Mississippi Landscaping License: What Applies and What Does Not
What Mississippi 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
Affiliate disclosure: We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Form your LLC with ZenBusiness$0 service fee plus your state's filing fee. Registered agent free for year one.Not sure which service is right? Compare formation services →
Mississippi landscaping licensing at a glance
| State credential required for this work? | Yes, above $50,000 a job |
| What it is called | Certificate of Responsibility, Landscaping, Grading and Beautification classification |
| Who issues it | Mississippi State Board of Contractors |
| Must the business itself be licensed? | Yes |
| Applies to work valued above | $50,000 a job |
Does a landscaping business need a license in Mississippi?
Mississippi issues the Certificate of Responsibility, Landscaping, Grading and Beautification classification for landscapers on work valued above $50,000.
Mississippi licenses landscaping by name. The State Board of Contractors issues a Landscaping, Grading and Beautification specialty classification whose published scope covers landscaping, hardscaping, planting and groundcover, mowing and trimming, and excludes irrigation, and Miss. Code Ann. 31-3-1 removes from the licensing chapter any public or private project contract of less than $50,000. The classification is published on the commercial side only, and the residential classifications under Miss. Code Ann. 73-59-1, where a remodeler license begins above $10,000, contain no landscaping classification; Miss. Code Ann. 31-3-15 requires the contracting entity to hold the certificate of responsibility, qualified through an owner, officer or responsible managing employee.
The landscaping business itself must be licensed or registered, not only the people doing the work.
This records what Mississippi 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: Mississippi State Board of Contractors, Classifications. 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 Mississippi it is made with the Mississippi 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 Mississippi covers the filing itself, step by step.
Insurance Mississippi 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 Mississippi 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Formation Services Compared
Forming an LLC in Mississippi?
See how Northwest Registered Agent, Bizee, ZenBusiness and LegalZoom, the formation services we partner with, compare on 3-year cost, BBB rating and Trustpilot score before you choose.
Ready to Form Your Mississippi LLC?
Affiliate disclosure: We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Form your LLC with ZenBusiness$0 service fee plus your state's filing fee. Registered agent free for year one.Not sure which service is right? Compare formation services →
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.