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Licensed, or just registered?
“Licensed contractor” is the phrase every homeowner is told to look for. But in several states the credential most contractors actually hold is a registration — a different thing, recorded in the same records, under the same licensing roof. The counts below are the boards’ own.
Washington: the license word, the registration reality
Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries publishes its contractor records as licensing data, and a contractor who has completed the process will tell you they are licensed. The records themselves say something more specific. Of the 76,308 credentials L&I records as ACTIVE, 68,454 — 89.7% — are Construction Contractor registrations, and 7,854 are licenses: the electrical, plumbing and elevator contractor licenses. Count every record L&I publishes, current and historical, and registrations are 148,874 of 161,362 — 92.3%. On this site the published Washington set runs 77,569 registrations to 8,128 licenses.
A Washington registration is not nothing: it is recorded with L&I, and it carries a bond and insurance that the record shows. What it does not involve is a trade examination — nobody at the state tested the registrant’s craft. The license words and the registration words sit side by side in the same records, and the difference is exactly the difference between “the state examined this trade” and “the state registered this business.” Every Washington record here — start at the Washington hub — labels which of the two the credential is, in plain words, because the board’s own type descriptions draw the line.
Minnesota: a register that says the quiet part
Minnesota’s Department of Labor and Industry is unusually candid. Its records include whole classes named Registered Unlicensed — and they are not a handful: 101,897 records, 39.2% of everything in the department’s published records:
| Registered Unlicensed class | Records |
|---|---|
| Registered Unlicensed Electrician | 52,832 |
| Registered Unlicensed Power Limited Technician | 25,223 |
| Registered Unlicensed Plumber | 17,799 |
| Registered Unlicensed HPP Pipefitter | 4,199 |
| Registered Unlicensed Elevator Constructor | 1,241 |
| Registered Unlicensed Water Conditioning Installer | 603 |
Registration there means the department knows who these workers are — it is a real regulatory act with real requirements — and it is explicitly not a license; the name says so. The same records hold 5,503 Certificates of Exemption, which document the opposite of licensure: a recorded statement that the holder is exempt from it. None of these publish here as licenses. The Minnesota records on this site are the 11,580 licensed residential contractors — the register and the exemptions are counted in this study because they are part of what the word “licensed” has to be distinguished from, and for no other purpose.
Connecticut and Florida: the quieter versions
Connecticut’s Home Improvement Contractor credential is a registration with the Department of Consumer Protection — no examination — and it is the state’s largest contractor credential: 135,727 records in the department’s published data, and 65.9% of the Connecticut records published here are registrations rather than licenses. Florida draws the same line inside one word family: a Certified license is state-examined and valid statewide, while a Registered license rests on a local examination, is registered with the state, and authorizes work only in the locality that granted it — 3,885 of the Florida records here are the registered kind, against 104,735 certified licenses, and every Florida record page states which scope its license carries.
The thirteen states, side by side
| State | The license | The registration | What the records here hold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Washington | Electrical, plumbing and elevator contractor licenses — the examined trades | Construction Contractor registration — no trade examination; bond and insurance recorded with L&I | 90.5% of the published records here are registrations |
| Minnesota | Residential Contractor and other DLI licenses | “Registered Unlicensed” classes in six trades — registration without a license, in the name itself | The register is never published here as licensure; the Minnesota records here are licensed residential contractors |
| Connecticut | Trade licenses — electrical, plumbing, heating and the other examined crafts | Home Improvement Contractor registration — a registration with DCP, not an examined license | 65.9% of the published records here are registrations |
| Florida | Certified licenses — state examination, valid statewide | Registered licenses — locally examined and registered with the state; valid only in the locality that granted them | 3.6% of the published records here are registrations |
| California | Contractor licenses in 98 recorded classifications | — | Every published record is a license |
| Arizona | Contractor licenses by class | — | Every published record is a license |
| Texas | TDLR contractor licenses and TSBPE master plumber licenses | — | Every published record is a license |
| Virginia | Contractor licenses, classed A, B and C by the size of contract the license covers | — | Every published record is a license |
| Oregon | Construction Contractors Board licenses, with endorsements | — | Every published record is a license |
| Ohio | Licenses held by the individual — there is no company license; the business operates under a licensed person's license | — | Every published record is a license |
| Illinois | Roofing contractor licenses | — | Every published record is a license |
| District of Columbia | General Contractor and Home Improvement Contractor licenses | — | Every published record is a license |
| Delaware | Trade and agency licenses | — | Every published record is a license |
In nine of the thirteen states, the contractor records are licenses all the way down, and the question answers itself. In the other four, “are you licensed?” is the wrong question — not because the answer is no, but because the state offers two different credentials and the honest answer names one of them. The follow-up that works everywhere: which credential, from which board, under which number — and then check the number. The record will say what the credential is, in the board’s words and in plain ones.
Methodology
Sources: the published records of the Washington Department of Labor & Industries, the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and the other nine boards named in the table — each dated November 3, 2026 (Arizona’s records, November 2, 2026).
A record is counted as a registration or a license by the board’s own type descriptions for that record — Washington’s Construction Contractor type against its electrical, plumbing and elevator contractor types; Minnesota’s classes with “Registered Unlicensed” in their recorded names; Connecticut’s registration credential types; Florida’s Certified and Registered class families. The plain-language readings of what each credential involves are the boards’ own published descriptions of their credentials. Percentages are of the bases stated in the text: Washington’s active set, its full published records, and the set published here are three different bases and are never mixed.
More studies
- The disappearing licenseIn some states a revoked license isn't marked — it leaves the published records entirely, and a search that finds nothing starts to look like a clean answer.
- “Active” is a word, not a factRecords whose status word says current while their own expiration date has already passed — counted state by state, word and date side by side.
- The discipline mapWhere discipline is published with the license records, where it lives somewhere else entirely, and where it cannot be had at any price — and what each case means for a search.
- Licensed since whenHow long the current licenses in each state's records have been held: medians, the share held 25 years or more, and the oldest license still current in California — issued in 1950.