How to Verify an Arizona Contractor's License

Arizona licenses contractors through one agency, the Arizona Registrar of Contractors (ROC), and gives the public one search to check them. The ROC's own advice is blunt: anyone can pretend to be a contractor. Check the license. This guide walks through that check and the two things a license number alone does not tell you: class and scope.

Where to check: the ROC contractor search

The lookup is the ROC contractor search at azroc.my.site.com. It is a search form, not a page per contractor, so no link lands on a single record: you open it and enter the license number yourself. Every Arizona listing on this site prints the license number for that reason.

The ROC's homeowner guidance starts there: review the contractor's license record using the Contractor Search. Two things the ROC says are on that record matter below: the contractor's number listed on the ROC license record and information about the contractor's bond.

Alongside the search, the ROC publishes its list of current active contractors, the posting list, updated daily; it is the file this site ingests. Its columns are: license number, business name and any "doing business as" name, class code and class detail (the trade name in words), class type, address, qualifying party, issued date, expiration date and status.

Read the class, not the word "licensed"

An Arizona license is issued per trade, as a class. The ROC's next instruction after you find the record is to make certain the contractor's license class allows for the work listed in the contract. The code is short (CR-37, R-11, CR-42); the class detail beside it is the name that counts, and the codes mislead:

• R-37 is "Plumbing, Including Solar" and R-37R is plain "Plumbing". The suffix runs the opposite way from what you would guess, and the -39 air conditioning family does the same: R-39 includes solar, R-39R does not.
• C-67, CR-67 and R-67 are "Low Voltage Communication Systems", not electrical.
• Arizona's C-8, CR-8 and R-8 are "Floor Covering". In California C-8 is concrete; do not carry that habit across the state line.
• A general license is not a trade license. B, KB-1, KB-2 and B-3 license a whole-house contractor, and the ROC's description of the B class says electrical, plumbing, air conditioning systems, boilers, swimming pools, spas and water wells must be subcontracted to an appropriately licensed contractor. B-3 carries a matching rule.

If the class detail does not describe the work in your contract, the answer is no, however long the company has been licensed.

Scope: commercial, residential or dual

This is Arizona's distinctive trap. The ROC issues separate licenses for commercial and residential work, and dual licenses that cover both, for each trade. On the posting list the scope is the last word of the class type ("Specialty Dual", "General Residential"). It is a legal boundary, not a size tier: a commercial-only license does not permit residential work in Arizona. For a house the scope must read Residential or Dual.

What "Active" and the expiration date mean

The posting list is a list of current active contractors: revoked and suspended licenses are removed before it is published, so Active is not a grade, it is the floor. The expiration date beside it is each company's own renewal date, not a statewide day, so it says when this license lapses.

Timing matters. The ROC's Recovery Fund page says "appropriately licensed" means the license was valid (not canceled, in inactive status, expired, suspended or revoked) on the date the contract was signed, the first payment was made, or the work first commenced. Check the record on the day you sign, not the day you first called.

Whose name is on the license

The ROC says the license belongs to the business and not to the qualifying party. Many Arizona sole proprietors are licensed under their own legal name with a trade name in the "doing business as" field, so a person's name where you expected a company is normal. A contract naming a company that matches neither field is not.

For the person in front of you, the ROC says to verify the person you are negotiating your project with is an authorized representative of the licensed contractor by calling the contractor's number listed on the ROC license record. Use the number on the record, not the flyer.

"Licensed, bonded and insured"

The ROC's warning on that phrase: just because the ad says it does NOT mean it's true. To be licensed in Arizona an entity must possess a bond, among other requirements, and information about the contractor's bond can be found on the Contractor Search. Insurance is different: with the exception of workman's compensation insurance, the ROC does not require an entity to possess insurance to be licensed. Ask for a certificate of insurance yourself; the license does not vouch for it.

A residential contractor must pay an assessment into the Registrar's Residential Recovery Fund or post a surety or cash bond in the amount of $200,000, and an eligible homeowner may receive up to $30,000 to have the work corrected or completed. The ROC lists several eligibility conditions; the license having been valid on the dates above is one of them, which is the practical reason to check before you pay.

Small jobs and the handyman exemption

The ROC's rule: generally, if labor and materials exceed $1,000 OR a permit is required (regardless of the price of labor and materials), then a license is required. The ROC also publishes a list of unlicensed violators, one person, business name, city and date per row, worth checking when a contractor cannot give you a license number.

If something goes wrong

Complaints against a licensed contractor have a window: for new construction, within two years from the close of escrow or actual occupancy, whichever occurred first; for remodel or repairs, within two years from the date work was last performed. A property owner who hires an unlicensed entity has no recourse through AZ ROC.

How this site uses the ROC record

Every Arizona listing here must be posted Active, carry a residential or dual scope, be unexpired at our data date, and be addressed in Arizona; each class is mapped to its trade from the class detail text, never the code alone (how we verify).

In every trade we publish in Arizona the credential is a license. Where the ROC's class name differs from the everyday word, the class name follows in brackets: plumbing, electrical, HVAC (air conditioning and refrigeration, and comfort heating and evaporative cooling), roofing, landscaping (hardscaping and irrigation systems), painting (painting and wall covering), pools (a family of swimming pool and spa classes), concrete, tile (ceramic plastic and metal tile), flooring (floor covering), drywall, glazing, masonry, fencing, carpentry (finish carpentry), stucco (plastering), insulation, paving (asphalt paving), low voltage (low voltage communication systems), septic (septic tanks and systems), well drilling (water well drilling), and the B, KB-1, KB-2 and B-3 classes behind general contractors.