General contractor license requirements and dollar thresholds by US state
Do I need a contractor license for this project in my state, and what does it take to get one? Every US state handles general contractor licensing differently: some require a state license for any construction work, others only above a dollar threshold ($1,000 in Arizona, $10,000 residential in Alabama, $100,000 commercial in Alabama), and some have no state-level license at all (municipal only). One record per license type per state, sourced from the state's licensing board. Answers 'do I need a contractor license in Florida', 'what is the minimum project size for a contractor license in Alabama', 'general contractor license requirements by state', and 'how much is a contractor license bond'. New Jersey added a formal licensing system effective February 2026; Montana transitioned from registration to licensing in 2026. The assembled versions on page one are all from insurance lead-gen sites (nextinsurance.com, insureon.com) selling general liability to contractors. Extends the electrician-licence-progression-by-state pattern to general contractors.
The data
| License type | State | Licensing authority | Dollar threshold | Exam required | Application/license fee | Surety bond | Insurance required |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial | Louisiana | Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors (LSLBC) | $50,000 or more (including labor and materials) | ||||
| Construction Contractor | Oregon | Oregon Construction Contractors Board (CCB) | There are 80 multiple choice questions; a passing score is 70 percent (56 correct answers) | $400 fee for a two-year license | |||
| Contractor | Tennessee | Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors | $25,000 or more | Tennessee “Business and Law” exam, and a trade exam is required for certain license classifications | |||
| General Contractor | Alabama | Alabama Licensing Board for General Contractors | $100,000 or more. Swimming Pool construction of $5,000 or more | ||||
| General Contractor | South Carolina | South Carolina Contractor's Licensing Board (SC LLR) | greater than $10,000 | ||||
| General Contractor (registration) | Washington | Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) | $150.20 | $30,000 for general contractors | $200,000 in public liability and $50,000 property damage, or $250,000 combined single limit | ||
| Home Improvement | Louisiana | Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors (LSLBC) | seven thousand five hundred dollars or more | ||||
| Home Improvement Contractor | Tennessee | Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors | from $3,000 to $24,999 | $250 | $10,000 | General Liability and Worker’s Compensation required | |
| Mold Remediation | Louisiana | Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors (LSLBC) | $7,500 or more | ||||
| Residential | Louisiana | Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors (LSLBC) | exceeding $50,000 (including labor and materials) | ||||
| Specialty Contractor (registration) | Washington | Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) | $150.20 | $15,000 for specialty contractors |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 7 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- lslbc.govhttps://lslbc.gov/types-of-licenses/
- oregon.govhttps://www.oregon.gov/ccb/Pages/CCB%20License.aspx
- tn.govhttps://www.tn.gov/commerce/regboards/contractors/license/get/contractor.html
- genconbd.alabama.govhttps://genconbd.alabama.gov/about/law/
- llr.sc.govhttps://llr.sc.gov/clb/faq.aspx
- lni.wa.govhttps://lni.wa.gov/licensing-permits/contractors/register-as-a-contractor/
- tn.govhttps://www.tn.gov/commerce/regboards/contractors/license/get/home-improvement.html
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- data.csvThe same records as one flat table, for a spreadsheet or a dataframe. The last four columns are the source URL, the quoted sentence it was read from, the date we last checked it, and which columns are our reading rather than the page's words.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
From your own code
Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.
pip install refsource
refsource lookup general-contractor-license-thresholds-by-state license_type=Commercial
npx -y refsource lookup general-contractor-license-thresholds-by-state license_type=CommercialSet your AI assistant up to use this
Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.
{
"mcpServers": {
"referencesource": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
}
}
}Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project
Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:
When a question needs "General contractor license requirements and dollar thresholds by US state", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `general-contractor-license-thresholds-by-state`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.