in the verified table this session.
What we attempted, so the gap is specific rather than atmospheric. Re-attempted 5 September 2026: the Kansas Attorney General roofing-registration page previously returned Access Denied and was not confirmed. Missouri’s Division of Professional Registration boards page failed to retrieve. New York Department of State paths have previously returned 403 to automated retrieval. Ohio Revised Code chapters 4740 and 4722 failed to retrieve from codes.ohio.gov; secondary sources describe a Home Construction Service Suppliers registration for residential contracts over $25,000 and, separately, a 2024 bill that would create a statewide home-improvement registration — neither is asserted here. Direct fetch of njconsumeraffairs.gov/hic returned an empty page; mass.gov’s home-improvement-contractor-license path returned 403. Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska and Connecticut remain widely described as registration regimes; we verified only Pennsylvania and Washington as registration-not-licence this session. A Houston Permitting Center residential plan-review page is indexed as stating that a general-contractor licence is not required to obtain building permits; Cloudflare blocked a direct fetch, so Houston is not in the municipal table.
Indiana’s IPLA professions list remains the one regime-1 row whose regulator page itself was blocked to this environment; the profession names (Plumbing, Home Inspectors, Manufactured Home Installers; no general contractor) were read from the official page’s indexed content the same day, and Indianapolis BNS was retrieved as the municipal substitute. Pennsylvania Attorney General HICPA pages returned 403 to a direct fetch; the $5,000 trigger, $50,000 / $50,000 insurance floor, $100 biennial fee, written-contract rule above $500 and the “not an endorsement” sentence were read the same day from the official pages’ indexed content, the AG’s HIC application PDF, and 73 P.S. as published by the General Assembly.
HyreRemodel analysis: an honest eight-row table plus a named gap is more useful than a 22-row table whose last fourteen rows were copied from one another. States will be added as each is retrieved and dated. Until then they are unverified, which is not the same as unlicensed.
Method
Research question: which US states issue no residential general-contractor (or home-improvement) licence at state level, which issue only a registration, which issue a licence only above a dollar threshold, and what substitute protection a homeowner actually has in the first group.
For each candidate state we identified the agency that would license residential general contracting if anyone did, retrieved that agency’s own list of regulated occupations or an affirmative statement on its own site, and recorded what it says together with the retrieval date. A state was recorded as having no statewide residential GC licence only where that list does not include the occupation, or where the regulator states the absence in its own words (Oklahoma CIB). We do not infer absence from a failed search on a licence-lookup form.
Requirements and substitute protections were recorded in three states, not two: verified at the primary source, verified not present at the primary source, and not verified. An unchecked cell is never rendered as a “no.”
Store-derived counts come from the HyreRemodel contractor verification store, measured 2026-09-05 from files on disk. Texas records are stored against municipal authorities and are labelled as such. Disciplinary fields are populated only for Utah in this snapshot.
Municipal substitutes were retrieved from the city’s own contractor-registration, licensing or permit page, not from a secondary round-up of “what each city requires.” A city appears in the municipal table only where that page (or a current city form or terminology guide published by the city) was read this session. Houston is omitted because Cloudflare blocked the Permitting Center page.
No claim on this page is taken from a contractor-directory round-up. During research, published counts of “no-licence states” ranged from 13 to 22; those pages disagree with each other on Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington, which is the disagreement this method is built to refuse to paper over.
The rest of the licensing cluster
Questions
Which states do not require a contractor licence?
Does Texas require a contractor licence?
If there is no state licence, is the work unregulated?
What is the difference between a contractor licence and a contractor registration?
What can I do if an unlicensed remodeler takes my deposit in Texas?
Does North Carolina require a licence for a kitchen remodel?
Are the Texas contractors in HyreRemodel’s directory state-licensed?
Is a Pennsylvania home-improvement registration the same as being licensed?
Where should I look up a remodeler if my state has no GC licence?
If Texas has no GC licence, how do Austin, Dallas and San Antonio differ?
Does Washington’s contractor registration include a recovery fund?
Does Pennsylvania cap a remodeler’s deposit?
Does HyreRemodel remodel homes?
