Alabama Landscaping License: What Applies and What Does Not
What Alabama requires of a landscaping business in 2026, what the LLC has to file first, and where the license and the entity are two separate steps.
By Edmond Hui · Last updated: September 2026
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Alabama landscaping licensing at a glance
| State credential required for this work? | Yes, statewide |
| What they are called | Horticulture Professional Services License, Landscape Horticulturist permit, Landscape Planter permit |
| Who issues it | Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries |
| Must the business itself be licensed? | Yes |
Does a landscaping business need a license in Alabama?
Alabama issues 3 license classes for landscapers.
Alabama licenses landscaping itself under the Professional Services Law, Code of Ala. 1975 sections 2-28-1 through 2-28-12, and the permit category is Landscape Horticultural and Floricultural Work, covering persons engaged in landscaping and setting of plants. The permit is obtained for each main office location before the work is performed or solicited, and the department's definition of person covers a corporation or other legal entity, so the company holds it while an individual operator passes the written examination. Ornamental and Turf Pest Control and Tree Surgery are separate categories under the same permit.
The landscaping business itself must be licensed or registered, not only the people doing the work.
This records what Alabama publishes, not a determination about your business. Scope, thresholds and local requirements are set by the issuing body, so confirm with them before you bid or file.
Source: Alabama Administrative Code Chapter 80-10-9, Professional Service (Department of Agriculture and Industries, Plant Industry). Verified 2026-09-03.
What the LLC has to do first
Pesticide and herbicide application is licensed separately from landscaping itself in most states, and that license is usually the one a general landscaping business actually needs.
The entity filing is separate from anything the license requires. In Alabama it is made with the Alabama Secretary of State. File directly with the state here. The order matters wherever the license is issued to the company rather than to a person: the entity has to exist before an application can name it.
Forming an LLC as a landscaping business in Alabama covers the filing itself, step by step.
Insurance Alabama landscapers are asked to show
Landscaping work damages what it is next to: irrigation lines, fences, windows and parked cars. General liability is the cover for that, and commercial clients ask for the certificate before the first visit.
We do not publish Alabama premium figures for this trade, so nothing here is a quote. Our business insurance guide for landscapers covers what each policy does and does not pay for.
This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It reports what each state licensing board publishes for this trade, with the sources this page cites. It cannot tell you whether your own work needs a licence: that turns on the scope of the job, the value of the contract, and the city or county you work in, which commonly adds its own registration on top of the state's. Confirm your own position with the board named on this page and with your local building or business licensing office before you bid or start work.
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Edmond Hui · Founder, MyStateLLC
Edmond Hui is a software engineer and serial entrepreneur based in New York who has founded multiple online businesses across e-commerce, media, and information publishing. Before transitioning into tech, he spent years as a commercial real estate professional closing deals totaling over 100,000 square feet, giving him firsthand experience with business formation and entity structuring. He built MyStateLLC to provide the free, state-specific LLC guidance he wished existed when forming his own companies.