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Get certified by the CILB and work every county in Florida on one license
The cheapest way to lose a $96,000 job in Florida is to sign it while your company has no qualifying agent. Under s.489.128(1) a contract entered into on or after October 1, 1990 by an unlicensed contractor is unenforceable in law or in equity by the unlicensed contractor, and s.489.128(1)(a) makes a business organization unlicensed when it has no primary or secondary qualifying agent for the scope of the work. Under s.489.13 the department can add an administrative fine of up to $10,000 on top, plus its investigative and legal costs.
Put the two columns next to each other. On one side, $96,000 you cannot sue for and up to $10,000 in fine, so $106,000. On the other, $335 for the application and examination, $200 for the initial certification and $50 to qualify the company, so $585. That is the whole trade, and s.489.128(1)(c) fixes your status as at the effective date of the original contract, so qualifying in month three does not repair a contract signed in month one.
By the end of this page you will have the class picked from the scope you actually want to bid, your own work history sorted into the four of six commercial areas Rule 61G4-15.001 names, three tests booked with one passing score to hit, the financial route chosen between a 660 and a 14 hour course, the insurance limits your class carries, and August 31, 2026 sitting in a clock with the fourteen continuing education hours already split out by topic. Everything below is written against the 2025 Florida Statutes and the Florida Administrative Code as it stands today.
Two numbers on this page are yours to supply and are left blank here on purpose: which of the six commercial areas your own jobs cover, and the score on your own credit report.
Settle certified or registered first, because the local door closed in July 2025
Florida runs two tiers and they are not two grades of the same thing. A certified license, the C prefix, comes from a state examination and works in every county in Florida. A registered license, the R prefix, rests on a local competency card and works only in the jurisdictions that issued it.
Section 163.211 preempted occupational licensing to the state, and the grandfathering that let local governments keep licensing on their own terms expired on July 1, 2025. Local governments may still license specialty categories that substantially correspond to a state category, and that is the remaining local lane.
The registered tier is not folklore, and it is not the mainstream either. Counted from the DBPR construction licensee extract, there are 3,467 active registered licenses against 97,093 active certified ones. Registered is about three and a half percent of the state, still renewing, still working, and still confined to the counties that issued the underlying competency.
| Certified (C prefix) | Registered (R prefix) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it works | Every county in Florida | Only the jurisdictions behind the local competency |
| How you get it | State examination through the board | Local competency basis |
| Active licenses in the state | 97,093 | 3,467 |
| Renewal date | August 31 of even numbered years | August 31 of odd numbered years |
| Continuing education | 14 hours per biennium | 14 hours per biennium |
Read the table as a bidding decision rather than a status one. A certified contractor quotes a Jacksonville job on Monday and a Fort Myers job on Tuesday without opening a second application. Every county line you cross with a registered card is a conversation with somebody's building department first.
Pick the class by the building you want to bid, not the one you are building now
The CILB is one board with two divisions. Division I is the building classes, where scope is set by the size and type of structure. Division II is the trade classes, where scope is set by the trade. You apply for a class, not for a general permission, and the class you pick decides the exam, the experience the board reads and the insurance you have to carry.
| Class | What the license lets you build | Public liability and property damage under 61G4-15.003 |
|---|---|---|
| Certified General Contractor (CGC) | Unlimited. Any building, any type, any height | $300,000 and $50,000 |
| Certified Building Contractor (CBC) | Commercial and residential buildings up to three stories, plus remodeling of a building of any size | $300,000 and $50,000 |
| Certified Residential Contractor (CRC) | One and two family residences and townhouses up to two stories, plus accessory structures | $100,000 and $25,000 |
| Division II trades: roofing, sheet metal, Class A, B and C air conditioning, mechanical, plumbing, commercial and residential pool and spa, pool and spa servicing, underground utility and excavation, solar, pollutant storage systems | That trade, statewide | $100,000 and $25,000 |
The upgrade path is worth seeing before you choose. Building stops at three stories and General does not stop at all, and the only rule level difference in the experience the board reads is one year of work on structures of four stories or more. If four story work is already in your history, applying for Building because it feels safer costs you the ceiling for the whole cycle.
Electrical and alarm work is not on this list at all. That is the Electrical Contractors' Licensing Board, a separate board under Chapter 489 Part II with its own rules, its own fees and its own continuing education mix of eleven hours for electrical contractors and seven for alarm and specialty.
Since May 5, 2024, when Rule 61G4-15.100 took effect, there is also a third route into a state credential. HB 1383 and SB 1142 created thirteen certified specialty categories: structural aluminum or screen enclosures, marine seawall work, marine bulkhead work, marine dock work, marine pile driving, structural masonry, structural prestressed and precast concrete work, rooftop solar heating installation, structural steel work, window and door installation, garage door installation, plaster and lath, and structural carpentry. Open book state examinations for them have been available since August 1, 2024, and a holder of a local competency card that was valid on June 30, 2021, with a clean five year record and a substantially similar written exam behind it, can be exempted from the exam entirely. A window installer or a seawall crew that has been working on a county card now has a statewide category of their own.
