Check a contractor's license before you write the check

Browse the register

Why this matters

Around 8% of the licensed tradespeople listed here are carrying an expired license today. Most of those are ordinary lapses, someone forgot to renew. But hiring one still exposes you: permits pulled under an invalid license can be rejected, and an insurer can contest a claim on work performed by an unlicensed contractor. The check takes ten seconds and it is free.

Where the data comes from

Every record here is public record published by a state licensing board: the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and the California Contractors State License Board and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. We download their files, compute each license's status against today's date, and keep a history so we can see when a license is issued, lapses, or disappears from the register entirely. We are not affiliated with any state agency, we do not sell leads, and we do not rank contractors. Read the methodology.

What each state licenses

• Texas: Texas licenses individual trades at state level. There is no Texas general contractor license, so a general contractor here is regulated by the city, not the state.
• California: California licenses general contractors as well as individual trades, and publishes bond and workers' compensation status, so records here carry more detail than Texas.
• Florida: Florida licenses general contractors as well as trades, and grades them by scope: a Certified General Contractor is unlimited, a Building Contractor is capped at three storeys, and a Residential Contractor is limited to houses.
• New York City: New York State does not license home improvement contractors statewide; licensing is done by the city. This covers New York City's register, which is the large public one, and it is limited to the five boroughs.