A Palm Beach contractors license is a county certificate of competency, and the county currently certifies 31 categories: eight construction trades and 23 specialty trades. Twenty nine of those let you contract. The other route is a state license, which works in every Florida county and skips the local exam entirely.
What is a Palm Beach contractors license, legally speaking?
It is a certificate of competency issued by the Construction Industry Licensing Board of Palm Beach County, and its authority is unusual. Most county licensing in Florida runs on a county ordinance. Palm Beach runs on Chapter 67-1876, a Special Act of the Laws of Florida, as amended, which is part of why the county has kept a wide trade list while other counties have trimmed theirs.
The practical effect is simple. Hold the certificate and you can advertise, bid and contract in that trade inside Palm Beach County. Step outside the county line and it stops working, which is the whole argument for the state route further down this page.
Which of the 31 categories does your work fall into?
Eight of the categories are construction trades. Two of those eight, journeyman electrical and journeyman plumber, are not contracting licences at all: the county is explicit that a journeyman works under a master and may not contract. That leaves 29 categories you can actually run a business on.
| Category | Experience required | Can you contract? |
|---|---|---|
| General | 5 years supervisory, or 1 year as a licensed building contractor, or 2 as residential | Yes, unlimited height and area |
| Building | 4 years supervisory | Yes, up to three storeys or 36 feet |
| Residential | 3 years supervisory | Yes, one to three family homes, two storeys |
| Electrical | 7 years, 4 as a journeyman in a supervisory capacity | Yes |
| Plumbing | 7 years, 4 as a journeyman plumber in a supervisory capacity | Yes |
| HARV (heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, ventilation) | 7 years supervisory | Yes |
| Journeyman electrical | 4 year apprenticeship, or 6 years practical work | No, works under a master electrician |
| Journeyman plumber | 3 year apprenticeship, or 4 years practical work | No, works under a master plumber |
The other 23 are specialty categories, each needing three years of experience with at least eighteen months of it supervisory. They are aluminium specialties, carpentry, concrete forming and placing, demolition, drywall, fence, garage doors, glass and glazing, gunite, hurricane shutter and awning, irrigation sprinkler, low voltage, marine, masonry, plastering, rescreener and screen repair, roofing, sign contractor electrical, structural steel erection, swimming pool construction, swimming pool maintenance and repair, underground utilities, and window and door.
Picking between them is where people lose time, because the boundaries are drawn by voltage and by scope, not by what the job is called. Low voltage and irrigation both stop at 98 volts. A fence contractor can write the electrical work into the contract but has to subcontract it. An aluminium specialties contractor can build a screen enclosure and pour the slab under it, but may not touch a roof truss. If your work straddles two categories, read the scope wording before you pay for an exam, not after. That same category question opens every county process, including the Pasco County registration route.
County certificate or state license: which one do you actually need?
This decision matters more than the exam. Under section 489.105(3) of the Florida Statutes, a certified contractor holds a certificate from the state and may contract in any jurisdiction in Florida without meeting that jurisdiction’s competency requirements. A registered contractor has met the local requirements and may contract only where that registration applies.
| Palm Beach certificate of competency | State license from the DBPR | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it works | Palm Beach County only | Every county in Florida |
| Who examines you | The county board, tested by Prov or GITS | The state, through its own vendor |
| Application fee | $450 for contractors, $100 for journeymen | Set by state rule, varies by category |
| Approval step | Board meeting, usually the fourth Monday | Department review, board referral if flagged |
| Renewal deadline | 30 September, every two years | 31 August, every two years |
| Specialty trades available | 23 county categories | State categories only |
If you plan to work only in one county, a local license may be cheaper and cover more trades. But if you want to work across Florida, a state license is the better choice.
Even with a state license, working in unincorporated Palm Beach County requires a simple county registration. The reported fee is $50, and there is no second exam, just paperwork.
What does it cost, and how long does it take?
The application fee is $450 for a contractor license and $100 for a journeyman license.
The exam costs $80 per part. You must pass two exams: Business & Law and your trade exam, with at least 75% on each.
The timing is important. Complete applications must be submitted by 4 p.m. on the first Friday of the month to be considered for that month’s board meeting, usually held on the fourth Monday.
The process takes about 30 to 45 days, and the board does not meet in September. Applicants with credit scores between 580 and 659 must also complete a financial responsibility course.
Miss the Friday deadline, and you may have to wait another month.
When does a Palm Beach certificate expire?
