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An orientation for restoration owners, office managers, and commercial reps checking a job before they bid, backed by decades of experience in the trade. This is the GEM home for state licensing and registration. Requirements vary by state, county, and city, and they change.
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Reviewed October 2026. Licensing laws change, and they vary by state, county and city, so use this page to know what to ask, then confirm with your state contractor board or a construction attorney before you rely on it.
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Before any trade-specific credential, a restoration company needs the foundation any business needs: the entity registered with the state, an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS, a local business license or tax registration where your city or county requires one, and sales or use tax registration if your state taxes any of what you sell. These are the table stakes that make you a real, bankable business.
An IICRC certification tells a decision maker your technicians are trained. It does not satisfy a state that requires a contractor's license, a mold license, or an asbestos credential before you perform and bill the work. Plenty of shops run residential water for years without the question coming up, then meet it on their first large commercial or rebuild job. Commercial decision makers and prequalification platforms check licensing during vendor approval, so a gap fails you at the gate long before it reaches a courtroom.
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Check the license classification against the actual scope before you sign the contract. Mitigation, reconstruction, and the trades inside a rebuild do not always sit under one classification, and none of it travels with you into another state. In California, working outside the license can cost you every dollar you were already paid, under the B&P 7031 rules set out below. This is not legal advice. Pay for the review up front. A construction lawyer in your state reads this faster than you can fix a bad clause later.
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There is no single national contractor license. Whether your state licenses general, residential, or commercial contractors, and what dollar thresholds decide which license a job requires, is state law, so look up yours. Your city or county may layer its own licensing on top of the state's. The only reliable answer comes from your state contractor licensing board plus the local jurisdictions where you actually work.
In the harshest states the penalty goes well past a fine you absorb as a cost of doing business.
You can lose the money you already collected. California Business and Professions Code 7031(a) bars an unlicensed contractor from bringing or maintaining any action to collect compensation for the work, no matter how well the job was done or how clearly the customer agreed to pay. Subdivision (b) then lets the person who hired you sue to recover all compensation paid. A finished, invoiced, fully collected $200,000 rebuild can become a $200,000 judgment against you. The license has to have been in place for the entire period of performance, not just at signing.
Chasing a storm across a state line can be a felony. Florida Statutes 489.127(2)(a) makes unlicensed contracting a first-degree misdemeanor in ordinary times. Under 489.127(2)(c), the same first offense committed during a state of emergency declared by executive order of the Governor is a third-degree felony. That is when out-of-area crews show up, and when the state is watching most closely. If you deploy to a declared disaster outside your licensed states, get licensed or get under a licensed local partner's paper before a truck rolls, and confirm whether the state has an emergency or reciprocal endorsement path.
Beyond collection risk and criminal exposure, an unlicensed entity on the paperwork also gives a carrier a clean reason to push back on a claim.
Beyond a general contractor license, restoration work can require specific credentials depending on the state and the work:
Mold remediation licensing. Whether your state licenses mold assessment and remediation specifically is state law, so look up yours. Four states that do bar the same firm from holding both halves on one job: Texas at Occ. Code 1958.155, which says plainly that a license holder may not perform both mold assessment and mold remediation on the same project; Florida at Fla. Stat. 468.8419(1)(d) and (2)(d) on a 12-month lookback in both directions; New York at Labor Law 936(2) and (3); and Louisiana at R.S. 37:2158(A)(23)(c) and (d). In our experience that separation is the rule broken by accident most often, because the firm that found the mold is the obvious firm to remove it, and in these four states it is the one firm that cannot.
Texas, New York and Louisiana all go a step past the firm and bar common ownership of the assessor and the remediator on the same job (the same project in Texas, the same property in New York and Louisiana), so splitting the work between two entities you own does not solve it: Texas at 1958.155(b), New York at Labor Law 936(3), Louisiana at R.S. 37:2158(A)(23)(d). Florida reaches a similar place by a different route, because its 12-month bar follows the company and not only the individual.
Florida also carves out an exception: a certified contractor classified as a Division I contractor under Fla. Stat. 489.105(3), meaning general, building or residential, sits outside the bar. The statute then says the department may adopt rules requiring that such a contractor disclose the homeowner's right to request competitive bids where it assesses and offers to remediate. That is discretionary rulemaking authority, not a condition the statute imposes on its own. If you hold that classification, read the exception before you turn work away.
The thresholds that pull you into the license differ, and note where they live: 25 contiguous square feet in Texas, mold growth greater than 10 square feet in Florida under the definitions at Fla. Stat. 468.8411, more than ten square feet in New York under the definitions at Labor Law 930, and a project value of $7,500 or more in Louisiana. Read the Louisiana figure exactly: R.S. 37:2150.1 defines a mold remediation contractor by work "for which the project value is seven thousand five hundred dollars or more." There is no upper limit on it, so a job at exactly $7,500 is inside the requirement and a larger one does not fall back out of it. The Texas figure sits in the statute itself. Occ. Code 1958.102(c) says a person is not required to be licensed to perform mold remediation in an area where the contamination affects a total surface area for the project of less than 25 contiguous square feet. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) rules at 16 TAC Chapter 78 sit alongside it, with Section 78.30 titled Exceptions and Exemptions, so read the rule as well as the statute before you rely on any exemption. The table sums up the four states (state rules as of October 2026).
| State | Same-firm bar | Common-ownership bar | License threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | Occ. Code 1958.155: no assessment and remediation on the same project | Yes, 1958.155(b) | 25 contiguous square feet (Occ. Code 1958.102(c)) |
| Florida | Fla. Stat. 468.8419(1)(d) and (2)(d), 12-month lookback both ways; Division I contractor exception | Similar result: the 12-month bar follows the company | Mold growth greater than 10 square feet (Fla. Stat. 468.8411) |
| New York | Labor Law 936(2) and (3) | Yes, Labor Law 936(3) | More than ten square feet (Labor Law 930) |
| Louisiana | R.S. 37:2158(A)(23)(c) and (d) | Yes, R.S. 37:2158(A)(23)(d) | Project value of $7,500 or more (R.S. 37:2150.1) |