Burlington, VT contractor license lookup: OPR registration, electrician and plumber licenses, and the permits

Which record each job needs in Burlington

The registration rule: "A person shall register with the Office of Professional Regulation prior to contracting with a homeowner to perform residential construction in exchange for consideration of more than $10,000.00, including labor and materials", and residential construction includes "painting; paving; roofing; weatherization" and more (26 V.S.A. § 5501). A registrant must carry liability coverage of "$1,000,000.00 per occurrence and $2,000,000.00 aggregate" and use a written contract before "a deposit or commencing residential construction work if the estimated value of the labor and materials exceeds $10,000.00" (§ 5509, both read 23 October 2026).

The usual Burlington remodel permit carries $14,000 and the usual porch $15,000, so on many jobs the registration and the written contract are both required.

How to run the lookup in five minutes

1. Ask whether the firm is registered with OPR and for the names of the licensed electrician or plumber who will do the trade work.
2. OPR: open Find a Professional and search the business or owner's name; the record should show a residential contractor registration.
3. Electrician or plumber: open the DFS licensing master list and filter by last name. It shows the license number, type (Electrician, Plumber, Gas Installer, Oil Installer) and expiry date. The Division of Fire Safety links to it as its master list of license holders.
4. Fraud registry: search the name on the Attorney General's Home and Land Improvement Fraud Registry, "a table of all persons who have been criminally convicted by the State of Vermont for committing home or land improvement fraud".
5. Track record: open the firm on our Burlington electrician list, roofer list or remodeler list.

How to search Burlington permit records

The Department of Permitting and Inspections says "The City of Burlington utilizes OpenGov for its permitting and inspections records", and that short-form applications exist for "decks, windows, roofing, siding, fences, and signs" (DPI, read 23 October 2026). Search your address on the OpenGov portal; first-time users need an account to apply. Because windows and roofing have short-form permits in Burlington, a roofer who says no permit is needed is worth questioning.

The portal is organised by record. Ours is organised by firm: each firm's Burlington permits, share closed and days to close, on the Burlington permit statistics page and the compare lists.

What 4,776 Burlington permits show

"Closed" is the share of permits a year or more old the City closed, adjusted for permit age. Among the 50 electricians with 10 or more permits, the 10th-percentile one closed 53.7% and the 90th 90.0%; for the 10 roofers with 10 or more, the range is 40.7% to 89.3%. Heat pumps are concentrated: one installer filed 26.5% of the permits.

See every Burlington electrician by permits closed →

Red flags in Burlington

• No OPR registration on a job over $10,000, or a firm that splits one job into smaller contracts.
• No written contract before a deposit on a job over $10,000.
• An electrician or plumber whose name is not on the DFS list, or whose license has expired.
• A name on the Attorney General's fraud registry.
• A firm that has gone quiet: 5 electricians and 5 roofers with 5+ permits filed none in the last 12 months of our data.

What this lookup does not tell you

Vermont has no license for general contractors or roofers, and electricians and plumbers are licensed as individuals with no firm-level list, so our Burlington pages show no license status; a blank there says nothing about the firm. Mechanical and plumbing permits carry no contractor name, so there are no HVAC or plumbing rankings; heat-pump installers appear through their electrical permits. The City's public permit feed paused from late April to October 2026 and has since been brought up to date. Condo permits show no home value. Statewide rules and OPR's complaint process are in How to check a contractor's license in Vermont.