About Trades by State
If you are starting out as a plumber or HVAC contractor, the rules are spread across licensing boards, tax offices, and laws written for lawyers. This site puts them on one page per state, in plain words, with a link to the official source for every number.
What you will find on a page
Which license lets you run your own business and what it costs. The least insurance the state lets you carry. Whether you need a bond or a credit check. Where your license number has to be printed. When you have to charge sales tax. And the deadlines you have to meet to keep your right to be paid if a customer will not pay.
How we check the numbers
Every number comes from a state licensing board, a tax office, or the law itself, and we link to that page right next to the number. Each one carries a label. Checked against the official page means we read it straight from that page. Still being checked means we found the rule but a person has not confirmed it yet. Our estimate means we added up other numbers on the page.
A page goes live only after a person has opened every link and confirmed every number. That date is printed at the top of the page. Once a month a program re-reads every official page we rely on and tells us if something changed, so we can fix it.
What we are not
Trades by State is an independent website. We are not part of any government office and no agency has endorsed us. This is general information, not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Rules change, and your city or county may add rules of its own. Check the official page we link to before you act.
How the site makes money
Ads, and referral links to insurance companies and business software. If you buy something through one of those links we may get a commission. It costs you nothing extra, the companies never see or change the numbers we publish, and we mark every referral link as one.
Found a mistake?
Tell us which page, and point us to the official page that shows the right number. We will publish a contact address here before the site goes live.