North Carolina Contractor License Lookup

The North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors publishes a public license search that is the authoritative record of who holds a license, in what classification, and at what limitation. Check it before you sign a contract for work of $40,000 or more — the figure G.S. 87-1 uses to define a “general contractor” — and check the classification and limitation as well as the fact of a license.

The search is at portal.nclbgc.org/Public/Search — the Board’s own record, and the only one that counts. Several commercial sites present themselves as official-looking license databases; they are copies, and they go stale.

What to check, not just whether

A license alone does not answer whether a contractor may take on a particular job. Three fields matter together:

• Status. Whether the license is currently valid. Remember that a license expires on 1 January and becomes invalid 60 days later, so timing near the turn of the year is worth a second look — see the renewal cycle.
• Classification. What they are permitted to build. A Residential license does not authorize commercial work, and no general contractor license covers electrical, plumbing, heating or fire sprinkler work — those are separate North Carolina boards.
• Limitation. The maximum value of any single project: $750,000 Limited, $1,500,000 Intermediate, or unrestricted for Unlimited. A contractor holding a Limited license cannot take a $900,000 project regardless of how good they are.

Classification and limitation explains how the two axes work.

The name on the license is the entity

Licenses are issued to a specific legal entity — a named corporation, LLC, partnership or individual — and cannot be transferred to another. So the name on the record should be the name on your contract.

If a contractor trades under one name and holds the license in another, that is worth asking about before signing, not after. It is also why buying a licensed company’s assets does not carry its license across.

Why the written record matters legally

There is a specific reason to check and keep what you found. G.S. 87-13 makes it an offense for an architect or engineer to recommend an unlicensed contractor for a contract award — but provides a defense where the recommendation relied on current written information from the licensing board that erroneously indicated the contractor was licensed.

For design professionals that turns a lookup into a documented step rather than a courtesy. For everyone else it is a reminder that the Board’s record, at the time you looked, is the thing that counts.

What a lookup cannot tell you

• Whether they carry insurance. The Board sets no general liability minimum, so a valid license implies nothing about cover. Workers’ Compensation is checked by the building inspector at permit stage, not by the Board. See insurance and bonds.
• Whether they are any good. The record is regulatory, not a review.
• Whether a complaint is pending. Complaints are administrative matters between the Board and its licensee.

Other lists the Board publishes

The Board can supply a mailing list of active licensees or qualifiers, or more specific lists, on request. Those cost $25, per the Board’s own consumer FAQ.

If there is no license

The $40,000 threshold is G.S. 87-1’s, which defines a “general contractor” as someone undertaking work where “the cost of the undertaking is forty thousand dollars ($40,000) or more”. G.S. 87-13 supplies the penalty and no figure of its own — it reaches “the projects or works enumerated in G.S. 87-1”. So if the work is covered by G.S. 87-1 and the contractor is not licensed, that is a Class 2 misdemeanor under G.S. 87-13, and complaints about unlicensed general contracting can be filed with and investigated by the Board.

Injunctive relief is a separate section and a separate track. G.S. 87-13.1 lets the Board “apply to the superior court for a restraining order and injunction to restrain the violation”, and the superior courts may grant it “irrespective of whether or not criminal prosecution has been instituted” — so it does not wait on a prosecution and does not follow from one. Where the Board prevails, G.S. 87-13.1 says the court “shall award the Board its reasonable attorney’s fee not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) plus the costs”.

What that means for your particular project — a signed contract, money already paid, work half-finished — is a question for a qualified professional. Unlicensed contracting sets out what the law says and what the Board can and cannot do about it.

The body behind the record — who sits on it, what it can do to a license, and the sworn-complaint route when a record is not the end of the matter — is at the licensing board.

This register covers general contractors only. Electrical contractors are recorded separately, in a register the statute requires to be open for public inspection — see checking an electrical license. Plumbing, heating and fire sprinkler contractors are recorded by their own board — see checking a plumber or HVAC contractor.