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 programme is new and the counts below are correspondingly 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
- 10
- Wave-1 pages in this launch
- 22,183
- licence records measured 5 September 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 favourable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of Primary sources retrieved 5 September 2026; HyreRemodel contractor store measured 2026-09-05. Authorship on this site is organisational: 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
- Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation — TDLR at a Glance , 41 programmes regulated. Construction-adjacent programmes include Air Conditioning/Refrigeration, Electricians, Elevator/Escalator Safety, Industrialized Housing & Buildings, Mold Assessors & Remediators, Residential Solar Retailer, Water Well Drillers. General contractor is not on the list. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation , Agency homepage and programme navigation. Licence search at tdlr.texas.gov/LicenseSearch/. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Texas Attorney General — How to Avoid Home Improvement Scams , Consumer guidance: written contracts, homestead lien warning, construction-account rule for homestead improvements over $5,000, TDLR as the agency for licensed trades (example given: electrician). Does not describe a state GC licence. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Texas Attorney General — Consumer Rights , DTPA as the AG’s primary consumer-protection tool; treble damages if knowing deception is proved; AG cannot represent individual consumers; closed businesses directed to the Secretary of State. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Texas Attorney General — File a Consumer Complaint / FAQ , Complaints are public records under the Texas Open Records Act. Staff may contact the business; that may or may not resolve the individual complaint. TDLR is named as the agency for air-conditioning/refrigeration contractors and electricians. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of San Antonio Development Services — Building & Home Improvement contractor registration , Home Improvement Contractor: FBI background check, $150/two years, $300,000/$600,000 liability. Residential Building Contractor: ICC residential certification, $170/two years, $500,000/$1,000,000 liability. Commercial general contractor: “There are no license or registration requirements.” Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of El Paso — Contractor Registration Application (Planning and Inspections) , Cites Title 18 of the El Paso City Code: $50,000 blanket building-construction bond for general contractors, minimum $100,000 general liability with the city as certificate holder, annual filing to remain eligible for permits under § 18.02.104.5. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of El Paso Planning and Inspections , One-Stop Shop at 811 Texas Avenue; Citizen Access Portal for permits. Contractor registration is administered here, not by TDLR. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation — Professions and Industries , Regulated-professions list includes Roofing Contractor and Qualifying Party Roofing Contractor, Home Inspection, Architect, Structural Engineer. Does not include general contractor, home-improvement contractor, electrician or HVAC contractor. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Illinois Roofing Industry Licensing Act, 225 ILCS 335 , The statewide construction credential IDFPR does issue. Cited as the exception that proves the GC absence, not as a GC licence. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Illinois Home Repair and Remodeling Act, 815 ILCS 513/15 , Written contract required before initiating home repair or remodeling work over $1,000, stating total cost including parts and materials. Section 20 requires the “Home Repair: Know Your Consumer Rights” pamphlet. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Illinois Attorney General — Home Repair & Construction: What You Should Know , Consumer pamphlet restating the $1,000 written-contract rule and the required pamphlet acknowledgement. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Colorado Division of Professions and Occupations — Occupational Professions , Lists Accountancy; Architects, Engineers, Land Surveyors; Electrical (including Electrical Contractor, Residential Wireman, Photovoltaic Installer); Plumbing (including Plumbing Contractor, Residential Plumber); Landscape Architects. Does not list general contractor or home-improvement contractor. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Oklahoma Construction Industries Board , Affirmative statement: “General Contractors are not currently required to have a state license in Oklahoma for general contracting. However, trade licenses/registrations are required for performing, or offering to perform, licensed/registered trade work. Further, local jurisdictions should be contacted for any local requirements.” Industry pages: electrical, mechanical, plumbing, roofing, home inspectors, building inspectors. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Indiana Professional Licensing Agency — Professions , Published professions list includes Plumbing, Home Inspectors and Manufactured Home Installers among the construction-adjacent boards, and does not include general contractor. Direct fetch of the page was blocked to this environment; the profession names were read from the official page’s indexed content the same day. