Licensed, insured and bonded: what we require
Three words get used loosely in this industry. Here is what each one means, what we require, and what we verify.
The three words, and what they actually mean
Licensed, insured and bonded get repeated so often that they blur together. They are three separate things protecting three separate risks, and a contractor can genuinely have one without the others.
Licensed
In California, anyone who contracts for a project of five hundred dollars or more in combined labour and materials must hold a licence from the Contractors State License Board. Below that figure a licence is not required, which is why small repair work can legitimately be done by someone unlicensed.
A licence is tied to a classification: C-36 is plumbing, C-10 is electrical, C-20 is HVAC, B is general building, and so on. A licence in one classification is not a licence to do everything, and the classification matters as much as the fact of holding one.
The CSLB maintains a public register. Anyone can look up a licence number and see whether it is active, what classifications it covers, when it expires, and whether there is disciplinary history.
Insured
General liability insurance covers damage the contractor causes to your property. Workers' compensation covers injury to their crew while they are on your property. These are different policies and the second one matters more than most homeowners realise: if an uninsured worker is hurt at your house, you may be the one exposed.
California requires workers' compensation coverage for any contractor with employees. A contractor operating alone may be exempt, which is legal, and is also worth knowing before someone climbs onto your roof.
Bonded
A contractor's bond is not insurance for you in the way people assume. In California, licensed contractors must carry a surety bond, currently twenty-five thousand dollars, which exists to compensate homeowners harmed by certain licence-law violations. It is a limited backstop, not a guarantee of good work, and the amount is shared across all claims against that contractor.
Licensed means legally permitted to do the work. Insured means someone else pays if something goes wrong. Bonded means there is a limited fund if the contractor violates licence law. You want all three, and they are not interchangeable.
What Project Express requires
Contractors on Project Express must be licensed as required by law for the work they take on. In California that means a CSLB licence for any project of five hundred dollars or more in combined labour and materials, in a classification that covers the trades they list.
That threshold is deliberate on our part as well as the state's. Some legitimate work falls below it. A handyman doing small repairs under five hundred dollars is not required to hold a licence and is not breaking any rule by not having one. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and we are not going to describe them as licensed either.
Where a contractor holds a licence, we show the number and its status so you can check it yourself. Where they do not, the listing does not claim they do.
To submit quotes, a contractor must hold a paid membership and meet the same licence requirement for the work being quoted. Membership is not a substitute for a licence and never will be.
Contractors must not list trades their classification does not cover. A C-36 plumbing licence does not permit electrical work, and a listing that claims otherwise will be removed.
What we verify, and how
Where a contractor supplies a licence number, we check it against the CSLB public register: status, classification and expiry. Because that register is public and maintained by the state, this is verifiable rather than self-reported, and a listing whose licence lapses stops being described as licensed.
Where a licence cannot be confirmed as currently active, the listing says so plainly. We would rather show a listing marked "license on file" than describe someone as licensed when we cannot prove it.
If you are hiring for work at or above the threshold, a current licence in the right classification is not optional and you should check it yourself as well.
We are building out reference checking and insurance verification, and we will describe those checks here once they are actually running. We would rather under-promise on this page than have you rely on a check that does not yet exist.
What you should still do yourself
No platform replaces five minutes of your own diligence on a large job. Before you sign anything:
- Look the licence number up yourself at the CSLB website. It takes under a minute and it is free.
- Ask for a current certificate of insurance, and ask whether it includes workers' compensation.
- Ask for two references on work of a similar size and type, and actually call them.
- Check that the name on the licence matches the name on the contract and the name on the invoice.
A contractor who is genuinely licensed and insured will not be offended by any of this. Being asked is routine, and the ones who bristle are telling you something.
What to do if something goes wrong
If a job is not going as agreed, start with the contractor and put your concerns in writing. Most disputes are a scope misunderstanding rather than bad faith, and a written record makes the difference if it escalates.
If that does not resolve it, our dispute resolution service can help. For licence-law violations, the CSLB accepts complaints directly from homeowners.
Find pros whose licences you can check
Every listing shows licence number and status. Searching is free.
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