Virginia's Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation tracks 21,648 active licensed contractors across the trades ContractorRoster mirrors, and the most common reason a verified Virginia license still leaves a homeowner exposed isn't fraud — it's that a Virginia Contractor License is only half the credential the law actually requires.
For regulated trades — electrical, plumbing, HVAC, gas fitting — the business needs a Contractor License (Class A, B, or C, based on a project-size and annual dollar cap). The individual who will actually perform the trade work needs a separate personal Tradesman License (Master, Journeyman, or Tradesman). A contractor with a valid Class B Contractor License but no Master Electrician behind it cannot legally wire your kitchen, regardless of how clean the Class B record looks.
This guide walks the 3-step DPOR verification, decodes the Class A/B/C scope caps, and surfaces the red flags that catch most homeowners and out-of-state sourcers who think a single green checkmark settled it.
Why Virginia takes two licenses to verify, not one
Virginia regulates contractors through two distinct credentials, and they serve different legal purposes.
The Contractor License, issued by the Board for Contractors under Virginia Code §54.1-1100 et seq. and the implementing regulations at 18VAC50-22, is the license the business carries — the credential that allows a company to bid, contract for, and supervise construction work in Virginia. Any contractor performing or bidding on a single project of $1,000 or more is required to hold one.
The Tradesman License, issued under Virginia Code §54.1-1128 through §54.1-1133, is the credential the person doing the regulated work carries — Master Electrician, Journeyman Electrician, Master Plumber, Journeyman Plumber, Master HVAC, Journeyman HVAC, plus separate certifications for gas fitting and backflow prevention.
The practical consequence: a Class B Contractor License authorizes the company to contract for electrical work. A Master Electrician's Tradesman License authorizes a specific individual to perform it. Both have to be active, and the Master has to be employed by or otherwise legally associated with the contracting company. Either credential alone leaves a hole. A Florida or Texas verification habit — pull the state record, read the status code, stop — produces a confidently-wrong answer in Virginia on regulated-trade work.
The Class A, B, and C contractor-license structure
Virginia's Contractor License is issued in three classes, and the class determines what size project the business is legally allowed to contract for. The dollar caps are set by the Board for Contractors and get adjusted periodically — pull the current numbers from the DPOR Contractor License page before relying on them.
As of the most recent published thresholds:
- Class C — single projects under $10,000, annual aggregate under $150,000. A Class C contractor quoting a $40,000 kitchen remodel is operating outside license scope, and the contract is treated the same as an unlicensed contract for enforcement purposes.
- Class B — single projects under $120,000, annual aggregate under $750,000. Most mid-sized residential remodelers sit here.
- Class A — no project-size cap and no aggregate cap. Required at or above the Class B ceiling.
The class is printed plainly on the DPOR record. Nothing in the portal warns you when a contract value exceeds the license-holder's class — the contractor can quote a job they're not licensed to perform, and the responsibility for catching the mismatch sits with you.
Each class also carries one or more specialty designations — the codes that describe what work the company is qualified for: Residential Building (RBC), Commercial Improvement (CIC), Home Improvement (HIC), Electrical (ELE), Plumbing (PLB), HVAC (HVA), Roofing (ROC), Concrete (CEM), Masonry (BRK / MAS), Carpentry (CAR / FRM), Painting (PTC), Flooring (FLR), Solar (SOL), Landscape Service (LSC), Fire Alarm Systems (FAS), and others. A Class A contractor with only the ROC designation cannot legally take on your electrical work, even though Class A itself is unlimited.
The Tradesman License that doesn't show up on the Contractor License lookup
This is the part most consumers and out-of-state sourcers miss. The DPOR Contractor License search confirms the business is licensed. It does not confirm there's a qualified individual eligible to perform regulated trade work — that's a separate record.
Under §54.1-1129, individuals performing the following work in Virginia must hold a separate, personal Tradesman License at the appropriate rank:
- Electrical — Master, Journeyman, or Tradesman Electrician
- Plumbing — Master, Journeyman, or Tradesman Plumber
- HVAC — Master, Journeyman, or Tradesman HVAC
- Gas Fitting — Liquefied Petroleum Gas Fitter and Natural Gas Fitter Provider (separate DPOR credentials)
- Backflow Prevention Device Workers — under a related program, separately licensed
A contracting company performing regulated electrical work has to employ at least one Master-level licensee in that trade. Verifying the Contractor License tells you the business is real. Verifying the Master's Tradesman License — by name — tells you there's actually a qualified individual on the roster. Both checks have to happen.
The 3-step DPOR verification process
Step 1 — Open the DPOR License Lookup. Go to dpor.virginia.gov and click "License Lookup" in the top navigation, or jump directly to the DPOR License Lookup portal. The lookup covers every DPOR-regulated profession, so the first filter on the form is the license type — choose "Contractors" for the business credential and "Tradesman" for the individual.
Step 2 — Verify the Contractor License. Search by business name or license number, confirm the class (A, B, or C) and the specialty designations match the work being contracted, and read the status field. Active is the only status that permits new contracts. Inactive, Expired, Suspended, and Revoked each carry different legal weight (see the next section), but none of them let the company take new work.