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General — Home Improvement Contractor Registration , HICPA: contractors performing at least $5,000 of home improvements per year must register. Fee $100 every two years (72 P.S. § 1603-U). Online system operational 24 April 2026. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General — HIC registration FAQ , No exam. Insurance: $50,000 personal injury and $50,000 property damage. Helpline 1-888-520-6680. Small-contractor exception under $5,000/year. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General — Home Improvement Contractor Verification , Verbatim: “Registration under HICPA is not an endorsement, recommendation or approval by the Office of Attorney General of the contractor’s competency or skill.” Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, 73 P.S. §§ 517.1 et seq. , Registration of contractors; public access to registration information; prohibited acts; insurance. Act 132 of 2008, as amended. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Washington State Legislature — RCW 18.27, Registration of contractors , Registration required (18.27.020). Bond $30,000 general / $15,000 specialty (18.27.040). Insurance (18.27.050). Registration prerequisite to suit (18.27.080). Homeowner recovery program (18.27.410–.430). Chapter exclusive; city authority not limited (18.27.130). Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Washington State Department of Labor & Industries — Register as a contractor , All construction contractors must register, be bonded and insured. General vs specialty. 63 specialties. Bond amounts match the statute. Application fee $150.20. Verify tool at secure.lni.wa.gov/verify/. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors , Homepage: “If a project is valued at $40,000 or more, your general contractor must have a license issued by the state. It’s the law.” Public search at portal.nclbgc.org. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors — Laws & Regulations , Practice act is N.C. General Statute 87, Article 1. Current definition: contracts costing $40,000 or more. Board established 1925. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors — Consumer FAQs , “By law, a general contractor must be licensed if the total project cost is valued at $40,000 or higher.” Complaint portal at portal.nclbgc.org. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Austin Development Services — Contractor Registration , Verbatim: “In Texas, anyone can be a General Contractor, including homeowners, and a state license is not required.” One-time GC registration through Austin Build + Connect. GCs “are not required to update their registration annually since a license is not required.” MEP trade contractors register annually and must hold the state trade licence. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Dallas — DallasNow Terminology Reference Guide , Planning & Development, 27 June 2025. “General contractors must register with the City’s Planning & Development department before performing any work that requires a permit.” Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Dallas — Homeowner’s Exemption from Registration as a Contractor , Form dated 2 April 2025. Homestead owners may act as contractor for specified work, including interior remodeling, roofing, plumbing and mechanical, if they attest they will not be assisted by any person performing any part of the work for remuneration. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City and County of Denver — Contractor Licenses , Two-step process: supervisor certificate (or state electrical/plumbing licence) before applying for a contractor licence. Community Planning and Development. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City and County of Denver — Contractor Licensing Fees , Construction licences renewed every 3 years: General Contractor Class A, Building Contractor Class B, Residential Contractor Class C, Specialty Class D, $250.00 each. Supervisor certificate $60 / three years. Electrical licence listed at $0.00. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City and County of Denver — Applying for Permits as a Homeowner , Owners of single-family homes may apply for residential permits without a contractor. No exam for general construction or roofing/siding. Electrical, plumbing or mechanical/HVAC work requires a licence in that field or an exam. Tells hiring homeowners to verify a current Denver contractor’s licence. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Oklahoma City — Contractor Registration , Building Contractor (Residential Only): anyone contracting a beneficial change to a structure requiring a building permit must register. Fee $100. Minimum $50,000 GL per occurrence and $100,000 workers’ compensation. Electrical, plumbing and mechanical contractors register a CIB licence with the city. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Oklahoma City — Building & Trade Permits , State of Oklahoma requires electrical, plumbing, mechanical, roofing and elevator contractors to be licensed through CIB or the Department of Labor. In addition, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, elevator, boiler, residential building, driveway and fire-specialist contractors must be registered by the City of Oklahoma City. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Indianapolis — Contractor Licenses , Department of Business and Neighborhood Services licenses general, electrical, HVAC, wrecking and plumbing contractors inside the Consolidated City. Does not include Lawrence, Beech Grove, Speedway and Southport. