All guides/Florida

Guides for working in Florida

Name: AEC Stack
Author: AEC Stack

Explore Florida contractor licensing, residential projects, public bonds, payment and tax workflows.

34 guides in this market. Search and every subject below stay within Florida.

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1
Set the business up
The entity, the registrations and the accounts, in the order the paperwork actually happens.
- Start a Florida contracting business
- LLC or sole proprietor in Florida
2
Find the work
Permits, tenders and bid lists, read the way an estimator reads them.
3
Win the bid
Prequalification packets, bid-ready checklists and the paperwork that gets you on the list.
4
Price it
What an hour really costs, the markup you set on purpose, and assumptions in writing.
- Price a Florida job
5
Run the job
Extras in writing, the day-to-day board, and the safety rules that gate the site.
- Florida Building Code 9th Edition
6
Get paid
Invoices, the statutory clocks, and the remedy that matches the amount.
7
Stay compliant
The tax, comp and licensing regimes that decide whether the work was legal to begin with.

Licensing and the state boards10

Get your Florida licenseYou pick the class, sort your own jobs into the six commercial areas the rule names, pass three tests at 70 percent, and clear the financial rule that half the internet still gets wrong. Then 31 August 2026 goes in a clock with its fourteen CE hours split out.Florida qualifying agentFlorida licenses people, not companies, so this walks the s.489.119 qualification: the $50 filing, the affidavit sentence you actually swear to, what joint and equal liability reaches, and the 60 day clock that stops an entity contracting when its qualifier leaves.The Florida handyman lineFlorida has no handyman license to get. Two tests decide whether a job is yours without one: whether it needs a permit, then whether the aggregate price clears $2,500. Plus the statute that puts painting, flooring and handyman services outside licensing entirely.Florida electrical licenseElectrical is licensed by the ECLB, a different board from the CILB with its own pathways and its own CE. Rule 61G6-5.003 sets alternative routes rather than one number of years, which is why the answer you were given was probably the wrong one for you.Florida roofing licenseThe certified roofing contractor license is what makes a storm month worth working: one credential, all 67 counties, and the s.489.147 rules that scare everyone else become the moat around the roofers who read them.Florida HVAC licenseFlorida writes air conditioning as Class A, Class B and Class C, and the class you need is decided by the equipment you actually put in. The one most changeout contractors qualify for is not the one they are waiting on.Florida pool contractor licenseFlorida issues commercial, residential and servicing pool contractor licenses as three separate credentials, and the servicing route runs on one supervised year plus a 60-hour course rather than four years of hours.Florida plumbing licenseThe Construction Industry Licensing Board counts person-hours, not birthdays, which changes the answer to how far away your plumbing contractor license is. What counts, what does not, and the exams at the end of it.Florida specialty licensesScreen enclosures, marine docks, structural masonry, window and door, garage doors, plaster and lath and seven more became state certified categories under HB 1383. What that replaces, and who gets in without sitting the exam.Florida mold licenseA contractor license does not cover mold remediation over ten square feet, however senior it is. In the humidity state that is a line item on a large share of restoration jobs, and it is currently leaving your own jobs.

Setting the business up2

Start a Florida contracting business LLC or sole proprietor in Florida

Finding work3

Miami-Dade and Orlando permits Find Florida construction bids Get on Florida GC bid lists

Bidding and prequalification4

Find Florida construction bidsFilter 2,148 live Florida contract awards, tenders and building permits down to your trade and your county in one sitting. Public records, published by the government that issued them, surfaced the week they appear.Your first Florida public jobA county or school job pays differently, secures differently and taxes differently from private work. What to have ready before you mobilise on your first public job, including the bond notice that has to go in within 45 days.Get on Florida GC bid listsA general contractor bid list is a spreadsheet on one estimator machine, and getting added is a four minute clerical act that happens the moment somebody has a complete folder on you. Here is the folder.Florida bid-ready checklistThe compliance clerk emails on Tuesday for twelve documents and the bid is due Thursday. Four of them take a week to obtain. Assemble the package before you need it and every tender after that is an afternoon of work.

Pricing and estimating1

Price a Florida job

Getting paid5

Florida invoices and releasesBill Florida draws in USD with the Rule 12A-1.051 tax fork already settled, sign only the two s.713.20 lien releases, and get the final payment affidavit into the owner's hands five days before you would ever file suit.Client will not pay in FloridaThe unpaid Florida invoice has a ladder already built for it: the notice, then the claim of lien or the bond claim, then the sworn affidavit. Most balances clear at rung two, and the ones that do not are the jobs where nobody filed rung one.Florida prompt paymentFlorida has charged interest on late construction payment since 1992, on private work and public work alike, and on most jobs the statute is simply never switched on. It runs from a written request you can send this afternoon.Florida deposit rulesFlorida does not stop you taking money up front. Section 489.126 attaches two duties to the deposit once it passes a threshold, and a contractor who runs them on purpose is the one who keeps getting deposits.Florida retainageThe 10 percent retainage clause that half the Florida payment pages still print stopped governing new contracts some time ago. What the cap is now, when it releases, and how to invoice for it instead of waiting.

