North Carolina Contractor & Trade Licensing Costs (2026)

Four boards for five licensed trades

The Licensing Board for General Contractors licenses the general contractor, and its license belongs to the business entity rather than a person. The State Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors licenses electricians by classification. A third board, the State Board of Examiners of Plumbing, Heating and Fire Sprinkler Contractors, licenses both plumbers and heating contractors.

The fourth body is the one directories forget: the Landscape Contractors' Licensing Board, which licenses landscapers under Chapter 89D of the General Statutes. Roofing, painting and carpentry have no board and no license of their own. Each board sets its own exam, fees and renewal date, and none of them accepts another board's paperwork.

General contractors: tiers that cap the job, not the firm

A license is required for any project of $40,000 or more, a threshold raised from $30,000 in October 2023 and still quoted at the old figure in older guides. Every license carries a classification, Building, Residential, Highway, Public Utilities or Specialty, and one of three limitations that cap the value of a single project.

Limited caps a project at $750,000, Intermediate at $1,500,000 and Unlimited has no ceiling. The caps were raised by amendment; the $500,000 and $1,000,000 figures in the unamended statute text and older guides are superseded. The fees barely move: $75, $100 and $125 by tier, charged at application and again at each annual renewal.

Because the entity holds the license, an individual qualifier passes the exam on its behalf: the PSI Building Contractor examination, 90 questions at $79, or the NASCLA Accredited exam with a separate North Carolina Business and Law exam. At the Unlimited tier the first license costs $204 in state and exam charges.

There is no experience requirement at any tier, and no insurance requirement for the license itself. The real gate is financial: working capital of $17,000 at Limited, $75,000 at Intermediate and $150,000 at Unlimited, or a surety bond in its place of $175,000, $500,000 or $1,000,000, kept continuous while the license is held.

Everything expires on January 1. Late renewal adds $10 a month, a license unrenewed for 60 days becomes invalid, and qualifiers in the Building, Residential and Unclassified classifications owe 8 hours of continuing education a year. Working unlicensed at $40,000 or more is a Class 2 misdemeanor under section 87-13.

Electricians: an hours ladder and a statement that is not a bond

Electrical licensing is counted in hours rather than rungs. Limited requires 3,000 hours of experience, at least 2,000 of them primary hands-on work, Intermediate 5,750 with 5,000 primary, and Unlimited 9,000 with 8,000 primary. The classes then cap the work: Limited stops at $60,000 per project and 600 volts, Intermediate at $150,000.

The examination fee is $125 for every classification and includes the application; license fees on passing are $100, $150 and $200. An Unlimited license therefore costs $325 the first time, and renewal each year is the license fee again. New qualifiers also complete the board's own 4-hour Laws and Rules class.

Intermediate and Unlimited applicants file a Statement of Bonding Ability under section 87-43.2: a surety's attestation that they could qualify for performance bonds above $60,000 or $150,000, or a bank line-of-credit letter instead. It is not a bond and creates no bond liability; sureties sell it for roughly $120 or $300 a year.

Licenses run July 1 to June 30, renewal is due 30 days before expiry, and an unrenewed license is revoked automatically rather than lapsing into a grace period. Qualified individuals owe 8 hours of continuing education per license period. The full ladder is on the electrician page.

Plumbing and heating share one board, one fee and one calendar

One board issues 31 license qualifications across plumbing, heating and fire sprinkler work. Plumbing Class I covers any building; Class II is single-family detached dwellings only. Heating divides by system: Group 1 for wet heat, Group 2 for forced-air work over 15 tons, Group 3 for forced-air up to 15 tons and every single-family system.

Both trades price identically: a $150 examination application and a $150 license fee, $300 first time, on 2 years (4,000 hours) of on-site experience, up to half of it creditable from related training. There is no journeyman or master ladder; a technician license sits beneath the contractor, at $75, for the contractor's listed workers.

Every license in this board's system expires on December 31, and there is no grace period for working on an expired one. January renewal adds $25, and reinstatement runs for three years before re-examination is required. The shared machinery is set out on the plumber page and the heating page.

The board's most unusual rule is an absence: it eliminated mandatory continuing education in 2012, so renewal is a fee and a form. Heating contractors still need federal EPA Section 608 certification to handle refrigerant; the state license covers the contracting, not the refrigerant.

Landscaping: the license most directories say does not exist

North Carolina licenses landscape contracting under Chapter 89D, and the trigger is low enough to catch ordinary firms: $30,000 of landscape contracting on a single site within any consecutive twelve months. Five smaller jobs at five sites stay outside it; the same value accumulated at one property across a year is inside it.

There is no experience or education prerequisite. The applicant files five reference letters and the original $10,000 surety compliance bond with the signed, notarized application itself; a photocopy will not do. The board then administers its own three-part examination, general landscape knowledge, plant identification and site design, rather than using a national testing company.

The charges are $75 to apply, $150 for the examination and $60 for the license, $285 first time. A business entity needs its own corporate license and its own bond alongside the licensed individual. The license year runs August 1 to July 31, renewal is $60 with 7 hours of continuing education, and the board has no reciprocity with any state.

Roofing, painting and carpentry: unlicensed, not unregulated

No state license exists for a roofer, painter or carpenter in North Carolina. What governs them is the general contractor framework: building work of $40,000 or more is a licensed undertaking, so a large re-roof or a carpentry package inside a big project sits under a licensed GC, while smaller work runs on local permits and the building code.

The threshold is measured on the whole undertaking, not the trade's line item, and splitting contracts to stay under it is not a loophole the state recognizes. A $25,000 roof inside a $60,000 storm-restoration contract is part of a licensed project, however the invoices are divided.

Painters and carpenters meet one real certification: North Carolina runs its own EPA-authorized Renovation, Repair and Painting program, so paid work disturbing paint in pre-1978 homes requires a certified firm and certified renovator through the state program, not the federal one. Window and door replacement, the classic carpentry case, is covered work.