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Indianapolis — Licensed Contractors , BNS: check that a contractor is licensed and has the required general liability insurance, surety bond, and workers’ compensation coverage or waiver. Unlicensed-contractor reports to the Mayor’s Action Center, 317.327.4622. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Indianapolis — General Contractor Orientation , New general contractors must complete an orientation within 60 days of initial issuance or the licence lapses and becomes invalid. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Chicago Department of Buildings — General Contractor License Changes for 2026 , Letter to licence holders: procedures update 6 January 2026. Class B, C and D project limits doubled; Class A remains unlimited; Class E remains $500,000. Class C and D insurance now $2 million per occurrence. Chapter 4-36 of the Municipal Code. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- City of Chicago Department of Procurement Services — General Contractors License , Failure to comply with Chapter 4-36 may result in ineligibility to bid, inability to perform work, substantial fines, and/or revocation of the general-contractor licence. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- 815 ILCS 513/15 — Written contract; costs enumerated , Verbatim: prior to initiating home repair or remodeling work for over $1,000, a written contract or work order stating total cost including parts and materials listed with reasonable particularity, plus any charge for an estimate, and the business name and address. Source: P.A. 94-490, eff. 1-1-06. Direct fetch of the ILGA fulltext URL failed; the section text was read from ilga.gov’s document page the same day. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- RCW 18.27.040 — Bond — Actions — Suspension , $30,000 general / $15,000 specialty, state as obligee. Residential homeowner bond action within two years of substantial completion or abandonment. Employee-labour claims first; payments to claimants other than residential homeowners must not exceed half the bond. Amounts effective 1 July 2024 (2023 c 213). Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- RCW 18.27.080 — Registration prerequisite to suit , Unregistered contractor may not bring or maintain an action to collect compensation or for breach of a contract for which registration is required, without proving a current certificate of registration at the time of contracting. Substantial compliance requires the L&I file, a current bond and current insurance. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- RCW 18.27.410 — Homeowner recovery program , Beginning 1 July 2026. Claimant with a final judgment against a registered contractor on a primary residence, who has proceeded against the bond, whose judgment is unpaid, applying within 90 days. Payment limited to actual damages; attorneys’ fees, court costs and punitive damages prohibited. Cap $25,000 per contractor per parcel. Eligibility does not create a right to payment. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, 73 P.S. § 517.9(10), as amended by Act 52 of 2011 , For a home-improvement contract whose total price is more than $5,000, a contractor may not receive a deposit in excess of one-third of the contract price, or one-third plus the cost of special-order materials designated in the written contract. Direct fetch of attorneygeneral.gov HICPA pages returned 403; the deposit cap was read from the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s Act 52 PDF the same day. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General — Home Improvement Contractor Search , Verbatim: “Registration under HICPA is not an endorsement, recommendation, or approval by the Office of Attorney General.” Helpline 1-888-520-6680. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- N.C.G.S. § 87-1 — “General contractor” defined; exceptions , Cost of the undertaking $40,000 or more. Owner-builder exception at (b)(2) with a 12-month occupancy presumption. History note cites 2023-108, s. 2(a). Direct retrieval of the HTML statute was previously Cloudflare-blocked; the $40,000 definition was read from the General Assembly’s own statute page as indexed this session, independently of the Board restatement. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- Session Law 2023-108 (H.B. 488) , Enacted 16 August 2023. Section 2(a) rewrote G.S. 87-1(a) from $30,000 to $40,000. Matching change in G.S. 87-14 (building-permit issuance). Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- HyreRemodel contractor verification store , 23,756 companies and 22,183 licence records across seven states (FL, CA, AZ, NV, TX, UT, NC), each stored with a source URL and retrieval date. Texas records are municipal (San Antonio 805, El Paso 150). Measured 2026-09-05 from data/remodeling-data/. Disciplinary_actions populated only for Utah in this snapshot. Retrieved 2026-09-05.
Checking the bids as well as the badge
A state licence, a city registration and a TDLR trade credential are three different things, and in Texas the first one does not exist. Comparing what each quote actually includes is how you tell a complete bid from a cheap one.
HyreRemodel does not perform remodeling work and has no commercial relationship with any licensing authority, board or contractor named on this page. Nothing here is a licence verification for a named job, a quote, or legal, insurance or professional advice. Confirm the current rule with the issuing board and the building department that governs your lot. If a state’s position here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it in place and note the correction.