Count your four years against the six areas the rule actually names
This is where applications die, and it is not because people lack the years. It is because the years are described as job titles instead of as the workmanship the rule lists.
Rule 61G4-15.001, effective May 16, 2024, names six commercial areas for General and Building applicants, and you have to show experience in four or more of them:
- Foundations or slabs in excess of twenty thousand square feet
- Masonry walls
- Steel erection
- Elevated slabs
- Column erection
- Formwork for structural reinforced concrete
General applicants carry one thing on top of that: at least one year of experience on structures not less than four stories in height. Building applicants do not.
Residential is a different list and a different threshold. Three or more of five areas, on detached one and two family dwellings and townhouses of not more than three stories: foundations, slabs and structural formwork; masonry walls; structural demolition; structural wood framing including trusses and excluding platform framing; and column erection.
The Division II trade classes get no rule level area list at all. They ride the statutory pathways in s.489.111(2)(c) on their own: four years of experience, or a four year degree plus one year, or a foreman and college combination, with 2,000 person hours counting as one year of full time experience. Education can substitute for up to three of the four years for the building classes, and one year of field experience stays mandatory whatever your degree says. The accepted degrees are civil engineering, building construction and architecture.
Sit down with your own job list before you buy anything. Write each project against the six areas, name the general contractor and the dates, and count how many of the six you can actually evidence with somebody who will sign for it. If you land on three, the gap is a specific kind of job to go and get, and that is a much better problem than a rejected application eight weeks after you paid.
Book three tests and treat 70 percent as the only score there is
Rule 61G4-16.001, effective December 16, 2024, sets the examination structure, and for General, Building and Residential it is the same three tests.
| Test | What it covers |
|---|---|
| One | Business and financial management of a contracting firm |
| Two | Contract administration, meaning managing and operating the day to day activities |
| Three | Project management, meaning managing, controlling and conducting a specific project |
Most Division II categories sit two tests rather than three. The content weightings shift a little between classes, so a General candidate and a Building candidate see slightly different proportions of preconstruction questions on test two.
The passing score does not shift at all. The rule reads that the score necessary to achieve a passing grade on all of the construction certification examinations shall be no less than seventy percent out of one hundred percent on each of the required tests. Seventy on each test, every class, no exceptions and no per class variance to hunt for. If a study provider tells you a particular class passes at a different number, that number is not in the rule.
Failing one test is not failing the application. You rebook the one you missed at $135 for scheduling plus $80 for the test, and the two you passed stay passed.
Clear the financial rule, not the one that was repealed in 2007
Search for Florida contractor financial responsibility and you will be told, confidently and repeatedly, that you can post a bond instead of meeting the credit requirement. Half the internet still publishes it. The rule that carried that alternative, 61G4-15.005, was repealed on September 16, 2007, and the rule that is actually live has no bond option in it at all.
Rule 61G4-15.006, effective May 5, 2024, splits the question in two.
Financial responsibility is a current consumer credit report that does not disclose any unsatisfied judgments or liens, and that runs to you personally and to any business entity you have qualified or currently qualify. An old unsatisfied judgment sitting against a company you left is your problem on this application.
Financial stability is a FICO derived score of 660 or higher, or completion of a 14 hour financial responsibility course approved by the Board if you are under it.
That is a genuinely friendly design once you read it straight. There is no minimum net worth to hit and no bond premium to pay every year. A 641 costs you a fourteen hour course once, not a percentage of your working capital forever. Pull your own report before you fill in anything, because the unsatisfied judgment problem takes weeks to clear and the 660 question takes thirty seconds to answer.
One bond does exist nearby and it is a different instrument. Where a Financially Responsible Officer qualifies the business, Rule 61G4-15.0021(2) requires a $100,000 bond or irrevocable letter of credit payable to the Board, and that FRO still has to meet 61G4-15.006 personally. If somebody quotes you a bond on this subject, that is the one they are thinking of, and it applies to an arrangement you have probably not chosen.
Buy the insurance before the board asks for it, because it is a condition of the license
Section 489.115(5) makes proof of public liability insurance, property damage insurance and workers' compensation a condition of getting the license and of renewing it. It is not a certificate a general contractor wants to see later. It is part of the application.
The limits follow the class, straight from Rule 61G4-15.003. General and Building carry $300,000 public liability and $50,000 property damage. Residential and every Division II trade category carry $100,000 and $25,000. Brokers take days to produce a certificate and applications take minutes, so the call to the broker goes first in the week, not last.
