Washington DC General Contractor License Requirements: The Basic Business License, Classes A to H & the $25,000 HIC Bond (2026)

If you’re planning to run a general contractor business in Washington DC, the credential you need is a business license rather than a trade license, and there is no contractor exam. The District licenses contractors through a Basic Business License issued by the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, and the category you pick matters more than anything else. General Contractor (A, B, C, G, and H) / Construction Manager covers building, altering, repairing, improving, and demolishing structures. Home Improvement Contractor is a separate endorsement for work on existing residential property, and it carries a $25,000 surety bond, a police criminal history report, and a DLCP-reviewed contract. The fees are modest: $49 for a six-month GC/CM license, $99 for two years, or $198 for four. What catches almost everyone is a footnote on DLCP’s own page requiring a second license for a Home Improvement Salesperson. This page covers both categories, the classes, the gates, and the permits.

Licensing rules vary a lot from one jurisdiction to the next. Some hand the job to local governments entirely, while others run one central program that every contractor answers to. The demand behind those rules is steady either way. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025 count about 380,360 construction managers, 812,210 first-line supervisors of construction trades, 146,720 construction and building inspectors, and roughly 1,096,780 construction laborers working nationwide. Construction manager jobs are on track to rise 9% between 2024 and 2034, well ahead of the pace for the average occupation.

Washington DC is the smallest construction market in this series and one of the best paid. BLS figures (District of Columbia OEWS, May 2025) count 1,250 construction managers earning a mean of $67.69 an hour, or $140,780 a year, with a median of $126,430 and a 90th percentile of $209,680, the highest top-decile figure anywhere in this series. There are 1,420 first-line supervisors of construction trades at a $93,780 mean, 2,090 construction laborers at $52,220, and 370 construction and building inspectors at $93,030. Concentration runs low across the board, with supervisors at a location quotient of 0.39 and laborers at 0.42, because the District’s economy is government, law, and professional services rather than construction. Few construction jobs proportionally, paid at the very top of the national range.

Quick answer: do you need a general contractor license in Washington DC?

Yes, and it comes as a Basic Business License (BBL) from the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (DLCP, formerly DCRA) rather than from a contractor board. There is no trade exam for general contracting.

DLCP recognizes two contractor and construction categories:

• General Contractor (A, B, C, G, and H) / Construction Manager, covering services that involve planning, acquiring, building, equipping, altering, repairing, improving, or demolishing any structure or appurtenance
• Home Improvement Contractor (HIC), for work on existing residential property

The two have different requirement lists. The GC/CM license needs a certificate of liability insurance, a Certificate of Occupancy or Home Occupation Permit, a contract, corporate registration if applicable, and tax registration with a Clean Hands certificate. No surety bond.

The HIC endorsement needs all of that plus a $25,000 surety bond, a police criminal history report, and a home improvement contract following DLCP’s sample.

And one requirement applies across both: every Home Improvement Contractor and every General Contractor doing residential contracting must designate and maintain a Basic Business License for at least one Home Improvement Salesperson.

A change worth watching: D.C. Law 25-244

Before you plan around anything on this page, know that the District has legislated a restructuring of contractor licensing that may change the framework described here.

The General Contractor Licensing Amendment Act of 2024, reported as D.C. Law 25-244, is described as creating a Board of Construction Managers and General Contractors, splitting commercial and residential contractor licenses, and establishing a Residential and Commercial Contractor Guaranty and Education Fund. Reporting on it points to new code sections in the D.C. Code § 47-2853.78 series, an experience standard of roughly 4,000 hours or two years, a set of exemptions, and an applicability date around October 1, 2025, with a prior section repealed.

Here is the honest position. DLCP’s own contractor page, as published, still describes the structure in the rest of this guide: the BBL categories, the class letters, the fee schedule, the requirement lists. Agency implementation of new licensing statutes frequently lags enactment.

So treat it as a live question. Before you apply, confirm with DLCP whether the Board is operating, whether commercial and residential licenses have separated, and whether an experience requirement now applies. If it has, DC moves from no competency requirement at all to documented experience, which is a different kind of barrier than a fee.

