NC Electrical License Lookup: Checking an Electrical Contractor

North Carolina’s electrical register is public by statute, and it is searched at the State Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors, not at the general contractors’ board. The search is published by the Board at arls-public.ncbeec.org/Public/Search. What matters once you find a record is the classification, because that is what sets the size of project the licensee may take.

A general contractor license is a different register at a different board, and finding someone there says nothing about whether they may do electrical work.

The register is open by law

The obligation is in the licensing section itself. G.S. 87-43 provides that “A registry of all licenses issued to electrical contractors shall be kept by the secretary-treasurer of the Board, and said registry shall be open for public inspection during ordinary business hours.”

That is a statutory right of inspection, not a courtesy — the Board keeps the register and the public may inspect it. The online search the Board publishes is how that is reached in practice.

Where to search

The Board links its own search from its site as “Search for a License”, at:

arls-public.ncbeec.org/Public/Search

Two other searches sit alongside it on the same site and answer different questions. The Board links them as “Find A CE Course or Sponsor” and “Check CE Credit”. What each returns is the Board’s to describe, and this page does not.

Use the Board’s own search rather than a third-party directory. Aggregator sites republish license data on their own schedule, and a status that changed last week is exactly the thing you are checking for.

What a classification tells you

A record is only as useful as your ability to read it, and the classification is the field that carries the practical limit. Under G.S. 87-43.3 there are three:

• Limited — a single project of a value “not in excess of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000)”, and on which the equipment or installation is “rated at not more than 1,000 volts”.
• Intermediate — a single project “not in excess of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000)”.
• Unlimited — “any electrical contracting project regardless of value”.

The statute permits a Limited licensee a single project of up to $100,000 as established by the Board, and the voltage condition applies to that classification alone. The full wording, and the experience behind each class, is at what each classification permits.

The value figures are “as established by the Board” (G.S. 87-43.3), so the statute sets a ceiling the Board works within. The amounts above are the statutory maxima, not necessarily the figures in force.

License, certification, and the name you are searching

The thing being searched is a license, held by a person, partnership, firm or corporation. A separate status — certified qualified individual — belongs to the person who passed the examination, and a license must carry at least one such person listed on it (G.S. 87-41.1).

That matters when a search comes back empty. A person may genuinely be a certified qualified individual and still not hold a license in their own name, because the license is held by the firm that employs them. An absent record is not by itself proof that someone is unlicensed — it may mean you are searching the wrong name. The distinction is set out at what North Carolina actually licenses.

If there is no license at all

Electrical contracting without a license is prohibited outright. G.S. 87-43 states that “No person, partnership, firm or corporation shall engage, or offer to engage, in the business of electrical contracting within the State of North Carolina without having received a license in the applicable classification described in G.S. 87-43.3” — and the prohibition reaches offering as well as doing.

What follows from unlicensed work, and the separate provisions that apply to general contracting, are at working without a license.

The other registers

This register covers electrical contracting only. The general contractors’ board keeps its own, with its own classifications and limitations — see the general contractor register. Where the two boards’ statutes meet on a single project is at how electrical work sits against a contractor license, and the body behind this register is at the board that keeps the register.

This site is not affiliated with any licensing board and holds no license data of its own. Every search above runs on the Board’s own system. For the licensing system as a whole, start at the main licensing guide.