Why use a directory instead of the state license lookup?
Short answer, before anything else: the state register is free, it is authoritative, and if you already have a company name or a license number in your hand, go and use it. It is the source this entire site is built on, and where it disagrees with a page here, it wins. The difference is not accuracy. It is direction. A register answers "is this number current?" A directory answers "who near me holds one?" Those are not the same question, and almost nobody starts with the first one.
What a register is built to do
Every state we cover publishes a public search, and each is genuinely good at verification. The California CSLB check takes a license number, business name or personnel name and adds complaint disclosure. The Washington L&I Verify tool searches by name, license, workers' compensation account or UBI number, and publishes the bond and the liability insurance. The Florida DBPR search takes a name, license number, city or county, or license type. The Arizona ROC search covers every trade in one place.
The how-to for all ten is in how to verify a contractor's license. Nothing on this page is an argument against doing that.
The five things a register cannot do
1. It usually needs you to already know who
Verification is downstream of discovery. Minnesota's DLI lookup is the clearest case: as a guest you search with a complete license or registration number. Oregon's CCB says the most accurate way to look up a license is with a CCB license number and warns that if you cannot find the contractor by name, do not assume they are unlicensed. Where a register does let you browse by city or license type, what comes back is a raw roster in the state's own order, not a shortlist.
2. It speaks in classification codes, not trades
The register does not know the words you searched. California licenses by classification (C-36 plumbing, C-10 electrical, C-20 heating and air conditioning, C-39 roofing). Virginia's A, B and C letters are a project-size tier and not a trade at all, and Virginia also lets its general building and home-improvement classifications perform roofing work. Arizona's class carries a commercial, residential or dual scope, and a commercial-only license does not permit residential work. Reading a record correctly is a skill, which is why each of our state guides exists and why we publish a class code glossary.
3. One state can mean several registers
Oregon splits one credential across two agencies: the Building Codes Division licenses the trade and the Construction Contractors Board registers the business and carries its bond and insurance, so a complete Oregon check is two lookups. Texas spreads plumbing, HVAC and electrical, and roofing across different bodies entirely - and licenses no roofers at all. Knowing which register to open is itself part of the work.
4. In half our states it has no insurance in it
Florida, Virginia, Connecticut, Arizona and New Jersey publish no insurance and no bond in their license files. That is a gap in the state's file rather than a finding about any contractor, and it means a clean lookup in those states has not answered the insurance question at all. See how to check a contractor's insurance.
5. It checks once, on the day you look
A register answers for the moment you asked. It does not tell you next quarter that something lapsed. Re-checking is the part a person realistically does not do, and it is the part a system can.
What this directory adds
- It starts where you start. City plus trade, in the words you would use, and the credential work has already been done for the companies on the page.
- Every listing shows its receipt. The number the state issued, the date we last checked it, and a link to the agency's own lookup so you can repeat the check. Most of these agencies have no direct link to an individual record, so the listing prints the number for you to type.
- The order is computed, not sold. Ranking uses published criteria drawn from the state records themselves - insurance on file where the state publishes it, then how long the company has been licensed where the state publishes an original date. Where a register publishes nothing rankable, we say so rather than inventing an order. The methodology page documents every rule, state by state.
- It is re-checked and dated. Verification runs on a rolling schedule with an append-only history of status changes, and a business whose credential has lapsed drops out of the ranked lists.
- It answers the trades the state does not license. In Texas the state licenses no roofers, so the roofing pages are built on the voluntary industry credential that does exist, and the page says which. A register cannot tell you about a credential it does not issue.
When to skip us
- You already have a name or a number. Go straight to the register. Our verify guides are free and link every lookup.
- Your trade or your city is not one we publish. We only publish a city and trade where enough companies pass verification to make a real list, so plenty of legitimate companies are not here. Absence from this site is not a finding about a business.
- The register disagrees with a page here. Believe the register, and tell us so we can fix it.
How we make money, plainly: We earn a fee when you call businesses through numbers on this site. This never affects who is listed or how they rank. Related comparisons: what "verified" can mean on a directory, paid placement vs published ranking criteria, and the full comparison index.