Florida runs a two-tier contractor licensing system, and knowing which tier a contractor holds tells you where they’re actually allowed to legally pull permits and perform work — information that matters just as much for a homeowner vetting a contractor as it does for an insurer evaluating who did the work on a claim.
State-certified vs. locally registered
Certified contractors are licensed by the state through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) and the Construction Industry Licensing Board (CILB), after passing state exams and meeting experience requirements. A certified license is valid statewide — the contractor can legally pull permits in any Florida county or city without needing a separate local license.
Registered contractors, by contrast, passed a local competency exam administered by a specific county or municipality, and their license is only valid within that jurisdiction. A registered contractor who wants to legally work in a neighboring county generally needs to register there too, or upgrade to state certification.
This distinction is exactly why RefPages’ Building Permit Departments directory is organized by individual jurisdiction — the same contractor can be fully licensed in one city and not authorized to pull a permit in the next one over.
License categories
Both certified and registered contractors are further divided by scope of work, including (among others):
- General Contractor — unlimited in construction type, height, and scope
- Building Contractor — similar scope but generally limited to structures under a certain height
- Residential Contractor — one, two, and some three-family residential structures
- Specialty trades licensed separately — electrical, plumbing, roofing, HVAC/mechanical, pool, and others each have their own state or local licensing track
A general contractor’s license doesn’t automatically cover specialty trade work; most of those trades require their own state or local license, which is why a roofing or electrical permit often lists a different licensed contractor than the general contractor overseeing the overall project.
Local business tax receipts
Separately from the contractor license itself, most Florida cities and counties require a local business tax receipt (the modern name for what used to be called an occupational license) for any business — contractors included — operating within that jurisdiction. A contractor can hold a valid state certification and still need a local business tax receipt for each city or county they regularly do business in.
Verifying a contractor’s license
- State-certified contractors and most specialty trades: searchable free through the DBPR’s online license verification tool by name or license number.
- Locally registered contractors: verification runs through that specific jurisdiction’s building or licensing department, since the state licensing search won’t show a purely local registration. RefPages’ Building Permit Departments directory links to each Florida jurisdiction’s building department, which is the right first call to confirm a local registration is current.
Why this matters beyond the permit
Whether a contractor was properly licensed for the work performed is one of the first things that surfaces during an insurance claim involving recent construction or repairs, and it factors into whether a Notice of Commencement and permit were handled correctly in the first place. A property owner considering pulling an owner-builder permit instead of hiring a licensed GC takes on a different — and larger — set of responsibilities, covered in that guide.