License Thresholds: Three Questions, Not One

Am I over the threshold? That is three separate questions, and no two states answer them the same way. The boundary word, what the figure measures, and whether the number you found is even about a license.

Question one: does EXACTLY the figure count? About half the time, no

Across the 51 jurisdictions there are 87 separate dollar figures on record. At exactly the figure, 37 fall inside the requirement and 50 fall outside it. There is no default and no pattern to lean on.
The statutes split roughly evenly between inclusive wording ("or more", "equals or exceeds", "a minimum of") and exclusive wording ("exceeds", "in excess of", "more than", "less than"). A summary that writes "$10,000+" has picked one and the choice.
WASHINGTON IS THE ONE THAT COSTS MONEY. The exemption covers work LESS THAN $500, so a job at exactly $500 must be registered. Washington also bars an unregistered contractor from suing a client, so the boundary decides whether you can collect at all.
Hawaii runs the other way: "not more than $1,500" includes $1,500, so exactly $1,500 is exempt.
Two states run both ways inside one chapter. Nevada exempts work less than $1,000 while its anti-splitting rule bites at $500 OR MORE. Rhode Island exempts below $500 while its written-contract duty starts in excess of $1,000.

Question two, and almost nobody asks it: is the figure your JOB or your YEAR?

New York	$1,500 measured across ALL your home improvement contracts with ALL customers in any twelve consecutive months
Connecticut	$1,000 across all customers over any twelve consecutive months, sitting beside a separate $200 per-job registration trigger
Pennsylvania	$5,000 of home improvements during the PREVIOUS TAXABLE YEAR
Nebraska	$5,000 of annual EARNINGS from construction services. Several published summaries call it per-project and they are wrong
Iowa	$2,000 of annual earnings from construction
Minnesota	$15,000 of total GROSS ANNUAL RECEIPTS, statutorily not reduced by cost of goods sold, expenses or losses
New Mexico	$7,200 of compensation a year, aggregated across projects
Virginia	TWO ladders running at once, one per contract and one on 12-month totals, and whichever produces the HIGHER class governs
Why it decides cases	Twenty $400 jobs is under every per-job threshold in the country and over several annual ones. In those states you can end up unlicensed without ever taking a job that looked big enough to need a license.

Question three: what counts as the cost

South Carolina	Includes PROFIT, and it measures the whole project across all contractors, not your slice of it
North Carolina	EXCLUDES the cost of land. The labor-and-materials gloss everyone repeats is not in the statute at all
Utah	Includes all changes and additions, so a change order can carry you over the line after you started
Georgia	The value of the work OR the compensation to be received, WHICHEVER IS HIGHER
Louisiana	All direct and indirect project expenses regardless of who pays them OR WHETHER THEY WERE DONATED. Free materials still count
Virginia	FAIR MARKET VALUE. The contract price is only prima facie evidence of it, so a mate's-rates job can be valued above what you charged
North Dakota	The statute never uses the words labor or materials, so whether materials count is simply not stated. Unknowns are worth knowing about
Alabama	The residential figure is statutorily defined as materials, labor, supervision, overhead AND profit. The commercial figure is not defined at all, and the Board's own gloss is not in the statute

The number you found online may not be about a license at all

Ohio, $25,000	A written-contract duty enforced by the Attorney General. Ohio has no statewide general contractor license
New Hampshire, $5,000	A pre-litigation NOTICE requirement in residential construction-defect disputes
Illinois $1,000, Maine $3,000, Indiana $150, Massachusetts $1,000	Written-contract duties. In Massachusetts, registration itself has no dollar threshold at all
Texas, $25,000 / $50,000 / $100,000	Public-work payment and performance bonds. Texas licenses trades, not general contractors
Alaska, $10,000	A handyman BOND tier. Registration is required from the first dollar regardless
New Jersey, $120,000	Which licensed contractor an already-registered business must EMPLOY, not whether registration is needed
Delaware, $50,000	Pre-bid application timing on competitively bid contracts
Why it matters	Search results flatten all of these into "the threshold". Being under a number that governs a contract-form duty tells you nothing about whether you need a license.

Eight states have no dollar figure. That is not the same as no license

No dollar figure governs licensure	Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Wisconsin	A Dwelling Contractor certification is required to OBTAIN A BUILDING PERMIT on a one or two family dwelling. No threshold, and no permit without it
Maryland	The trigger is the type of work, acting as a home improvement contractor, at any price
The rest	Licensed by TRADE statewide with no dollar test: plumbing, electrical, mechanical, roofing. A general contractor is a matter for the city or county
Connecticut's third regime, which is measured in feet	Its Major Contractors registration triggers on physical limits, not dollars: four stories, 60 feet of height, a 150-foot clear span, 150,000 square feet, or 1,000-person occupancy. The word is EXCEEDS, so a building at exactly four stories does not trigger it
The general rule	No threshold usually means the requirement starts at the first dollar, not that there is no requirement.

Five states contradict themselves at the boundary, and we are not picking a side

Tennessee	Four provisions split at exactly $25,000. The licensing definition says OR MORE, the construction-manager catch-all and the penalty section both say EXCEEDS, and the bid rule leaves exactly $25,000 in neither category
Ohio	The definition says a contract EXCEEDING $25,000, the operative duty says the cost EQUALS OR EXCEEDS $25,000
New Jersey	Two sections of one Act: A MINIMUM OF $120,000 in one, MORE THAN $120,000 in another
Louisiana	Act 422 of 2025 left EXCEEDS $7,500 standing beside $7,500 OR MORE in the amended definition
Mississippi	A bidder may certify a bid DID NOT EXCEED $50,000 to avoid the certificate requirement, so the bid-envelope duty and the licensing duty treat exactly $50,000 differently. Two duties, not an error
What to do with that	Where the primary text contradicts itself we record it rather than resolve it. If your job prices within a few dollars of one of these figures, that is a question for a lawyer, not for a card.

Trade licenses (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roofing) are almost always separate and required even in states where general contracting is licensed only locally, and city or county licensing sits on top of everything here. These figures move: California went from $500 to $1,000 in January 2025, Utah from $3,000 to $7,000 in May 2025, and Louisiana removed the upper cap on home improvement by Act 422 of 2025. The dataset behind this card is stamped per row against the statute cited in the license checker, and where the statute is silent on a point the field is left unset rather than guessed. Confirm with the board before you bid, not after.

Sources: State contractor licensing statutes and boards, cited state by state in the license checker

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