Florida Contractor & Trade Licensing Costs (2026)

Two boards inside one department

Florida's contracting statute, Chapter 489, is split in two. Part I is run by the Construction Industry Licensing Board, the CILB, which certifies the Division I licenses (general, building and residential) and the Division II trades: roofing, plumbing and air conditioning among them. Part II belongs to the Electrical Contractors' Licensing Board, the ECLB, which licenses electrical and alarm contractors under its own rules. Both boards sit inside DBPR, which is nearly the only thing they share.

The split is not administrative trivia. Rules copied from a general contractor onto an electrician are wrong on almost every line: the exam is booked with Pearson VUE rather than the construction trades' vendor, renewal takes 11 hours of continuing education rather than 14, and the credit-score test described below does not apply at all. A website quoting one Florida fee schedule for every trade has merged two boards Florida keeps separate.

Certified works everywhere, registered stops at the county line

A certified contractor holds a license issued by the state board after passing the state examinations. It is valid in all 67 Florida counties, permits included. A registered contractor holds a certificate of competency issued by one county or city, registered with DBPR. The registered license carries no state exam and no statewide practice right: the authority ends at the border of the jurisdiction that issued it.

Roofing shows the trade-off cleanly. A registered roofer skips the state exams and the state experience standard, and in exchange accepts a hard geographic limit. A certified roofing contractor can follow storm work across county lines, which is why most established Florida roofing companies hold the certified license. Our guide to certified vs registered contractors works through the two routes in full.

Financial responsibility is a credit score, not a bond

Surety websites still quote $20,000, $10,000 or $5,000 bonds for Florida contractors. Those figures describe a rule that no longer exists. Rule 61G4-15.006, amended in April 2022, removed the contractor bond from the CILB scheme entirely. What Florida tests now is credit: a report showing no unsatisfied judgments or liens, and a FICO score of 660 or higher.

An applicant below 660 is not asked for security; the remedy is a 14-hour board-approved financial responsibility course, and that is the whole of the requirement at any score.

One genuine bond survives. If a business designates a Financially Responsible Officer, who takes financial responsibility without holding the license, that officer separately posts a $100,000 bond or letter of credit. The rest is insurance and fingerprinting: general and building contractors carry at least $300,000 of public liability and $50,000 of property damage cover, most specialty categories carry $100,000 and $25,000, and every certified applicant is fingerprinted electronically, at a fee the LiveScan vendor sets rather than DBPR.

The first-time bill, trade by trade

Most CILB licenses cost the same to acquire because they share one payment pattern. The application payment is $245 in the first part of the two-year cycle and $145 in the second, because the initial license fee bundled inside it drops from $200 to $100 as the cycle runs down. The initial fee is prepaid, so nothing more is owed after the exam.

The exam stage adds $295, made up of $135 to the exam vendor PTI plus $80 per test sitting; the general contractor exam has three parts, but two of them are charged as a single test, so the total holds. Air conditioning, in either class, plumbing and roofing all land on the same figure: $540 first time.

The electrician is the exception. The EC license is charged in three separate stages: a $263.25 examination application, the two-part computer-based exam at $123.75, and a $296 initial license fee paid on a second application after passing, for a first-time total of $683. Renewals divide the same way.

CILB licenses renew every two years at $209, or $259 when the license qualifies a business, with 14 hours of continuing education. The electrical license renews at $296 with 11 hours. The CILB experience standard is four years in the trade, at least one of them supervisory; electrical experience follows the routes in section 489.511, and on every route at least 40 percent of it must be three-phase work.

Three trades with no state license at all

Florida has no painting contractor license. Painting is not a DBPR category: there is no state painting exam, fee or license number to hold. What exists is local: some counties license or register painters, others ask only for a business tax receipt, and any painter disturbing paint in a pre-1978 home needs federal EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting certification, obtained through the EPA because Florida runs no program of its own.

Landscaping splits down the middle. The landscaping itself, planting, sod and hardscape, needs no state license. The chemical side is licensed in layers by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services: applying fertilizer commercially requires an FDACS certificate earned through six hours of Green Industries Best Management Practices training and a $25 fee, valid four years, and pesticide work is tiered under Chapter 482 from a limited landscape-maintenance certificate up to full Lawn and Ornamental certification with a pest control business license.

Carpentry has no license of its own either, but Chapter 489 defines contracting broadly, so carpentry sold as part of building construction sits inside the scope of a Division I general, building or residential license, and carpenters work under those licensees instead of holding a credential.

Storm country: what unlicensed work risks

Florida's penalties are written for a state where every hurricane produces a wave of travelling repair crews. Unlicensed contracting is a first-degree misdemeanor on a first offense, carrying up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine under section 489.127. A repeat offense, or any offense committed during a Governor-declared state of emergency, is a third-degree felony. There is no emergency waiver: after a storm, the certified license obtained in quiet months is the only legal route into the repair market.

Florida's strictest building standards sit in the Miami-Dade and Broward High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, and the roofing exam tests the code's roofing chapters including those zone provisions. For a homeowner the checks are quick: verify the license number with DBPR before work starts, and confirm it is certified, because a registered license from another county authorizes nothing at your address.