Florida Plumbing License: What Applies and What Does Not
What Florida requires of a plumbing 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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Florida plumbing licensing at a glance
| State credential required for this work? | Yes, statewide |
| What they are called | Certified Plumbing Contractor, Registered Plumbing Contractor |
| Who issues it | Construction Industry Licensing Board |
| Must the business itself be licensed? | Yes |
Does a plumbing business need a license in Florida?
Florida issues the Certified Plumbing Contractor and the Registered Plumbing Contractor for plumbers.
Florida licenses plumbing statewide through the Construction Industry Licensing Board at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. A certified plumbing contractor may contract anywhere in the state, a registered plumbing contractor may contract only in the jurisdiction whose competency requirements the registration was issued against, and a business organization contracts only once a licensed qualifying agent has qualified it.
The plumbing business itself must be licensed or registered, not only the people doing the work.
Section 489.119(2), Florida Statutes, requires an applicant proposing to contract as a business organization, including any partnership, corporation, business trust or other legal entity, to apply for registration or certification as the qualifying agent of that business organization. The approved business name is carried on the qualifying agent's license.
This records what Florida 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: Florida Statutes 489.119, Business organizations; qualifying agents. Verified 2026-09-03.
What the LLC has to do first
Several states license the plumbing company separately from the individual plumber, so the LLC and the license are two filings, not one.
The entity filing is separate from anything the license requires. In Florida it is made with the Florida 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 plumbing business in Florida covers the filing itself, step by step.
Insurance Florida plumbers are asked to show
Plumbing license and registration schemes commonly require proof of general liability cover, and water damage from a failed connection is the claim these policies are bought for.
We do not publish Florida premium figures for this trade, so nothing here is a quote. Our business insurance guide for plumbers 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.