Start a construction company in Florida

Florida asks a construction company two questions before the work question, and the first is which kind of license the person signing the contracts holds. A certified contractor holds a state certificate of competency and may contract in any jurisdiction in Florida. A registered contractor met a local jurisdiction’s competency requirements and may contract only there. That second route has narrowed. Since 1 July 2025 local governments may license only specialty types that substantially correspond to a state category, keeping a short list of their own that runs to veneer and gutters, rooftop painting above three stories, and fence installation, and they may not require a license at all to permit work outside a state scope. Registration now mostly serves contractors converting a local license they already held.

The second question is whose license it is, and the answer is not the company’s. Florida issues the credential to a person, who then qualifies the business organization to contract in that person’s category. A company whose qualifying agent leaves has 60 days to employ another and cannot contract in the meantime, with a temporary certificate available to the financially responsible officer for work already under contract. So the order of work runs the other way from the formation checklist. Qualify the person, then let the entity trade on it, and treat the qualifying agent as a role the operating agreement should name rather than a form filed once.

Which certification to sit for follows the buildings. A residential contractor covers one-family, two-family, and three-family residences of up to two habitable stories above one uninhabitable story. A building contractor covers commercial and residential buildings up to three stories. A general contractor is unlimited as to type. All three take four years of active experience including a year as a foreman, or a degree in engineering, architecture, or building construction plus a year of it, and all three ask for a credit report and a showing of financial responsibility against board minimums. Half of that financial requirement can be met by finishing an approved 14-hour financial responsibility course, which is the cheapest line in the whole application.

The density figures explain why the license sits where it does. Florida carries close to six solo construction operators for every firm with payroll, between California’s three and Texas’s eight, on a solo count as large as any state’s. A credential attached to a person rather than to a company is one a single operator can carry, and the numbers on the plate above show how many of them do.