How Many Licensed Contractors Are There? State-by-State 2026 Data
Last updated: July 25, 2026 | Data: Echelon Reports Database, 1.78 million trade license records across 15 states, refreshed weekly from state licensing board files. This page is updated every Monday with the latest counts.
There are 1,092,256 active contractor licenses across the 15 states currently tracked in the Echelon Reports Database, based on official state licensing board records as of July 25, 2026. That figure counts live credentials in active status, drawn from a total pool of 1,781,608 license records including expired, revoked, and historical licenses.
Most published contractor counts are estimates built from federal occupational survey data or industry reports that model the market from the top down. The numbers on this page are counted from the bottom up, license by license, directly from the government records each state maintains, and they are re-counted every week when the Echelon diff pipeline processes the latest state files. If a license went inactive last Tuesday, it is out of this count by Monday morning.
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Active Contractor Licenses by State
Counts by Trade: HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, General, Roofing
The Headline Numbers
As of July 25, 2026, the Echelon Reports Database shows 1,092,256 active contractor licenses across 15 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Additional states are added continuously, and this page is updated every Monday with fresh counts and expanded coverage.
A note on what one license means here, because definitions are where every published count goes wrong. A license in this count is one active credential in a state’s official records. Some states license only businesses. Others, including Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin, also license individual tradespeople such as master electricians and journeyman plumbers, and those individual credentials are counted where the state issues them. What is never counted: expired, suspended, or revoked licenses, unlicensed operators, or estimates of any kind. The full detail is in the methodology section.
Active Contractor Licenses by State
| State | Active Licenses | Licensing Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 58,142 | AZ Registrar of Contractors |
| California | 232,506 | Contractors State License Board (CSLB) |
| Colorado | 62,951 | DORA State Electrical and Plumbing Boards * |
| Florida | 131,765 | DBPR Construction and Electrical Licensing Boards |
| Kentucky | 37,343 | KY Dept. of Housing, Buildings and Construction * |
| Louisiana | 28,084 | LA State Licensing Board for Contractors |
| Minnesota | 136,503 | MN Dept. of Labor and Industry * |
| Nevada | 18,982 | NV State Contractors Board |
| Ohio | 10,519 | OH Construction Industry Licensing Board (OCILB) |
| Oregon | 45,360 | OR Construction Contractors Board (CCB) |
| Tennessee | 34,453 | TN Board for Licensing Contractors |
| Texas | 54,138 | TDLR (state-licensed trades; no statewide GC license) * |
| Virginia | 89,624 | VA Board for Contractors (DPOR) |
| Washington | 75,278 | WA Dept. of Labor and Industries (L&I) |
| Wisconsin | 76,608 | WI Dept. of Safety and Professional Services * |
| TOTAL (15 states) | 1,092,256 |
* These states license individual tradespeople (journeymen, masters, apprentices) in addition to or instead of contracting businesses, so their counts are not directly comparable to business-only states. Minnesota’s total, for example, includes tens of thousands of individual electrical and boiler credentials.
State-to-state comparisons deserve caution beyond the individual-license footnote. States license differently. California licenses nearly every trade at the state level through one board. Texas has no statewide general contractor license at all, so its count reflects state-licensed trades such as air conditioning and electrical rather than the full contractor population. Ohio licenses only five commercial trades at the state level, which is why its count is small relative to its population. A smaller number does not always mean fewer contractors; often it means the state pushes licensing down to cities and counties where no unified record exists.
Counts by Trade: HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, General, Roofing
Across the tracked states, active licenses map to major trades as follows. Every trade count is matched against each state’s own classification codes: CSLB class codes in California, DBPR license prefixes in Florida, OCILB trade codes in Ohio, TDLR license types in Texas, and so on. A single license can carry multiple classifications, and states that do not license a given trade at the state level contribute zero to that trade, so trade counts do not sum to the license total.
General and Building Contractors: 334,234
The largest trade bucket at 334,234 active licenses. California class B alone accounts for 103,248, followed by Florida’s certified and registered general, building, and residential contractor prefixes at 64,301 and Washington’s general construction registrations at 51,248. Not counted here: states with no statewide general license (Texas, Ohio, Colorado, Kentucky, Arizona in its classification data).
Electrical: 251,891
Electrical is the most-licensed specific trade at 251,891 active licenses, and the clearest example of the individual-license effect: Colorado (41,920), Minnesota (44,294), and Wisconsin (25,952) license electricians at the individual level from apprentice to master, while Texas contributes 33,754 across master electricians and electrical contractors. Wisconsin’s count excludes electrical inspectors and inspection agencies.
Plumbing: 98,325
98,325 active plumbing licenses. Colorado leads at 21,017 individual and contractor plumbing credentials, with California’s C-36 classification at 17,377. Texas contributes zero here only because Texas plumbers are licensed by a separate board whose records are not yet in the tracked dataset.
