Homversa

How to Verify a Contractor's License Before You Hire

Published 2026-08-26

A license number on a business card is a claim. The state's lookup is the check. Every state this site covers runs a public search where you can enter that number yourself. This guide covers what those lookups have in common; the state guides at the end cover each one's quirks.

Washington L&I puts the reason plainly: hiring a registered contractor does not mean problems will not happen, but it may give you protections you would not otherwise have. And in a trade the state does not license at all, there is no check to run. The Roofing Contractors Association of Texas says it outright: anyone can call themselves a roofer in Texas.

What a lookup tells you, and what it cannot

A lookup answers one question: does the state currently authorize this business, or this person, to do this kind of work. In Washington the Verify tool confirms a contractor has posted a minimum bond and purchased liability insurance, and that their registration hasn't been suspended by L&I . California's CSLB search adds complaint disclosure. Minnesota's DLI lookup lets you check whether there are enforcement actions against a license.

It does not tell you whether the work will be good. As this site's methodology says of California, a classification means the state authorized that kind of work; it is not proof the company currently does residential work, or does it well. It may not tell you about insurance at all: Florida, Virginia, Connecticut, Arizona and New Jersey publish no insurance and no bond in their license files, a gap in the state's file, not a finding about any contractor.

The five things to read on any record

  1. Status. Every state has its own word for "good to go". Minnesota's DLI lookup page says current, active licenses or registrations will have a status of "Issued". California's CSLB shows a clean license as CLEAR and has no expired status; its other status values are suspensions. Florida states currency in two columns, Current and Active, and a license marked Current but Inactive is a real, renewable license whose holder may not work. Connecticut has four live statuses, including "active in renewal".
  2. Expiration. Check that the date has not passed, then know what it means there. Arizona's expiration is a real per-company anniversary date. Connecticut licenses expire on one statewide date per trade each year, and every active New Jersey electrical permit shares one renewal date, so there the date says nothing about an individual company beyond "still current".
  3. The name on the license versus the name on the truck. Connecticut licenses people, not companies, so the record belongs to a named person and the company is a trade name they work under. New Jersey's portal warns that some licenses are issued in the name of the business, not an individual. Many Virginia contractors are sole proprietorships licensed under a personal name, and many Arizona contractors are licensed under a personal legal name with a registered trade name beside it. So search by number first: Oregon's CCB says the most accurate way to look up a license is with a CCB license number and if you cannot find the contractor by name, do not assume they are unlicensed. If the number pulls up a different name, ask why before you sign.
  4. Classification and scope. A license is for a kind of work, not all work. California licenses by classification (C-36 plumbing, C-10 electrical, C-20 heating and air conditioning, C-39 roofing), and the code on the record is the trade the state authorized. Arizona's class carries a scope of commercial, residential or dual, and a commercial-only license does not permit residential work in Arizona. Virginia's A, B and C letters are a project-size tier, not a trade.
  5. Insurance or bond, where the state records it. Washington publishes both on the L&I record. TSBPE's Texas plumbing files carry an insurance certificate expiry. Oregon splits it: BCD licenses the trade, while CCB carries the contractor bond and the liability insurance, so an Oregon check is two lookups. In the states whose files publish neither, the lookup cannot answer this question.
Type the number, not the name. Anything the record does not show, the lookup has not verified.

Not every state issues a "license" for every trade

The credential is whatever the state actually issues, and calling a bond or a registration a license overstates it. Four examples from this site's own data:

  • Texas roofing. Texas does not license roofing contractors at all. The credential that exists is the voluntary RCAT Licensed Roofing Contractor program, an industry credential rather than a state one. Look a company up in the RCAT member directory, which can be filtered to RCAT Licensed Contractor status, or see RCAT-verified roofers in Texas.
  • Minnesota HVAC. Minnesota does not license mechanical contractors. The state requires them to file a bond with DLI instead, so what you verify is a bond, and the file records that a bond exists, never what it is worth. See bonded HVAC contractors in Minnesota.
  • Washington HVAC. Washington has no standalone HVAC contractor license. HVAC/R work is carried as a specialty on a construction contractor registration. See registered HVAC contractors in Washington.
  • New Jersey electrical and telecom. New Jersey issues an Electrical Business Permit to the contracting business, and licenses individual electrical contractors as people under a different record. Telecom firms hold a Telecom Contractor registration. See permit-verified electrical contractors and registered telecom contractors in New Jersey.

Who holds it varies too. In Washington, a pest control license belongs to a person, not to the company: WSDA licenses applicators as individuals, so the number on a Washington pest listing belongs to a Pest Control Operator employed by that company. See operator-licensed pest control in Washington.

The lookup for each state

Each state guide names the agency, walks through its search, and covers that state's traps; Texas has no state guide, so it links to the directory hub.

How this site does it

Every business listed here is checked against the official state record before it appears, and every listing shows the number the state issued, the date it was last checked, and a link to the agency's lookup. In most of these states that lookup is a search form with no direct link to a record, so the listing prints the number for you to enter yourself. The full rules, state by state, are on the methodology page.

Sources

Find a verified pro

Every listed company is checked against official license and credential registries - how we verify.

Written and maintained by the Homversa team - the same people who run the license-verification pipeline behind this directory. Every figure in our guides is computed from official records or cited to a named source. How we verify.

Guides explain how licensing and insurance actually work; they are not legal, insurance or professional advice for your specific situation. Found an error? Write to corrections@homversa.com - corrections get read by a person and fixed.