Most people hiring a contractor in Arizona skip the licence check. It is free, it takes about a minute, and skipping it can cost you up to $30,000 in protection you would otherwise have had.
Here is how to do it, and — more usefully — how to read the result.
The short version
- Go to the Arizona Registrar of Contractors and open the licence search.
- Search by licence number if you have one, or by business name if you do not.
- Check four things: that the licence exists, that its status is Active, that the licence class covers your job, and that the expiry date has not passed.
- Look at the complaint history while you are there.
That is the whole process. The rest of this page is about the parts that trip people up.
Search by licence number, not by name
This is where most checks fail, and the reason is not obvious: contractor licences are held by legal entities, not by trading names.
A company you know as "Smith Plumbing" may hold its licence as "J. Smith Enterprises Inc" — same business, different name on the register. Search the trading name and you get nothing, conclude they are unlicensed, and walk away from a perfectly legitimate contractor. Or worse, you assume the register is unreliable and stop checking.
Ask for the licence number directly. Any legitimate contractor will give it to you without hesitation, and a reluctance to hand it over is itself an answer.
What the statuses mean
| Status | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Active | The licence is current. This is what you want. |
| Inactive | The licence exists but is not currently in force. Not covered. |
| Expired | Lapsed and not renewed. Not covered. |
| Suspended | Active enforcement action. Do not proceed. |
| Revoked | The licence has been taken away. Do not proceed. |
| No result | Either unlicensed, or you searched the wrong name — see above. |
Check the licence class covers your job
Arizona licences are specific. A licence is issued in a class — CR-37 is plumbing, for example — and a contractor licensed for one trade is not automatically licensed for another.
This matters most on jobs that cross trades. A bathroom remodel can touch plumbing, electrical and general contracting, and one licence may not cover all of it. Ask which class the work falls under and check that it matches.
Why this is worth a minute of your time
Arizona operates a Residential Contractors' Recovery Fund. If a licensed contractor takes your money and does poor work or abandons the job, you can apply to recover your losses.
Reported limits are up to $30,000 per residence, and up to $200,000 total against any one contractor's licence — once that ceiling is reached, no further claims against that licence are paid. (Figures as reported in 2026. Confirm the current limits on the [ROC's Recovery Fund page](https://roc.az.gov/recovery-fund), which is the authority on this.)
Here is the part that catches people out. The Fund does not cover you if the contractor was unlicensed — and it also does not cover you if their licence was inactive, expired, suspended, cancelled or revoked at the time you signed.
So "they were licensed when I looked last year" is not good enough. The status that matters is the status on the day you enter the contract. A licence that lapsed two months before you signed leaves you in exactly the same position as hiring someone who never had one.
That single rule is why the expiry date is worth as much attention as the status.
The complaint history is free information
While you have the record open, look at the complaint history. A large contractor with a couple of resolved complaints over a decade is unremarkable. A pattern of unresolved complaints, or several in a short window, is a different signal entirely.
Read what the complaints were about rather than counting them. A dispute over scheduling and a dispute over structural work are not comparable.
Three things a licence does not tell you
Be clear about what you are and are not buying with this check.
- It is not proof of insurance. Licensing and insurance are separate. Ask for a certificate of insurance and, for larger jobs, ask to be named on it.
- It is not proof of quality. Plenty of licensed contractors do mediocre work. The licence tells you they are accountable to a regulator and that you have recourse — not that the job will be good.
- It is not permanent. Licences lapse, get suspended, and get reinstated. A check is a snapshot with a date on it.
What we do, and what you should still do yourself
Every business we list shows the licence details we hold, including the legal entity the licence sits under and the date it expires. Where a person on our team has checked the ROC register directly, we mark it verified and show the date we looked. Where we hold a number from another source, we say so plainly and do not call it verified.
We do that because it is useful, not because it replaces your own check. Confirm it yourself before you sign anything — it is free, and by the time it matters it is too late.
Related
- Best plumber in Mesa, AZ — our pick, with licence details shown
- How Arizona Z Best chooses businesses