What does a general contractor license check show?
A general contractor license check shows the license number, status (Active, Suspended, Expired, Revoked), classification (B-General Building, A-General Engineering, etc.), bond amount, workers compensation coverage, qualifying party, financial responsibility, and any open complaints. 12+ states do not require a state GC license. Groundcheck (earthmove.io/trust) handles both cases.
A general contractor license check pulls a record from the state contractors board that licenses general building work. The boards are: CSLB B-General Building Contractor (California), ROC B-General Commercial / B-2 Residential (Arizona), CCB General Contractor (Oregon), NSCB B-General Building (Nevada), NCLBGC Building Contractor (North Carolina, Limited/Intermediate/Unlimited), Florida DBPR Certified or Registered Building/Residential Contractor, TDLR (Texas — no state GC license, registration only for residential), and so on.
12 states have NO state general contractor license at all: Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania (state-level), South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming. In these states, the relevant license verification is municipal (Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, Houston, Philadelphia all have local licensing) or trade-specific (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roofing usually licensed at the state level even when GC is not).
When a state license exists, the lookup returns: license number, legal business name, qualifying party (the human carrying the credential and most years of experience), DBA names, address. The qualifying party name is critical for catching the most common GC fraud — quoting a real license number under a fake company name, or under a company that just changed its name to escape prior judgments.
Status: Active, Inactive, Suspended, Expired, or Revoked. Active only.
Classification: B-General Building is residential/light commercial. A-General Engineering is heavy civil. Some states distinguish unlimited vs. limited dollar amount (NCLBGC: Limited under $500K, Intermediate $500K-$1M, Unlimited over $1M). A Limited license cannot legally bid a $750,000 custom home.
Financial responsibility: contractor bond (varies by state — California $25,000, Arizona varies by license class, Florida $20,000 for residential), workers compensation policy and carrier, general liability insurance. North Carolina requires audited financials for higher license classes. Most states publish bond/WC carrier directly.
Disciplinary history: open complaints, citations, accusations, consent orders, license suspensions, revocations. A pattern of complaints predicts the same outcome on your job. The license-suspension and license-revocation fields are where you'll catch a phoenix company that closed under a prior name.
What the lookup does NOT show: insurance certificate live status (call carriers), prior subcontractor non-payment patterns (those show up in court records — separate check), specific pricing fairness, technical quality of past work, or the GC's actual financial solvency at the moment you sign the contract. Groundcheck (earthmove.io/trust) bundles license, Secretary of State entity registration, court filings, OSHA citations, BBB complaints, and phoenix-company detection. For state-specific GC licensing thresholds, see earthmove.io/trust/license/general-contractor/[state].
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Verify any contractor or business. License status, court records, OSHA history. Under 90 seconds. The business is never notified.