HVAC and Mechanical: 93,490
93,490 active HVAC, air conditioning, refrigeration, and mechanical licenses. Texas is the single largest contributor at 20,384 licensed A/C contractors, followed by Kentucky (15,150), Florida (14,975), and Virginia (13,855). Minnesota’s figure counts state mechanical contractor bonds, its closest statewide record. Tennessee licenses mechanical work as a classification inside its general contractor license, so it contributes zero at this table’s level of detail. This is the trade where private equity consolidation has been most aggressive, and where the gap between the licensed population and branded market presence is widest.
Roofing: 21,804
21,804 active roofing licenses in states that license roofing as a distinct classification, led by Florida’s certified and registered roofing contractors at 11,372 and California’s C-39 classification at 5,472. Most states fold roofing into general contracting, so this is the floor for roofing specialists, not the population of companies that roof.
Louisiana’s licenses are counted in the state total but excluded from every trade bucket, because its statewide records classify licenses as commercial, residential, home improvement, or mold remediation rather than by trade.
Why These Numbers Differ From Other Published Figures
Search this question and you will find figures ranging from 700,000 to 3.8 million “contractors in the United States.” The spread exists because sources count different things:
Federal occupational data counts people employed in construction occupations, including every W-2 employee on every crew. That measures the workforce, not licensed operators.
Census establishment data counts business establishments with construction NAICS codes, licensed or not, active or barely.
Industry market reports model the market from revenue estimates and extrapolation, then get cited and re-cited until the estimate hardens into a fact.
This page counts active license records held by state governments, refreshed weekly. It is the narrowest definition of the four, and the only one where every unit in the count traces to a specific license number in a specific government file. Where the other measures answer “how big is the industry,” this one answers “how many live credentials exist right now,” which is the number that matters for market sizing, competitive analysis, and acquisition diligence.
Methodology and Sources
Source records. All counts derive from official license files published by the state licensing authorities listed in the state table. No survey data, no modeling, no third-party aggregation.
What counts as one unit. One active license record, deduplicated on the state’s own license number or record identifier. Where a state licenses individual tradespeople as well as businesses, individual credentials are counted, and those states are marked in the state table. Building officials, inspectors, and inspection agencies are excluded from trade counts.
Active means active. Only licenses in an active status as of the pull date are counted, using each state’s own status vocabulary (for example, California’s CLEAR, Ohio’s ACTIVE and ACTIVE IN RENEWAL, Florida’s active status codes). Expired, suspended, revoked, terminated, and inactive licenses are retained in the database for historical analysis but excluded here.
Trade classification. Trade counts are matched against each state’s native classification system: CSLB class codes (B, C-10, C-20, C-36, C-39), Florida DBPR prefixes (CGC, CAC, CFC, EC, CCC and related), Ohio OCILB codes (EL, PL, HV, HY, RE), Texas TDLR license types, Nevada NSCB classifications, and the equivalent in each remaining state.
Refresh cadence. The Echelon pipeline pulls updated state files and processes a full diff every weekend, and this page is updated every Monday. The “last updated” date at the top of the page reflects the most recent completed cycle.
Known limitations. These counts cover 15 states, not fifty; additional states are added continuously. Unlicensed operators are not counted anywhere, by anyone, including here. States that license primarily at the municipal level (Texas general contracting is the clearest example) are undercounted relative to their true contractor population. Texas plumbing is licensed by a separate state board not yet in the dataset. Multi-state operators holding licenses in several tracked states appear once per state, because the license, not the company, is the counting unit.
Citing This Data
This page may be cited freely with attribution. Suggested citation: “Echelon Reports Database, 1.78M+ state trade license records, korekomfortsolutions.com, accessed July 2026.” For custom pulls, market-specific counts, historical trend data, or license verification at diligence depth, contact Echelon Reports.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many licensed contractors are there in the United States?
There is no single national registry, because contractor licensing is a state function. Across the 15 states tracked in the Echelon Reports Database, there are 1,092,256 active contractor licenses as of July 25, 2026. National figures published elsewhere are estimates that count employees or business establishments rather than active licenses.
Which state has the most licensed contractors?
Among tracked states, California leads with 232,506 active licenses. Its Contractors State License Board is the largest single unified contractor licensing system in the country.
How many HVAC companies are there in the US?
Across the 15 states tracked, there are 93,490 active HVAC, air conditioning, and mechanical licenses, with Texas alone accounting for 20,384 licensed A/C contractors. License records are the most direct available measure of active HVAC operators, though state licensing definitions differ.
How often is this data updated?
Every Monday. The Echelon pipeline processes updated files from each state licensing board over the weekend, and this page is refreshed with the new counts each Monday. The “last updated” date at the top of the page reflects the most recent completed cycle.
Do these counts include unlicensed contractors?
No. Unlicensed operators exist in every market and no dataset can reliably count them. These figures count only active credentials in official state records, which makes them a conservative floor for total market participants and a precise measure of the credentialed market.