Short answer: three completely different things get called a business licence, and the one you need depends on what you are checking.
Hiring a plumber or a contractor? You want the state professional licensing board. Checking whether a company legally exists? That is the Secretary of State. Looking for a local permit to trade? That sits with the city or county.
Most people searching this go to their state website, find four or five different search tools, and have no idea which one applies. The section below sorts that out, and the state-by-state table is a short scroll down.
Three different things get called a business license
This is why your state website has several search tools and no obvious starting point.
A general business license
Usually issued by a city or county, sometimes by the state. In many places it is closer to a tax registration than a competence check: you tell the local authority you are trading, you pay a fee, you are on the list.
Plenty of states have no statewide general business licence at all, so whether one exists for a given business depends entirely on where it operates.
What it proves: the business registered to trade locally and paid for the privilege. What it does not prove: that anybody checked whether they can do the work.
A professional or occupational license
Issued by a state board, and for most hiring decisions this is the one that matters.
It covers contractors, electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, roofers, cosmetologists, real estate agents, insurance brokers, security firms, childcare providers and healthcare professionals, among others. Requirements vary by state and by trade, and some trades need no licence at all in some states.
This is also why there is rarely one tidy lookup per state. California runs a dedicated Contractors State License Board. Virginia's Department of Criminal Justice Services handles security businesses separately. Florida has one search at the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and another at the Office of Financial Regulation. Different regulators, different registers, different search tools.
What it proves: someone met the state's minimum requirements for that trade and has kept the licence current.
Business entity registration
The LLC or corporation filing held by the Secretary of State. People call it a licence and it is not one.
What it proves: the legal entity exists and is in good standing. What it does not prove: any permission or qualification to do a particular kind of work.
The decision rule
Hiring a tradesperson, go to the professional licensing board. Checking whether a company is real, go to the Secretary of State. Chasing a local permit, go to the city or county. If you want both reassurances, do two searches.
Before you search: check you are on a .gov site
Worth knowing before you click anything, because the search results for this are messier than you would expect.
While researching this article, searches for state licence lookups returned entitysearch.us, trackmyvendor.com, publicrecords.onlinesearches.com, finda.company and coordinatedlegal.com alongside the genuine government pages. Several of those charge for records the state publishes free.
The rule: official licence registers sit on .gov addresses, or on a state-specific domain the state itself links to. If you have landed somewhere ending in .com or .org and it is asking for payment to see a licence status, you are on a reseller rather than a regulator.
When in doubt, start from your state government's own homepage and navigate inward rather than clicking a search result.
Where to look it up by state
Each of these is an official state tool. Note the "covers" column, because it is the thing most people get wrong: several of these are specific to one trade or one regulator rather than universal.
| State | Lookup | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| California | Contractors State License Board check a licence | Contractors specifically |
| Washington | Department of Licensing status lookup | Business and professional licences |
| Connecticut | eLicense lookup, plus a separate business records search | Licences and entity filings, in different systems |
| Massachusetts | Mass.gov licence verification request | Professional licences |
| Florida | FDACS business search, and the Office of Financial Regulation's verify a licence | Consumer services, and financial services |
| New York | Department of State licensee business name search | State-licensed occupations |
| Virginia | Department of Criminal Justice Services lookup | Security businesses specifically |
Connecticut is worth a look even if you live elsewhere, because the state's own page spells out the problem: eLicense for licences and permits, a separate business records search for registered businesses, and a third search for licences issued by the DMV. Three systems, one state.
If your state is not listed, search for "[your state] professional license lookup" or "[your state] secretary of state business search", then apply the .gov rule before you click. Most states have both, under slightly different names.
Step by step: verifying a professional license
This is the common case, and the one worth doing carefully.
1. Work out which board regulates the trade. A contractor, an electrician and a cosmetologist may well be licensed by three different bodies in the same state. If you are not sure, your state's licensing department homepage usually lists the boards.
2. Find that board's official lookup. Check the .gov address before entering anything.
3. Search by licence number if you have one. Numbers are more reliable than names, because businesses rename themselves and registers do not always keep up. If you only have a name, search that and then confirm the number matches what the contractor gave you.
4. Read the result properly. This is where most people stop too early, having confirmed only that a record exists.
What to actually look at:
- Status. Active is what you want. Expired, lapsed, suspended, revoked and inactive all mean something different and none of them is fine.
- Classification. A licence covering one category of work does not automatically cover another. Check it matches the job you are hiring for.
- Name match. The licence should be held by the business or the individual you are dealing with, not a related company or a former employer.
- Expiry date. If it runs out mid-project, ask what the plan is.
- Disciplinary history. Some boards publish enforcement actions and complaints. Where they do, it is the most informative field on the page.
A record that exists but is expired is more common than people expect, and it is the single most useful thing this search turns up.
Step by step: verifying entity registration
Shorter, because this one is straightforward.
Search your state's Secretary of State business register for the company name. You are looking for three things: that the entity exists, that its status reads Active or In Good Standing, and that the registration date is consistent with how long they claim to have been trading.
Dissolved, Forfeited, Suspended or Administratively Dissolved all mean the entity is not currently in good standing, and each is worth asking about before money changes hands.
Our guide to checking whether a business is legitimate walks through this search in more detail, including what to do when the results do not match what you were told.
Step by step: checking a local business license
This is the messiest of the three and most articles skip it. Here is the honest version.
Local business licences are held by city or county clerks, and a large number of them are not searchable online at all. Where a search tool exists it is often buried, inconsistently maintained, or limited to certain business categories.
The realistic route is a phone call to the city or county clerk's office, asking whether the business holds a current licence and whether one is required for that activity in that jurisdiction. The Illinois Attorney General's guidance makes a similar point for home repair, suggesting homeowners check with the local village hall or township about licence requirements and any complaints on file.
One useful thing about making the call: the clerk can usually tell you whether a licence is required at all, which is information you cannot get from a search box.
What a license does and does not tell you
Worth being straight about the limits, because a confirmed licence feels more reassuring than it should.
What it tells you: someone met the state's minimum requirements for that trade, submitted whatever paperwork was asked, and has kept paying to renew. In trades where boards publish enforcement history, it also tells you whether anyone has successfully complained.
What it does not tell you: whether they are any good, whether they are solvent, whether they carry adequate insurance, or whether they will finish your job.
And the reverse matters too. No licence is not automatically a red flag, because plenty of work requires none. The real question is whether a licence is required for this work in this state, which is exactly what the local clerk or the state board can confirm.
Licensing is a floor, not a recommendation. Insurance, written contracts and recent references measure the parts it cannot.
Before you hire
Three things, in order.
Work out which of the three licences you are actually checking, because the answer decides where you go.
Use a .gov tool, not a paid lookalike.
Read the status field rather than stopping at "a record exists", since an expired licence looks a lot like a current one if you are not paying attention.
Comments (0)