Everything that follows reflects DLCP’s currently published requirements.

Two licenses, one city

The category choice drives everything else, so get it right before you start assembling documents.

	General Contractor / Construction Manager	Home Improvement Contractor
Covers	Building, altering, repairing, demolishing	Existing residential property work
Classes	A, B, C, G and H	Single endorsement
Surety bond	Not required	$25,000
Police criminal history report	Not required	Required
Liability insurance	Required, scaled by class	Required
Certificate of Occupancy	Required, or Home Occupation Permit	Same
Clean Hands certificate	Required	Required
Contract on file	Required	Home improvement contract required
Home Improvement Salesperson	Required if doing residential	Required
Six-month term	Available at $49	Not eligible
Two-year term	$99	$99
Four-year term	$198	$198

The line between them is the nature of the property, not the size of the job. New construction and commercial work sit under GC/CM. Repair, alteration, or remodeling of existing residential property is home improvement territory.

Many DC contractors end up holding both, because a firm that builds new and also remodels existing homes is doing both kinds of work. That is not duplication, it is two different endorsements covering two different activities.

The Home Improvement Salesperson requirement

This is the requirement most guides miss entirely, and it sits in plain sight as a footnote on DLCP’s own contractor page.

All Home Improvement Contractors and all General Contractors doing residential contracting are required to designate and maintain a Basic Business License for at least one Home Improvement Salesperson.

Read that carefully, because it catches general contractors who assume it only applies to the HIC category. If you do residential contracting in the District, you need this second license regardless of which contractor endorsement you hold.

Practically, that means:

• A separate BBL for at least one individual, held and maintained continuously
• The designation stays current, so if your salesperson leaves you designate another
• It is an additional application and fee on top of your contractor license

The reason it exists is consumer protection. DC regulates the person who sells home improvement work to a homeowner, not just the company that performs it, because the sale is where misrepresentation happens. If you are a one-person residential operation, you are both the contractor and the salesperson and you need both licenses.

GC/CM classes A, B, C, G and H

DLCP lists the general contractor license in five classes: A, B, C, G and H. If you have read that DC uses classes A through E, that is incorrect. The District’s own licensing page names A, B, C, G and H.

The classes are value-based, and what changes with them is your insurance obligation. Liability requirements are set by class in DC’s municipal regulations and they scale steeply. Commonly cited figures put Class A at $2,500,000 per occurrence, Class B at $1,500,000, and Class C at $500,000 with a $1,000,000 aggregate. Policies generally must come from an insurer authorized in the District.

A caution on the numbers circulating online. Third-party sources disagree badly about the project-value ceilings attached to each class: one puts Class B at $10,000,000 and Class C at $5,000,000, another puts Class B at $100,000 and Class C at $25,000. Those cannot both be right, and neither matches a figure DLCP publishes on its licensing page. Get your class ceiling from DLCP rather than from a guide, this one included.

Because the class determines the coverage you must buy, and because coverage at the top class is five times the bottom, choose your class before you call your insurance agent. Getting a quote for the wrong class wastes everyone’s time, and buying coverage below your class means resubmitting.

Confirm the current per-class figures with DLCP’s insurance guidance rather than relying on any summary, including this one. The regulation is amended periodically and the certificate requirements are specific.

There is a strategic dimension too. A higher class lets you take larger contracts, but the premium follows you for the whole term whether or not you win work at that size. The reverse error costs more: licensing below your work means turning down a project or moving up mid-term on a short deadline. License for what you can credibly win in the next two years.

The certificate of liability insurance, and who holds it

DC has particular requirements about how the certificate is written, and applications stall over this rather than over coverage amounts.

The certificate generally must:

• Be issued to the business as registered with DLCP, with the same address shown on the BBL
• Include a short description of the services provided and where they are provided
• Name the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection as certificate holder at 1100 4th Street SW, Washington DC
• Come from an insurer authorized to write in the District

That certificate-holder line is the common failure. A certificate naming your own company, a general contractor you sub for, or a property owner does not satisfy DLCP. Send your agent the requirement in writing rather than describing it, and check the address before it goes in.

