North Carolina Contractor License Cost

The Board’s fees are small: $75 to $125 to apply depending on your limitation, and $79 per examination to PSI — a modest part of the whole licensing picture. The real cost is the accountant’s report proving financial responsibility, which the Board does not set a price for because it is not the Board’s fee. Everything the Board charges is non-refundable.

There is no single number, because the application fee varies by tier and the financial evidence varies by firm.

What the Board charges

What the Board charges

Item	Fee
Application — Limited license	$75.00
Application — Intermediate license	$100.00
Application — Unlimited license	$125.00
Increase in limitation — to Intermediate	$100.00
Increase in limitation — to Unlimited	$125.00
Late renewal	$10.00 per month, or part month, after 1 January

Set by 21 NCAC 12A .0304, whose subsection (c) is one sentence long and admits no exceptions: “All fees charged by the Board shall be non-refundable.”

What PSI charges

$79 per examination. Your qualifier sits at least two — Business and Law plus the trade exam for your classification — so budget accordingly, and again per retake.

G.S. 87-10(a1) caps the examination fee at $100, so the charged figure can move within that ceiling without a change in the law. Check the current PSI Candidate Information Bulletin, published at psiexams.com, rather than relying on a figure you read anywhere, including here. Details at sitting the trade exam.

Why this page does not quote a renewal fee

G.S. 87-10(e) expresses renewal as a maximum, not a price: a fee “not to exceed” $125 for Unlimited, $100 for Intermediate and $75 for Limited. The Board’s own fee rule lists application fees and the late-renewal charge but does not restate a renewal amount.

So the honest answer is that the statute sets a ceiling and the Board’s portal shows what is currently charged. We would rather send you to the portal than print a number that might be wrong in a way that matters when you are budgeting — the Board links its current licensee portal from nclbgc.org, which is the destination that stays correct even as the portal’s own address changes. See keeping it renewed for the dates, which are the part that actually catches people.

The cost that is not a fee

Proving financial responsibility is where the money goes.

For Intermediate and Unlimited, the Board requires an agreed-upon procedures report on its own form, or an audited financial statement prepared by a CPA or an independent accountant engaged in the public practice of accountancy. That is professional work, priced by the accountant rather than by the Board, and it is the one figure on this page that no rule sets.

For Limited only, 21 NCAC 12A .0204(b)(2) offers an alternative: current assets exceeding current liabilities by $17,000, or a total net worth of $80,000. Intermediate (.0204(c)(2)) and Unlimited (.0204(d)(2)) state working capital with no net-worth option.

Any tier may substitute a surety bond under 21 NCAC 12A .0204(e) — $175,000 Limited, $500,000 Intermediate, $1,000,000 Unlimited. A bond is not paid in full: the cost is a premium set by the surety, which depends on the applicant’s credit and financials. It converts a one-off accounting cost into a recurring annual one, because the rule requires a bond “continuous in form” and “maintained in effect for as long as the applicant maintains a license to practice general contracting in North Carolina or until the applicant demonstrates the required level of working capital”, with proof filed at every annual renewal.

Which route is cheaper depends entirely on your balance sheet and your credit. That is a decision to take with your accountant, not from a table. Financial requirements sets out what each route demands.

What is not on this page at all

Insurance. The Board sets no general liability insurance minimum as a condition of licensure, so nothing here budgets for one. Workers’ Compensation proof is required at the building-permit stage under G.S. 87-14(a)(2), not by the Board at licensure — a different body, a different moment, and not a licensing fee.

That does not mean you will not pay for it. Project owners, lenders and general contractors commonly require general liability cover as a condition of contract, so most contractors end up carrying it whatever the Board asks.

What that cover does, what it does not do, and how it differs from the surety bond above is at insurance and bonds.

Recurring costs

• Renewal, annually — see above.
• Continuing education, for Building, Residential and Unclassified licensees: 8 hours a year, priced by the course providers. 21 NCAC 12A .0304(b) charges the sponsor for course review — $25.00 per credit hour on initial review, $10.00 subsequently, plus $4.00 per credit hour per qualifier completing a course — and prescribes no price for the course itself.
• A surety bond premium, if you went that route instead of working capital.

A cost you may not expect

Under G.S. 87-15.6(b), where a general contractor applies for a permit to construct or alter a single-family residential dwelling unit, the city or county building inspector collects $10 per dwelling unit for the Homeowners Recovery Fund — $9 forwarded to the Board quarterly, $1 retained locally. That permit type is the statutory trigger, so the fee does not attach to a commercial permit. The Board may suspend collection for a year in which it finds the fund sufficient.

Putting it together

The floor for a Limited license is the $75 application plus two exams at $79. Everything above that depends on your project-value limitation and how you prove financial responsibility. Start at the application for what to submit.