Florida general contractor license guide
Checked 2026-09-04, 6 min read
Filed under State requirements
§ 1Two license types
Florida is one of the few states that runs two parallel contractor licenses through one board. A certified license is issued by the Construction Industry Licensing Board and is good anywhere in the state. A registered license recognises a competency card issued by a local jurisdiction, and is good only where that jurisdiction says it is.
| Item | Certified | Registered |
|---|---|---|
| Issued by | CILB, at state level | CILB, on the strength of a local card |
| Where it works | Anywhere in Florida | Only the jurisdictions that recognise it |
| Prefix on the number | C-prefixed | R-prefixed |
| Moving to a new county | Nothing to do | Usually a new local card first |
§ 2Which one you want
If you work in one county and intend to keep doing so, a registered license is the shorter road. If you bid across county lines — and in Florida a storm season can move your work two hundred miles overnight — a certified license saves you from discovering at the permit counter that your number stops at the county boundary.
A registered license is not a smaller certified license.
It is a different instrument that happens to be issued by the same board. Upgrading is an application, not an amendment, and the state exam sits in the middle of it.
§ 3Money and paperwork
Both routes ask you to prove experience, pass an examination, and show the board financial responsibility — a credit report and, where the score falls short, a bond that stands in for it. General liability and, where you have employees, workers’ compensation are part of the file, not an afterthought.
Because the financial-responsibility bond is scaled to the applicant rather than fixed by statute, treat any single figure you read online for it as a starting point and get a real quote. Our bond premium calculator shows how much the credit tier moves that number.
§ 4Fees — what we can and cannot show
The CILB fee schedule lives in Florida Administrative Code rule 61G4-12.009, effective 2017-10-30. We read the rule number and that effective date from the state’s own rules gateway on 2026-09-04.
Fees not printed here
We are not printing Florida fee amounts on this page. The rule’s text is served as a separate document that returned “This file is not available” on our last check, and the department’s own licensing site refused our requests. We could not read this figure from the issuing board on our last check, so it is not printed here. Confirm it with the board before you budget for it.
This is the honest position rather than a copied figure from a third-party blog. When the rule text becomes readable again the amounts will appear here with the date we read them, the way every other number on this site does.
Checked against
- Florida Administrative Code rule 61G4-12.009 “Fees” (effective 10/30/2017)read 2026-09-04
- Florida Administrative Code chapter 61G4-12 — Construction Industry Licensing Board feesread 2026-09-04
Not legal advice. Fees, bond amounts and deadlines are set by statute and change without notice — confirm with the board that issues your license before you file.