Workers' compensation is the line that catches owner operators. Florida construction triggers mandatory coverage at one employee, officers and members included, and the way out is a certificate of exemption for a corporate officer or LLC member recorded at ten percent ownership or more, filed on the DWC-250 at $50 for two years, with a maximum of three per entity. The filing order and the trap that kills it are in the Florida workers' comp exemption.
The license itself attaches to you, the human being, not to your company. The company holds nothing until a primary qualifying agent qualifies it and it receives a certificate of authority under s.489.119, and s.489.119(5)(b) then puts your license number on every advertisement, bid, offer and proposal in every medium. That relationship, including what a secondary agent covers and what happens under s.489.1195 when an agent walks, is the Florida qualifying agent. Getting the entity itself onto the state record in the right order is starting a contracting business in Florida.
Put August 31, 2026 in a clock and the fourteen hours behind it
Certified licenses renew on August 31 of even numbered years, which makes the next one August 31, 2026. Registered licenses renew on August 31 of odd numbered years. Both tiers carry 14 hours of continuing education per biennium under Rule 61G4-18.001, and the hours are not a free choice.
| Hours | Topic | Who it binds |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Advanced module of the Florida Building Code | Every certified licensee |
| 1 | Workplace safety | Every certified licensee |
| 1 | Business practices | Every certified licensee |
| 1 | Workers' compensation | Every certified licensee |
| 1 | Florida laws and rules | Every certified licensee |
| 1 | Wind mitigation methodology | General, Building, Residential, Roofing, Specialty Structure, Glass and Glazing |
| 1 | Pool and spa electrical | Pool and spa categories |
| 1 | Cementitious cladding and stucco | General, Building, Residential, Specialty Structure |
| Balance to 14 | General or technical | Everyone |
Do the arithmetic for your own class. A certified General contractor is bound on seven of the fourteen hours before choosing anything: the five everyone takes, plus wind mitigation, plus stucco. Seven hours are yours to pick. Up to four hours are creditable for attending a Board disciplinary session, which is four hours of watching exactly what gets Florida contractors disciplined. A first renewal that lands more than twelve months after licensure is seven hours rather than fourteen.
Missing the date is a status change, not a fee. The license goes delinquent, then null and void, and contracting on a void license lands you back in s.489.128 territory, with a receivable you cannot enforce. Reinstating a null and void license is $100 on top of the renewal, assuming the board lets you.
On AEC Stack this is one answer and then a date. Say yes to the question "do you hold a Florida CILB construction license" on your business profile, and the compliance calendar computes the renewal against the seeded Florida rule set rather than against a generic reminder: it shows August 31, 2026, names Rule 61G4-18.001 as the authority, and states the consequence as delinquent, then null and void, then unlicensed contracting. It sits on the same list as the May 1 Sunbiz annual report and the two year DWC-250 expiry, because those three are the ones that quietly take a company apart in sequence.
<!-- CAPTURE LATER: the Florida compliance calendar with holds_fl_cilb_licence answered yes, showing the fl_contractor_licence_renewal row resolved to August 31, 2026 with the Rule 61G4-18.001 authority line and the status_lost consequence visible. Blocked this wave: the demo tenant is Ontario. -->What it costs
There is no monthly subscription. The platform fee is 2.5% of each invoice processed through AEC Stack, collected on payment due dates.
Everything in the table goes to the state under Rule 61G4-12.009, not to us.
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Application and examination, certification applicant | $335 |
| Each re-test after a fail | $135 scheduling, plus $80 per test |
| Initial certification | $200, or $100 if it issues in the second year of the biennium |
| Registration application, registered tier | $100 |
| Qualify a business organization | $50 to apply and issue |
| Business organization biennial renewal | $50 |
| Active biennial renewal | $200 |
| Inactive biennial renewal | $50 |
| Delinquency fee | $25 |
| Reactivate an inactive license | $100 |
| Reinstate a null and void license | $100 |
| Duplicate license | $25 |
| 14 hour financial responsibility course, only on the under 660 route | the approved provider's price |
Total to be certified with a qualified company behind you: $585. Ongoing, it is $250 every two years, being $200 for the license and $50 for the business organization, plus the continuing education. That is $125 a year to hold the thing that makes your contracts enforceable.
On AEC Stack: the license is one of three chains that all start on the same Sunbiz record. The agent relationship that makes your company licensed is the Florida qualifying agent, the entity and the filing order underneath it are in starting a contracting business in Florida, and what the license lets you charge for once the work is signed runs through pricing Florida jobs and the Florida notice to owner, because the security behind a Florida receivable rests on a contract that s.489.128 lets you enforce.
Open your business profile at start your business and answer the CILB question with the date your license issued. Then look at what lands on August 31, 2026 and count backwards to how many of the fourteen hours you have actually done. That subtraction, done in August of an even year, is the difference between a renewal and a reinstatement.
Keep going
Where this happens on AEC Stack
Set the business upIncorporation, CRA accounts, WSIB, trade licensing and insurance, in order, tracked to done.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.