The $25,000 bond and the advance payment rule

If you hold or need the Home Improvement Contractor endorsement, the bond is the centerpiece.

The governing regulations sit in DCMR Title 16, Chapter 8, “Home Improvements,” not Title 17. That matters because guides routinely cite the wrong title, and the section numbers will not resolve if you go looking in the wrong place.

Under 16 DCMR § 802.1, each applicant files a bond in the penal sum of $25,000 running to the District of Columbia, extending to third-party recovery, with corporate surety authorized by the Treasury and by the DC Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking.

There is an alternative most contractors never hear about. Under § 802.4 you may deposit other security with the D.C. Treasurer instead: $25,000 in cash, a certified or cashier’s check for $25,000, or marketable bonds or notes with an aggregate maturity value of at least $26,000. That ties up capital rather than costing a premium, which suits a contractor with cash and difficult credit.

There is a connected rule that matters on every residential job. DC restricts a home improvement contractor from taking payment before the work is complete unless the contractor is bonded. In practice, because the bond is a condition of the endorsement, the bond is what makes deposits and progress payments permissible at all. A contractor operating without a current bond on file is not just out of compliance with licensing, they have lost the legal basis for collecting money up front.

Keep the bond renewal on the same calendar as your license renewal, and confirm with your surety that the filing with DLCP is current rather than assuming a paid policy means the filing is in place. Those are two different things.

What the contract regulations actually require

16 DCMR § 808 sets the contract rules, and they are more specific than “put it in writing.”

• § 808.1: No home improvement contractor, salesperson, or agent may accept any payment for work to be performed until the understanding with the homeowner has been reduced to writing in accordance with the section
• § 808.2: The contract must be signed in at least triplicate, on a compliant form, with all blank spaces filled in
• § 808.3: Signed by the homeowner and by the contractor, or by the salesperson subject to the contractor’s approval
• § 808.4: The names and license numbers of all salespersons who participated in negotiating the contract must be inserted in the contract

That last provision is where the salesperson licensing requirement becomes concrete rather than abstract. Your contract has a space for the salesperson’s license number, and filling it in requires that the person actually hold one. Contract clauses purporting to waive any provision of Chapter 8 are void.

The HIC endorsement also requires:

• A police criminal history report from the jurisdiction where the applicant resides
• A home improvement contract consistent with DLCP’s published sample, which the agency reviews
• All the standard BBL items: insurance, Certificate of Occupancy, Clean Hands, corporate registration

Expect the HIC application to take longer than a GC/CM application for exactly these reasons. A criminal history check and a bond filing add weeks.

Clean Hands, Certificate of Occupancy, and the other DC gates

Three District-specific requirements trip up contractors from Maryland and Virginia, and none of them are about construction.

Tax registration and Clean Hands. You register with the DC Office of Tax and Revenue and obtain a Clean Hands certificate. DLCP states the standard plainly: the District will not issue licenses, permits, grants, or contracts where there is a debt owed to the District of more than $100 for fees, fines, taxes, or penalties, or where you have failed to file required District tax returns.

Two things follow. The $100 threshold is low enough to be trivial to cross, and it counts parking and traffic citations alongside taxes and administrative fines. And the failure-to-file prong is independent of owing anything. A company that owes the District nothing but has an unfiled return is still blocked, which catches firms that registered for tax and then never filed because they had no DC revenue yet.

This is a hard gate on both issuance and renewal, and no amount of construction competence gets you past it. Check your status before you apply rather than discovering it in the application.

Certificate of Occupancy or Home Occupation Permit. If you operate from a physical location in the District you need a Certificate of Occupancy for it. If you run the business from your DC home you need a Home Occupation Permit instead. Either way, DLCP wants the document.

Corporate registration. Entities register through DLCP’s Corporations Division via CorpOnline. Out-of-jurisdiction companies register as foreign entities and need a DC registered agent.

A contract. DLCP lists a contract among the required documents for the GC/CM license, and a home improvement contract for HIC. This is unusual: the District wants to see the paper you use with customers as part of licensing you.

