Montana Landscaping License: What Applies and What Does Not
What Montana 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 Northwest ($39 + state fee)Includes a year of registered agent service. After year one, registered agent service is $125/yr. That enrolls you by default in annual report filing at $100 plus state fees, charged automatically to your saved payment method and cancellable any time.Not sure which service is right? Compare formation services →
Montana landscaping licensing at a glance
| State credential required for this work? | Through contractor licensing |
| What it is called | Construction Contractor License |
| Who issues it | Montana Department of Labor and Industry |
| Must the business itself be licensed? | Yes |
| Applies to work valued above | $2,500 a job |
Does a landscaping business need a license in Montana?
Montana issues no license of its own for landscapers. Its contractor licensing reaches this work through the Construction Contractor License on work valued above $2,500.
Montana issues no landscaping license, and its former contractor registration no longer exists: a 2025 Montana law repealed the old contractor registration chapter and moved the scheme to a new chapter as a construction contractor license the Department of Labor and Industry began issuing on January 1, 2026. The new law reaches a person who for another constructs, alters, repairs, adds to or improves a structure, project, development or improvement attached to real estate, which covers landscape construction such as grading, irrigation and retaining walls, and exempts one undertaking whose aggregate contract price for labor, materials and all other items is less than $2,500 a job. It separately exempts an independent contractor who has no employees, who may register voluntarily.
The landscaping business itself must be licensed or registered, not only the people doing the work.
This records what Montana 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.
Verified 2026-09-03 against the primary source listed under Sources.
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 Montana it is made with the Montana 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 Montana covers the filing itself, step by step.
Insurance Montana 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 Montana 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
Sources
7 documents
Each entry below is a document recorded in our verified Montana sources, and each entry says what the document is. Some statutory text is read from an accurate mirror rather than from the state's own host, and those say so. Where we hold the citation but no stable public link, the citation is printed on its own rather than pointed at a guessed address.
- archive.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0370/chapter_0450/part_0020/section_0010/0370-0450-0020-0010.htmlMontana landscapers licensing, primary source: Montana Code Annotated 37-45-201, Construction contractor license required (verified 2026-09-03)
- Montana law: Ch. 644, L. 2025 (contractor registration moved)
- Montana statute: Title 39, chapter 9 (former contractor registration)
- Montana statute: Title 37, chapter 45 (construction contractor license)
- Montana statute: MCA 37-45-102 (construction contractor definition)
- Montana statute: MCA 37-45-104(8) (small undertaking exemption)
- Montana statute: MCA 37-45-104(24) (independent contractor exemption)
More for Montana LLCs
Start and set up
Taxes, money and growth
Stay compliant
Operate in other states
Compare structures
By profession
- LLC for Airbnb hosts in Montana
- LLC for cleaning businesses in Montana
- LLC for coaches in Montana
- LLC for consultants in Montana
- LLC for contractors in Montana
- Business structure for dentists in Montana
- LLC for dropshippers in Montana
- LLC for Etsy sellers in Montana
- LLC for freelancers in Montana
- LLC for insurance agents in Montana
- Business structure for lawyers in Montana
- LLC for musicians in Montana
- Business structure for nurse practitioners in Montana
- LLC for personal trainers in Montana
- LLC for photographers in Montana
- LLC for plumbers in Montana
- LLC for real estate investors in Montana
- LLC for software developers in Montana
- Business structure for therapists in Montana
- LLC for truckers in Montana
- LLC for YouTubers in Montana
Forming an LLC in Montana?
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 Montana LLC?
Affiliate disclosure: We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Form your LLC with Northwest ($39 + state fee)Includes a year of registered agent service. After year one, registered agent service is $125/yr. That enrolls you by default in annual report filing at $100 plus state fees, charged automatically to your saved payment method and cancellable any time.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.