How to Verify a Contractor's License in Texas

Licensing in Texas

In Texas the trades are state-licensed even though general contracting is not regulated the same way, so verify the trade rather than the builder. Anyone performing non-exempt electrical work must be licensed by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and must work through a licensed electrical contractor, and air conditioning and refrigeration contractors must hold a TDLR ACR licence. One exemption is worth knowing before you check the wrong credential: a licensed ACR contractor may make the electrical connections for heating and air-conditioning equipment, and the disconnect serving it, without a separate electrician licence.

There is no single Texas contractor board. Electrical and air conditioning/refrigeration are licensed by TDLR, while plumbing sits with a separate agency, the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners — so "what licence does Texas issue" has more than one answer, and checking one board tells you nothing about the other. TDLR lists 14 electrical licence types: 11 held by individuals and 3 held by businesses.

TEXAS HAS FIVE JOURNEYMAN TITLES ACROSS TWO AGENCIES — TDLR licenses Journeyman Electrician, Journeyman Industrial Electrician, Journeyman Lineman and Journeyman Sign Electrician, and the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners licenses Journeyman Plumber — so the word identifies neither a licence nor even which regulator to ask. That is worth knowing if you have checked another state first: in Colorado "journeyman" reaches exactly one credential and misses every plumber, because Colorado's plumbers are Journeyworkers; in Texas the same term over-collects across five titles and crosses an agency boundary as well as a trade one. A term that works as a synonym in one state is a disambiguator in the next, so read the ladder per state AND per regulator rather than carrying the term across.

On the plumbing side TSBPE states there are "four types of plumbing licenses: Tradesman Plumber-Limited, Journeyman Plumber, Master Plumber, and Plumbing Inspector", with the inspector a parallel track rather than a rung above master — you may hold an inspector licence alongside a journeyman or master one. Three endorsements (medical gas piping installation, multipurpose residential fire protection sprinkler specialist, and water supply protection specialist) attach to a journeyman, master or inspector licence. Responsible Master Plumber is NOT one of the four licences: it is a separate designation, so a contractor described as an RMP still holds a Master Plumber licence underneath it.

The three trades attach a business to a person in three different ways, so "the contractor licence" does not mean the same thing across them. Electrical has separate BUSINESS licences — Electrical Contractor, Electrical Sign Contractor and Residential Appliance Installation Contractor. Air conditioning and refrigeration has no business licence at all; instead "ACR companies must employ an ACR contractor in each permanent location". Plumbing has none either, and leans on the Responsible Master Plumber designation held by an individual.

Air conditioning and refrigeration is licensed in three kinds — a contractor licence plus registered and certified technicians — and the contractor licence is SIZED RATHER THAN NAMED. TDLR puts it plainly: "The Class A license allows you to work on any size unit", while "The Class B license allows you to work on cooling systems of 25 tons and under, and heating systems of 1.5 million BTUs/hour and under." Three endorsements decide what the licence may be used for — environmental air conditioning, commercial refrigeration, and process cooling or heating — and each licence may hold only one of them.

An ACR licence number is decomposable. TDLR gives the format as [Title] / [Class] / [License Number] / [Endorsement], so the class and the endorsement can be read off the number printed on a permit without a separate lookup.

Texas has no equivalent of Arizona's numbered C/R/CR scheme — its licences are named titles rather than codes, so there is nothing to match on but the title itself.

Why It Matters

An unlicensed contractor can cost you more than the job. Inspectors can red-tag the work, insurers may decline a claim arising from it, and the recovery funds that exist in some states are open only to people who hired a licensed contractor. Checking the credential before work starts is the cheapest step in the whole project.