That last item deserves attention. Most jurisdictions regulate what your contract must contain and never look at one unless a complaint arrives. DC asks up front, which means a national or Virginia template will be read by a reviewer who knows what District requirements look like. Have a DC-appropriate document ready before you apply.

Setting up the business in the District

DC’s business formation and tax layer is more involved than most jurisdictions, and every piece of it gates your license.

Entity registration. Through DLCP’s Corporations Division on CorpOnline. Out-of-jurisdiction companies register as foreign entities, which requires a DC registered agent with a District address.

Tax registration. With the DC Office of Tax and Revenue, which is also where Clean Hands comes from. DC levies its own franchise tax on business income, a real consideration for a Maryland or Virginia firm expanding across the line.

Employer obligations. DC requires workers’ compensation coverage for employers with one or more employees, and administers paid family leave and unemployment contributions through the Department of Employment Services. Separate registrations from your license.

Biennial report. Registered entities file one with DLCP to stay in good standing, and falling out of good standing can affect Clean Hands, which blocks renewal. A missed corporate filing can surface months later as a blocked license.

Premises. A Certificate of Occupancy for a commercial address, or a Home Occupation Permit for a DC residence.

Fees and license terms

DLCP publishes the fee schedule, and the terms are more flexible than most jurisdictions.

Term	Fee	Notes
Six months	$49.00	General Contractor / Construction Manager only
Two years	$99.00	Standard term for both categories
Four years	$198.00	Available for both categories

The six-month option is genuinely useful. A contractor with one DC project can license for that job at $49 rather than committing to two years. Home Improvement Contractors are not eligible for it.

Note what is not on the list: no exam fee, no GC/CM bond premium, no continuing education cost. What costs money in DC is insurance at the higher classes, the HIC bond premium, and the salesperson license.

Applying through BOSS

DC moved business licensing onto the BOSS portal at boss.dc.gov, which replaced the older business center. All applications go through it.

Step 1: Pick your category and class

GC/CM for construction broadly, HIC for existing residential work, or both. Then pick your GC/CM class from A, B, C, G and H, since it sets your insurance obligation.

Step 2: Register the entity

Through DLCP’s Corporations Division on CorpOnline. Out-of-jurisdiction firms register as foreign entities with a DC registered agent.

Step 3: Register for tax and get Clean Hands

With the DC Office of Tax and Revenue. Clear anything you owe the District first, because this is a gate rather than a formality.

Step 4: Sort your premises document

A Certificate of Occupancy for a commercial location, or a Home Occupation Permit if you operate from a DC residence.

Step 5: Bind insurance written the DC way

At the level your class requires, issued to the registered business name and address, naming DLCP as certificate holder at 1100 4th Street SW.

Step 6: Add the bond and background report, if HIC

The $25,000 surety bond and a police criminal history report from your jurisdiction of residence. Build extra weeks into your timeline.

Step 7: Prepare your contract

DLCP wants a contract on file. For HIC, follow the agency’s published home improvement contract sample.

Step 8: License your Home Improvement Salesperson

If you do any residential contracting, designate and maintain a BBL for at least one salesperson. Then apply for everything through BOSS and pay the fee for your chosen term.

Why DC licenses the salesperson as well as the builder

The logic explains a requirement that otherwise looks like bureaucratic noise, and it changes how you run a residential sales process here.

DC’s home improvement rules are built around the transaction rather than the workmanship. The District’s position is that the greatest consumer risk in residential remodeling is not the framing, it is the sale: the door knock, the free inspection, the pressure to sign, the deposit taken before anyone pulled a permit. So DC regulates three things separately. The company holds the endorsement. The bond stands behind the money. The salesperson holds their own license, suspendable independently of the company’s.

Three practical consequences:

• Anyone selling residential work needs to be covered. With two estimators knocking on doors, consider whether one designated salesperson genuinely covers you.
• The designation must stay current. A salesperson who leaves takes their license, and your residential compliance with it.
• Your contract is part of the regulated package. Section 808.4 requires the negotiating salesperson’s license number in the contract itself.

For a solo remodeler, you hold two licenses to do one job. Budget for both rather than discovering the second mid-application.

Trades licensed separately by the Board of Industrial Trades

Your BBL authorizes you to contract. It does not authorize trade work.

