California Contractor License Lookup

Check a California contractor’s license on the Board’s own portal, Check A License, at cslb.ca.gov. It is free and it is the authoritative record. Two fields decide the answer and neither is the license number: the classification, which defines the work that license covers, and the status, because a license can exist without being in force. Do it before you sign or pay a deposit.

A CSLB license status check, by name or by number

The portal supports the two ways people arrive at it: a CSLB license lookup by name, when all you have is the business painted on a van, and a CA license number lookup, when the number is on the quote. Either route lands on the same record.

A contractor’s license check is worth doing even when the number looks right, because the number existing and the license being in force are different facts. The status field is the one that matters, and the section headed What to actually look at says why.

Use the Board’s portal, not a directory

The Board runs the lookup itself: Check A License. Third-party directories reproduce license data with a lag and without the Board’s status detail, so for a decision that matters, use the source.

What the portal covers, and what it does not

The Board’s page is headed “Check a Contractor License or Home Improvement Salesperson (HIS) Registration”, and Check A License describes its own purpose as to “Look up a contractor license or Home Improvement Salesperson (HIS) registration to verify information, including complaint disclosure.” Those two records are the whole of its scope. A result there is an answer about a contractor license or about an HIS registration and about nothing else — so if the person you are checking is a contractor, this is the record that settles it, and if they are not, the answer is not here.

What to actually look at

Three things beyond “is there a license”.

The classification. A California license is granted in a class, and the class defines the work. A general building contractor is defined around structures needing “at least two unrelated building trades or crafts” (§ 7057); a residential remodeling contractor around an existing residential wood frame structure needing “at least three unrelated building trades or crafts for a single contract” (§ 7057.5); a specialty contractor around a specialized trade (§ 7058). Somebody holding a C-class for one trade is not thereby licensed for a different trade. What the classification letters mean sets the four out.

The status. A license can exist and not be in force. Section 7028(a) makes it a misdemeanor to act as a contractor under a license, quoting § 7028(a)(2) whole: “The person performs acts covered by this chapter under a license that is under suspension for failure to pay a civil penalty or to comply with an order of correction, pursuant to Section 7090.1, or for failure to resolve all outstanding final liabilities, pursuant to Section 7145.5.” An inactive license is also not a license to work — inactivating is a real status the Board records, and the bond requirement is suspended while it lasts (§ 7071.6(c)).

The complaint disclosure. The Board’s description of its own portal names “complaint disclosure” among the things a lookup is there to verify (Check A License). The record is therefore more than a yes or a no on the license, and that is the part of it worth reaching before you sign rather than after.

What the bond does and does not do for you

Every active license is backed by a contractor’s bond of $25,000 (§ 7071.6(a)), and it is easy to read that as $25,000 of protection. It is not.

Section 7071.6(b) reads: “Excluding the claims brought by the beneficiaries specified in subdivision (a) of Section 7071.5, the aggregate liability of a surety on claims brought against a bond required by this section shall not exceed the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500).” So for most claimants the cap is $7,500 in aggregate — across all claims against that bond, not per claim. On a job of any size, the bond is not the thing standing between you and a loss.

The excluded class is the one most readers of this page are in, so it is worth reading closely. Section 7071.5(a) names “A homeowner contracting for home improvement upon the homeowner's personal family residence damaged as a result of a violation of this chapter by the licensee.” For that claimant § 7071.6(b) reserves the bond proceeds above $7,500, and adds that nothing in the section “shall be construed so as to prevent” such a beneficiary “from claiming or recovering the full measure of the bond”. Whether a particular arrangement puts you inside subdivision (a) is a determination on the facts, and it is not one this page can make for you.

If the license is not there

Nobody is required to be licensed for every job: the threshold is a project requiring a permit, using additional workers, or reaching $1,000 in labor and materials (CSLB). Below all three, unlicensed work can be lawful.

Above them it is a misdemeanor, and the consequences run to the contractor rather than to you — see hiring someone unlicensed. What a license actually required of them is on what a license required of them, and the California contractor license overview covers the rest. What the number itself is, and where a licensed contractor must display it, is at what a license number means.

This page carries no offers. You came to check a license, and an advertisement here would be answering a question you did not ask.