How to Check a California Contractor Before You Hire
A step-by-step way to verify any California contractor: license status, classification, bond, and the disciplinary record. Takes about five minutes.
Before you let anyone start work on your house, spend five minutes confirming they are who they say they are. Everything below is free, public, and takes one browser tab.
We are a licensed contractor telling you how to check contractors, including us. That is deliberate. If a company discourages you from looking it up, that is the answer to your question.
Start at the CSLB
The Contractors State License Board keeps the record for every licensed contractor in California. Go to cslb.ca.gov and use Check a License. You can search by license number, by business name, or by the person's name.
Ask the contractor for the license number directly. A legitimate one will give it to you without hesitating. Ours is 1063782.
What to actually read on that page
License status
You want to see Active. Expired, suspended, or revoked all mean stop. A license can lapse for administrative reasons rather than misconduct, but either way the work is not covered until it is current.
Classification
California licenses by trade. A B classification is General Building, which covers projects involving at least two unrelated trades, so a whole-house remodel or an addition. Specialty classifications cover one trade each: C-10 electrical, C-36 plumbing, C-20 HVAC. A contractor working outside their classification is a problem regardless of how good the work looks.
Bond
Every active license carries a contractor's bond. The page shows whether it is in place and who issued it. If a bond has been exhausted by prior claims, that tells you something about the history.
Disciplinary actions and complaints
The page lists citations, accusations, and any legal actions. Read them rather than counting them. A single resolved complaint on a long history is different from a pattern, and the detail usually tells you which one you are looking at.
Personnel
Look at the Personnel List. It shows the qualifying individual, often called the RMO or RME, who is the licensed person the company operates under. Check how long that person has been attached to this license, and whether they are attached to other companies. A qualifier spread across several entities is worth asking about.
The salesperson question
The person who comes to your house to sell the job is not automatically the contractor. California registers home improvement salespersons separately, and the CSLB site has a Salesperson List you can search. If someone is negotiating and signing contracts on behalf of a licensed contractor, they should be registered. It is a fair question to ask and an easy one to verify.
What the license does not tell you
A clean record means the contractor is legally permitted to do the work and has met the state's requirements. It does not mean they are good, that they communicate well, or that they will finish on schedule. Those you learn from talking to past clients and reading reviews across more than one platform, including the critical ones.
Licensing is the floor, not the ceiling. It removes the worst outcomes from the table. Everything above that floor is judgment.
A short checklist
- Ask for the license number before the first visit, not after
- Confirm status is Active and the classification fits your project
- Confirm the bond is in place
- Read any disciplinary detail rather than just the count
- Check how long the qualifying individual has been with the company
- Get everything in writing before any money changes hands
Run this on every contractor you are considering. If one of them comes back clean and the others do not, the decision got easier.