Trade	Credential
Electrical	DLCP Board of Industrial Trades license
Plumbing and gasfitting	DLCP Board of Industrial Trades license
Refrigeration and air conditioning	DLCP Board of Industrial Trades license
Steam engineer and operating engineer	DLCP Board of Industrial Trades license
Lead-safe renovation (RRP)	U.S. EPA firm certification
Asbestos	DC Department of Energy and Environment

These are occupational and professional licenses, administered separately from the BBL and searched through a different DLCP portal. They carry exams and experience verification, which adds real time to the process if you intend to self-perform.

The penalty for getting this wrong is steep. Employing an unlicensed person to engage in a regulated District occupation is a Class 1 civil infraction under DC’s schedule of fines, carrying penalties reported at up to $8,000 per offense and rising to $16,000 for a fourth and subsequent offense. Separately, the DC Consumer Protection Procedures Act at D.C. Code § 28-3904 prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices whether or not any consumer was actually misled, which is a lower bar than most contractors expect.

The practical arrangement for most DC general contractors is to hold the BBL and subcontract the licensed trades. DC’s housing stock is old enough that the EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule applies to a large share of residential remodeling here, so RRP firm certification belongs on the list even though it is federal.

Permits come from DOB, not DLCP

This split confuses contractors who last worked in DC before the reorganization.

The old Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs was divided into two agencies. DLCP handles licensing, corporate registration, and consumer protection. The Department of Buildings (DOB) handles construction permits, plan review, inspections, and code enforcement.

So your sequence runs through two agencies: get licensed at DLCP, then permit at DOB. A valid BBL is what lets you pull permits in your own name, and DOB is where the permit actually happens.

That also means two sets of rules to track. DLCP governs whether you may contract. The DC Construction Codes, enforced by DOB, govern how you build. Commercial construction in the District is governed primarily by those codes rather than by a separate commercial contractor licensing regime, but the BBL is still required to do business here at all.

The reorganization that split the old DCRA

A short history, because it explains why older guides send you to the wrong place.

On October 1, 2022, the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs was split in two. DLCP took licensing, corporate registration, occupational licensing, and consumer protection. The Department of Buildings took construction permits, plan review, inspections, and code enforcement.

Anything written before that split, and plenty since, still says DCRA. Treat a DCRA reference as a signal to check whether the requirement moved rather than assuming it is wrong: the bond is still $25,000, but the agency holding it is now DLCP.

The practical consequence is a two-step sequence. Getting licensed does not get you permitted. Portal names changed too, with BOSS for business licensing, CorpOnline for entity registration, and SCOUT for license verification.

SCOUT and the second lookup you also need

The District runs two separate lookups, and you need both.

SCOUT, DLCP’s business license search, covers General Contractor, Construction Manager, and Home Improvement Contractor licenses, searchable by business name, license number, or address, showing status, endorsements, and expiration.

The Occupational and Professional Licensing portal covers electrical, plumbing and gasfitting, refrigeration and air conditioning, and steam engineer licenses. Those are not in SCOUT.

Four things to confirm before hiring:

• BBL status is active, with the right endorsement for the work
• The $25,000 bond is on file, for any home improvement work
• A Home Improvement Salesperson is designated, for residential work
• Trade subs appear in the OPL portal, not just in SCOUT

The second and third items are DC-specific and worth asking about directly, because a contractor can hold an active BBL while the bond has lapsed or the salesperson designation has gone stale.

Contractors coming in from Maryland or Virginia

The District is surrounded by two states with completely different systems, and neither credential transfers.

No reciprocity. DC does not accept the NASCLA examination for this classification, and there is none for the HIC endorsement. A Virginia Class A license and a Maryland Home Improvement Commission license both earn you nothing at DLCP.

That is a real cost for firms working the whole metro area. A contractor covering Arlington, Bethesda, and the District carries three credentials under three regimes: Virginia’s DPOR class system with its net worth test and exams, Maryland’s Home Improvement Commission, and a DC Basic Business License. None recognizes the others, and all three renew on their own cycles.

Foreign entity registration. Register through CorpOnline and appoint a DC registered agent.

