Georgia General Contractor License Guide: Four Tiers, One $376 Bill, and No Bond

Georgia licensing sits under the Secretary of State, but that umbrella covers two systems that share almost nothing. The State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors issues contractor licenses under Title 43, Chapter 41. A separate body, the State Construction Industry Licensing Board, licenses the trades through its own divisions.

The split matters because the two boards keep different habits. The contractor board asks for net worth instead of a bond and sets no continuing education. The trade divisions share a single fee schedule, rewritten on June 1, 2025, and their licensees owe four hours of education a year.

This guide is about the contractor side of the split: the four tiers, what the standard license costs, and how to pick the tier that matches your work. The trades get their own section near the end, because an applicant who confuses the two boards files the wrong paperwork with the wrong one.

The contractor board issues four categories. Residential-Basic covers houses. Residential-Light Commercial adds small commercial work to the residential scope. The General Contractor license is the full commercial credential. And the General Contractor Limited Tier is the same scope as the full license with one ceiling bolted on: no single contract above $1,000,000.

The question that picks your tier is not how skilled you are. It is what your contracts look like. A builder whose largest job stays under a million dollars can hold the Limited Tier and meet a lighter financial test. A builder chasing larger commercial work has no use for it, whatever it saves.

Choose with care, because the application fee is paid either way and is not refunded. Contractors who outgrow the Limited Tier apply again for the full license. The tiers are separate credentials, not settings on one license that the board can adjust for you later.

The General Contractor license is one of the few on this site whose first-time bill can be stated to the dollar, because the board publishes every piece of it.

• Application fee: $200
• Board processing fee: $10
• Georgia Business and Law examination: $60
• Trade examination (the NASCLA accredited exam is accepted for this part): $106
• First-time total: $376

Two things are missing from that list, and both absences are real. There is no separate license fee after approval; the application payment carries the file through to issue. And there is no state license bond for this license at all, which the next section takes up. Our Georgia general contractor page runs the same arithmetic for the other tiers.

Most states take a surety bond as the financial gate. Georgia takes a balance sheet instead. A General Contractor applicant must show a minimum net worth of $150,000, attested by a certified public accountant, and hold a $50,000 line of credit. No surety company is involved, and no premium is paid to anyone.

The Limited Tier and the two residential tiers sit at a lower threshold: $25,000 of net worth. The residential tiers get one more option the general tiers do not. They may also satisfy the requirement with a bond, a line of credit or a bank credit reference, so the balance sheet is not the only door at that level.

Insurance still applies, separately from all of this. General Contractor division licensees carry at least $500,000 of general liability cover per occurrence, and Residential-Basic licensees carry $300,000. Workers' compensation follows Georgia's own rule, which reaches employers with three or more employees. The bonds and insurance guide explains why a bond and a policy are not substitutes for each other.

Behind the application sit four years of experience in the construction industry. At least two of those years must be spent working with or for a licensed general contractor. The statute, OCGA 43-41-6, also sets education and experience combinations that can stand in for part of the four years, and the board judges them case by case.

The examination runs through PSI and comes in two parts. The Georgia Business and Law exam costs $60 and tests the legal frame the license operates in. The trade part costs $106, and Georgia accepts the NASCLA Accredited Examination for Commercial General Building Contractors in its place.

Read that acceptance carefully. NASCLA replaces the trade portion only. An applicant who arrives with a NASCLA pass still sits the Georgia Business and Law exam, because the state tests its own law separately. Skipping it is the most common scheduling error on this route.

The license renews every two years, due June 30 of even-numbered years. Renewal costs $110 in total: the $100 renewal fee plus the same $10 processing fee from the application. There is no continuing education requirement attached to this license, which makes Georgia's contractor renewal one of the lightest on this site.

The even-year deadline is the trap. A contractor licensed in an odd year can hold the credential for barely a year before the first renewal lands, and the June 30 date does not move. Put it in the diary when the license issues, not when the notice arrives.

Electrical contractors, plumbers and conditioned air contractors answer to the State Construction Industry Licensing Board, each through its own division. Their fees follow one schedule, effective June 1, 2025, and it is worth stating plainly: any page still quoting a $30 application fee or a $75 renewal for a Georgia trade license is working from the schedule that schedule replaced.

The patterns repeat with trade-specific twists. Electrical licenses split into Class I, restricted to single-phase systems of 200 amperes or less, and Class II, unrestricted; the application is $110 and the two-part PSI exam is $288. The Georgia electrician page prices both classes.

Master plumbers need five years of experience, two of them as a licensed journeyman, with a $110 application and a $207 exam. Conditioned air contractors pay the same $110 application and a $267 exam, and they file the one genuine bond in this guide: a $10,000 surety or cash bond in the county where they work, priced on the Georgia HVAC page.

Contracting in a licensed category without the license is a misdemeanor under section 43-41-12(a): a fine of not less than $1,000, up to three months of imprisonment per offense, or both. Georgia sets a floor under the fine rather than a ceiling, which is unusual and worth noticing.

The second consequence is the one that reaches profitable businesses. Under section 43-41-17(a), a contract made by an unlicensed contractor is unenforceable by that contractor, and the bar covers mechanic's lien and bond claims too. The work can be finished, the customer can refuse to pay, and the courts are closed. Against a $376 license, that is a poor trade.