Lien rights and deadlines5

Florida Notice to OwnerKnow which of your Florida jobs need a Notice to Owner, what date day 45 lands on for each, and how to serve it so the postmark is the date of service. Miss it and the whole receivable has no lien behind it.Record the lien by day 90Run the whole Chapter 713 chain on a live Florida job: 90 days from your own final furnishing to record the Claim of Lien, one year to enforce it, and 60 days once a Notice of Contest is served. Every date is counted from your job facts and cited to the statute.Florida notice of commencementKnow whether the job in front of you needs a notice of commencement, who records it, and why your first inspection will not happen until a copy reaches the building department. Includes the 90 day void rule and the $5,000 threshold that replaced $2,500.Florida invoices and releasesBill Florida draws in USD with the Rule 12A-1.051 tax fork already settled, sign only the two s.713.20 lien releases, and get the final payment affidavit into the owner's hands five days before you would ever file suit.Client will not pay in FloridaThe unpaid Florida invoice has a ladder already built for it: the notice, then the claim of lien or the bond claim, then the sworn affidavit. Most balances clear at rung two, and the ones that do not are the jobs where nobody filed rung one.

Public work and bond claims2

Public job bond claims Your first Florida public job

Residential and storm work4

The Florida residential contractFour short blocks decide whether a homeowner's attorney has anything to work with: the s.489.1425 recovery fund statement, the s.713.015 lien law warning, your license number on every offer, and a three business day cancellation rule applied only to the jobs it attaches to.Storm and insurance roofsPut the s.489.147 blocks on your signature page and every storm contract you sign stands up. The two different 10-day owner rights, the deductible rules that carry a $10,000 fine or a felony, and one pipeline for a forty-roof month.Florida roofing licenseThe certified roofing contractor license is what makes a storm month worth working: one credential, all 67 counties, and the s.489.147 rules that scare everyone else become the moat around the roofers who read them.Florida deposit rulesFlorida does not stop you taking money up front. Section 489.126 attaches two duties to the deposit once it passes a threshold, and a contractor who runs them on purpose is the one who keeps getting deposits.

The Florida Building Code1

Florida Building Code 9th Edition

Sales tax3

Sales tax on Florida contracts Price a Florida job Florida contractor tax calendar

Workers' comp and exemptions4

Start a Florida contracting businessPick LLC or sole proprietor knowing that in Florida construction the entity choice decides whether a workers' comp exemption is available to you at all, file at Sunbiz for the real $125, and get 1 May on a clock before the non-waivable $400 late fee exists.Florida workers comp exemptionTake the exemption in the order Florida checks it: entity active on Sunbiz, member recorded at 10% ownership, then the $50 DWC-250 filed electronically. Includes the 3-officer cap, the two-year midnight expiry, and the missed annual report that silently kills the certificate.LLC or sole proprietor in FloridaEverywhere else this is a tax question you can leave open. In Florida construction it is a workers compensation question, it is settled the day you file, and one of the two answers cannot be bought back later.Florida insurance certificatesThe certificate of insurance and the workers compensation position are the two documents that actually get checked, and in Florida they are also a condition of holding the license at all under s.489.115(5).

Insurance and certificates1

Florida insurance certificates

Count it instead of reading about it

Hourly rate calculator
Overhead, billable days and the wage you want in. The hourly rate that pays for all three.
Florida lien deadline calculator
The 45 days for the Notice to Owner run from your first day on the job. Enter your dates and every deadline in chapter 713 is counted, with the section it comes from.
Florida payment bond claim calculator
A free calculator. No account, no signup.
Markup and margin calculator
Add twenty percent to your costs and you keep sixteen point seven. Enter one job and see the price, the profit, both percentages, and what the mix-up is worth in dollars.

The dates that cost Florida contractors money

One email a month. The lien deadline and payment bond claim arithmetic this site already does for you, the dates it turns on, and every new guide the day it goes up.

Florida lien deadline calculator: The 45-day Notice to Owner, the 90-day Claim of Lien and the one year to enforce it, dated from your first and last day on the job.
Florida payment bond claim calculator: On a bonded job the notices are the claim. Includes the floor on the notice of nonpayment, the one deadline you can be too early for.
Every new guide the day it goes up. 34 are live for Florida right now, the most recent being "The Florida handyman line" on 20 August 2026.

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Set the business up

Find the work

Win the bid

Price it

Run the job

Get paid

Stay compliant