Clean Hands applies to you too. If your company or its principals owe the District money from any source, that has to clear first.

The six-month license is your friend. A Maryland or Virginia contractor with one DC project can take the $49 six-month GC/CM license rather than a two-year term. That is the cheapest single-project entry in this entire series, and it is worth knowing before you decline a DC job on licensing grounds.

What does not have a cheap workaround is the insurance. If your class requires $2,500,000 per occurrence and you carry $1,000,000, that is a real premium increase rather than a paperwork step.

Common DC licensing mistakes

Missing the Home Improvement Salesperson license. Required for every HIC and every GC doing residential contracting.

Assuming classes run A through E. DLCP lists A, B, C, G and H.

Buying insurance before picking a class. Coverage requirements scale steeply by class under 17 DCMR § 3902.

Naming the wrong certificate holder. DLCP must appear as certificate holder, at its 1100 4th Street SW address.

Ignoring Clean Hands. Unpaid District taxes, tickets, or fines block issuance and renewal regardless of anything else.

Taking a deposit without a current bond. DC restricts advance payment by home improvement contractors absent a bond.

Treating HIC and GC/CM as interchangeable. They cover different property and carry different requirements.

Expecting the six-month term on an HIC. Home Improvement Contractors are not eligible for it.

Going to DLCP for permits. Licensing is DLCP. Permits and inspections are the Department of Buildings.

Citing Title 17 for home improvement rules. The home improvement regulations are DCMR Title 16, Chapter 8.

Taking any payment before a compliant written contract exists. Section 808.1 bars it outright, bonded or not.

Assuming a Maryland or Virginia license helps. It does not, and there is no NASCLA route here.

Letting a corporate filing slip. A missed biennial report can affect good standing, which affects Clean Hands, which blocks your license renewal.

Assuming a paid bond premium means a current filing. The surety being paid and the bond being on file with DLCP are two different things.

What general contractors earn in Washington DC

District of Columbia, May 2025	Employment	Mean hourly	Mean annual	Median annual	10th percentile	90th percentile
Construction managers	1,250	$67.69	$140,780	$126,430	$80,620	$209,680
First-line supervisors, construction trades	1,420	$45.09	$93,780	$86,520	$64,310	$127,920
Construction and building inspectors	370	$44.73	$93,030	$86,200	$68,120	$131,810
Construction laborers	2,090	$25.11	$52,220	$50,020	$37,190	$72,320

Three things stand out. The 90th percentile for construction managers reaches $209,680, second only to Washington state across this series. Building inspectors average $93,030, essentially tied with Washington state for the best inspector pay anywhere covered here. And the workforce pyramid is unusually flat: 1,250 managers against 2,090 laborers, where the national ratio is closer to one to three.

That flatness is the tell. DC construction is dominated by dense commercial and institutional work where general contractors manage heavily and subcontract the trades, so the management layer is thick relative to the labor a GC directly employs. Concentration confirms the market is small in relative terms, with supervisors at 0.39 and laborers at 0.42. Few construction jobs in a government-and-professional-services economy, but the ones that exist are among the best paid in the country. For how these figures compare across states, see our contractor and construction manager salary breakdown.

Two agencies, two portals, one set of records

DC asks less of your skills than almost any jurisdiction and more of your paperwork than most. No exam, but Clean Hands, a Certificate of Occupancy, a contract DLCP wants to see, insurance written to a specific certificate holder, a bond if you touch existing homes, a salesperson license for any residential work, and a separate agency for permits. Miss one and the job stops.

Housecall Pro’s general contractor software keeps job details, pricing, and customer records in one place, so your license number and contract terms carry through from bid to final payment instead of being rebuilt for every permit application. Build quotes with cost breakdowns and margin visible before you send them with Estimates, collect a signature on the spot so the contract requirement is handled as part of the sale, then bill larger projects in stages with Invoicing while automated reminders handle the follow-up. Clean records also matter at renewal, since Clean Hands turns on what you owe and what you have filed. Running longer builds? Look at construction management software for remodelers or the general contractor resource hub for free templates. Smaller residential work fits handyman software.

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