Licensed vs unlicensed: what the permit file shows in your state

Licensed or unlicensed: what each one gives you

What the file shows in your city

For each city below we took one large trade, matched every ranked firm's name to the state register, and counted the share whose status is Active on the snapshot date. The lookup link is the official one; type the name from your quote into it.

* For Denton, Sugar Land and Tyler we show HVAC rather than roofing or new homes. TDLR's list of the programs it licenses includes "Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractors" and "Electricians" but not roofing or general contracting (TDLR, Programs Licensed and Regulated), so for Texas we show the HVAC trade, which it does license.

** New York City's biggest trade is electrical, but the register we join carries no status for electrical firms, so the share would read as zero for the wrong reason. Plumbing, where the join works, is shown instead.

Each city's compare page shows the same status firm by firm, with Expired, Suspended and Revoked called out where the register reports them.

Why "not matched" is not "unlicensed"

We match by business name because that is all most permits record. A permit filed as "B & T Service" and a license held by "B and T Service Heating LLC" may or may not be the same firm; our matching allows for the state's own shortened names but not for every trading name. Three things follow:

1. A low active share can mean many firms are licensed under a name we did not match (Minneapolis plumbing, 74.0%), or that the register is the wrong one for the trade: Pittsburgh electrical firms (19.1%) are matched against the Pennsylvania Attorney General's home improvement contractor register, not an electrical license list.
2. A firm shown as Active was matched and the register said Active that day. That is the strongest statement we make.
3. A firm shown as Expired or Suspended was matched to a record with that status. Check the board yourself before deciding anything; the same name can belong to two businesses.

We never label a firm "unlicensed". The states' registers do not say that either; they say whether a record exists and what its status is.

What an unlicensed hire costs you, in three states

California. CSLB's page on contracting without a license says a first offence is a misdemeanour that can carry up to six months in jail and/or a $5,000 fine, with administrative fines of $200 to $15,000; a second offence brings a mandatory 90-day jail sentence and a fine of 20 percent of the contract price or $5,000. The same page says consumers are not legally required to pay an unlicensed person and cannot be sued for non-payment (CSLB, accessed 20 Oct 2026).

Washington. L&I's registration page says the state requires all construction contractors to register, carry a continuous surety bond of $30,000 for general contractors or $15,000 for specialty contractors (renewals dated 1 July 2024 or later), and hold general liability insurance of $200,000 public liability and $50,000 property damage or $250,000 combined. On working unregistered it says only that it "carries substantial penalties and fines" without naming amounts (L&I, accessed 20 Oct 2026). The bond is what you claim against if the job goes wrong; an unregistered contractor has none.

Texas. TDLR's list of the programs it licenses includes air-conditioning and refrigeration contractors, electricians, residential solar retailers and electric-vehicle charging stations, and does not include general contractors or roofers (TDLR, accessed 20 Oct 2026). So in Texas the license question depends on the trade: ask an HVAC or electrical contractor for a TDLR number; for a roofer there is no state number to ask for, and the permit record is most of what you have.

When the job legally needs a license

Below a small dollar line, these states let an unlicensed person do the work. The line counts labour and materials together, and in California a job that needs a permit is outside the exemption at any price:

Our general contractor vs handyman guide has the line for 16 states. Splitting one job into small contracts to get under it is ruled out by statute in Washington and Florida.

If you already hired one

1. Check whether the work needed a permit, and whether one was pulled. Search your address on the city's permit portal; that guide also covers applying to legalise work done without one.
2. Ask about insurance before anyone else climbs a ladder. CSLB warns that you could be liable if an uninsured worker is hurt on your property.
3. Report it. CSLB takes complaints "for up to four years from the date of the act", licensed or not (CSLB, Filing a Complaint). In Florida, the City of Cape Coral lists DBPR's unlicensed activity line, (866) 532-1440, and its own Code Compliance division for local reports (City of Cape Coral, read 21 October 2026).
4. Know what you owe. In California a consumer is not legally required to pay an unlicensed person for contracting work and cannot be sued for non-payment (CSLB, above); read that page before relying on it.

What this does not tell you

The file does not know whether the person on your doorstep is the person on the license. A license number can be borrowed; in California, "felony charges are filed against anyone who illegally uses another person's contractor license" (CSLB). It does not know about insurance beyond what the state register shows, or about work that was never permitted.

The two-minute check

1. Get the exact business name and license number from the quote.
2. Open the lookup in the table above and search the number, not the name.
3. Confirm status Active, the trade classification matches the work, and the bond or insurance (where shown) is current.
4. Then open the firm on our compare page and see how many permits they have pulled for this work, and how many they finished.

See every Seattle heating contractor with license status →

See every San Francisco roofer with license status →

See every Austin electrician with license status →

See every Miami plumber with license status →