Step 3 — Verify the Tradesman License of the individual who will actually perform the regulated trade work. Ask the contractor for the name and license number of the Master Electrician, Master Plumber, or Master HVAC who will be the responsible individual on your job. Run that name through the License Lookup separately, with the license type set to Tradesman. Confirm the rank is Master (not Journeyman or Tradesman-level), confirm the trade matches the work, and confirm the status is Active. A contractor who can't produce a name to verify is a contractor who probably doesn't have one on staff.
If the specialty designation doesn't match the work, or the Tradesman License doesn't exist or isn't Active, the verification has failed — regardless of what the Contractor License status says.
What the DPOR license-status codes actually mean
The DPOR portal status field matters more than the green checkmark next to the record:
- Active — current, in good standing, eligible to contract for new work. The only status that fully protects you.
- Inactive — the licensee has voluntarily placed the license on hold. The record still exists, but the contractor cannot legally perform work until it's restored to Active. This is Virginia's equivalent of Florida's "Delinquent Active" trap — the record looks valid at a glance, but legal authority is suspended.
- Expired — renewal deadline passed without action. Different from Inactive because reinstatement may require re-application, re-examination, or continuing-education catch-up depending on the lapse length. Not work-eligible during the gap.
- Suspended — DPOR has taken enforcement action pending resolution of a complaint or hearing. Walk.
- Revoked — final agency action. The credential is gone. The underlying conduct is in the public record.
The Inactive-versus-Expired distinction is the Virginia subtlety. Both block work. Reinstatement paths differ — a contractor who says "I'm just renewing" while operating may be Inactive (brief administrative gap) or Expired (longer lapse with real consequences). Either way, they're not currently licensed to take your contract.
Four red flags most homeowners miss
A Class C contractor quoting a job that exceeds $10,000. The single most common Virginia verification miss. The Class C scope cap is statutory. The license is real and the portal record looks clean, but the contract for a $35,000 bathroom remodel is unenforceable in the same way an unlicensed contract is. Read the class. Do the math.
A valid Contractor License with no Tradesman License on file for the responsible individual. A company can hold an active Class B with the ELE designation and still have no Master Electrician currently associated with it — for example, after the original qualifying Master left and was never replaced. The Contractor License lookup will not surface that gap. Ask for the Master's name and pull the Tradesman record separately.
The specialty designation doesn't match the work. A Class A contractor with only ROC and BLD designations cannot legally perform your plumbing rough-in. The class is unlimited; the specialty is not. Read every designation on the DPOR record against the actual scope of the contract.
The license is in the name of an individual who has since left the company. Virginia Contractor Licenses are qualified by a designated employee. If that individual leaves and isn't replaced within the regulatory window, the license can become voidable. The portal doesn't always reflect a qualifier change in real time. Ask who the qualifying individual is, and confirm that person still works there.
What DPOR data doesn't tell you
Worth being honest about the limits.
Insurance and bonding aren't surfaced continuously. DPOR collects proof at issuance and renewal but doesn't show live coverage status. A contractor can drop coverage mid-cycle and the lookup won't reflect it. Ask for a current Certificate of Insurance naming your property as the certificate holder, and call the insurer to confirm.
Complaint history is partially public. DPOR records surface disciplinary actions that resulted in a formal Board order. Open complaints, settled mediations, and matters resolved short of formal action may not appear. For a fuller picture, DPOR responds to Virginia FOIA requests.
Local-jurisdiction requirements layer on top. Fairfax, Arlington, Loudoun, Virginia Beach, and Richmond, among others, require separate local business licenses or contractor registrations on top of the state DPOR credential. The state license is necessary but not always sufficient.
Out-of-state contractors still need full DPOR licensure for work above the statutory threshold. There is no general reciprocity that exempts them from the Virginia license requirement on a Virginia job.
Sourcing licensed Virginia contractors at scale
ContractorRoster maintains a continuously-updated mirror of Virginia's DPOR licensed-contractor data — 21,648 active records across the trades we cover — with phone, email, website, and Google ratings layered in. For one-off verification, the free DPOR License Lookup above is the right tool — it's the source of truth, and the only way to confirm both halves of the dual-license requirement.
For sourcing at scale — a property manager building a Northern Virginia vendor roster, a supplier launching into Richmond, a developer running an RFP across Hampton Roads — our $39 CSVs at /virginia pull the same DPOR data pre-enriched with the contact info DPOR doesn't surface. Virginia accounts for roughly 3.5% of the 614,114 active licenses we mirror across 13 states.
Either way, the verification rules don't change. The last check before you sign is to pull both the Contractor License and the responsible individual's Tradesman License on the DPOR portal and confirm class, specialty, and Active status on each.
Next step
Browse licensed Virginia general contractors, electricians, plumbers, HVAC contractors, roofers, solar contractors, or fire-protection contractors — and for the sub-trades, carpenters, masons, concrete contractors, drywall contractors, tile contractors, excavating contractors, painters, flooring contractors, and landscapers. Every record sourced from the DPOR registry, with the contact info DPOR doesn't publish.
Or run a one-off check at the official DPOR License Lookup.