Everything expires on 30 September, but not everyone expires in the same year, and this is where generic licensing pages get it wrong. County contractors renew biennially in odd years. Journeymen, limited journeymen and limited contractors renew in even years. State licensees re-enrol with the county in even years. Renewal cards go out in late July or early August. The odd and even pattern comes from county documents whose worked examples are years old, so read the year printed on your own renewal card and confirm it with Contractor Regulations before the month turns.
| Who you are | Renewal year | Deadline | 14 hours of continuing education? |
|---|---|---|---|
| County certified contractor | Odd years, so 2027 next | 30 September | Yes, if renewing as active |
| Journeyman or limited journeyman | Even years, so 2026 | 30 September | No, excluded by the CILB rule |
| State licensee enrolled with the county | Even years, so 2026 | 30 September | Handled under the state cycle |
| The state license itself | Even years for certified, odd for registered | 31 August | Yes, 14 hours |
So if you are reading this in an even year and you hold a journeyman card, your renewal is live now. If you hold a contractor certificate, it is not, and you have until the following September. The county continuing education notice puts the 14 hour requirement on county contractors renewing as active or reactivating an inactive certificate, taken from a CILB approved provider, effective with the September 2019 renewal. Journeymen and technicians are excluded. The hours are the same 14 the state asks for, so holding both licences does not mean doing the work twice: our breakdown of Florida contractor continuing education covers which courses count.
Did the 2021 state law end county specialty licensing?
Partly, and the county list still carries the scar tissue. Section 489.117(4) of the Florida Statutes says a local government may not require a license for a job scope that does not substantially correspond to a state contractor category, and it names examples: painting, flooring, cabinetry, handyman services, pressure washing, caulking, stuccoing and plastering among them. Local governments could keep licensing veneer, gutters, siding, soffit, fascia and fence installation only where the requirement existed before 1 January 2021.
Look at what Palm Beach did. The specialty standards revised on 1 July 2025 now carve gutters on single family dwellings out of the aluminum specialties scope, which reads exactly like a response to that statute. Fence survived, as the grandfather clause allows. Plastering, though, is still listed as a county specialty category, and plastering is named in the statute. We are not going to tell you the county is wrong, because scope wording turns on detail a web page cannot settle. We will tell you to ring Contractor Regulations on 561-233-5525 and ask before you pay $450 for that one. Nothing else ranking for this query flags it at all.
What do people who have sat these exams actually report?
Palm Beach specific accounts are thin on the ground, so what follows is testimony about the Florida exams generally rather than evidence, and the county paper is a different paper. Across one r/Contractor thread from 14 April 2026 carrying 44 comments, we read five first hand accounts.
- The original poster, five years running jobs and crews, reported being caught out by the business and finance paper. Their diagnosis was time rather than content: open book only helps if you know where things live (r/Contractor, April 2026).
- A replier the same day put it more bluntly, saying the time crunch is what gets everyone and that knowing the books matters more than knowing the content.
- A commenter on 15 and 17 April 2026 passed after taking a class and listed tactics: move on if a question takes more than a minute, tab the books by trade section, and expect blueprint reading to carry only a small share of the marks. They suggested a community college class rather than a commercial course.
- A contractor holding North and South Carolina licences said they had heard Florida was the hardest and found the tables of contents and indexes were what actually mattered.
- A comment added on 26 August 2026 repeated the navigation point and then named a prep company, so read that one as an advertisement as much as an account.
The accounts agree with the official guidance on one point and quietly contradict the marketing on another. They agree these are open book papers, which the county confirms. They disagree with the idea that the exam is mainly a knowledge test, and not one of the five said the content was too hard. Where they split is whether you need to buy a course at all. Our piece on what open book actually changes is built around the same finding.
There is a harder record on the spending question. The Better Business Bureau file for Contractor Campus, Inc., a Florida contractor exam prep company, holds 27 complaints over three years, 25 of them unanswered. The complaints run from May to November 2024 and describe students losing access to courses they had paid for, in amounts from about $1,300 to over $3,000. One dated 19 November 2024 concerns a Florida glass and glazing course, which is one of the 23 Palm Beach specialty categories. The company closed in May 2024, and a competitor issued a press release offering to take on the stranded students, which corroborates the closure from the other side. Buy the books. Be slower about buying the course.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Palm Beach County contractor exam open book?
Yes. The county exams are delivered by computer and are timed and open book, covering business and law plus your construction trade. You need a minimum grade of 75 percent on both parts. Open book is not a discount, because the clock runs while you search.
Can I use a Palm Beach certificate of competency in Broward or Miami Dade?
No. A county certificate works inside the county that issued it. Some counties operate reciprocity, which needs a letter from the county that sponsored your original exam plus a fresh application to the county you are moving into. A state license avoids the question entirely.
How many trades does Palm Beach County license?
Thirty one categories as of the standards document updated on 1 July 2025: eight construction trades and 23 specialty trades. Higher counts circulating online appear to come from older lists, and two of the eight are journeyman categories that do not permit contracting.
Do I need continuing education for a Palm Beach journeyman card?
No. The county says the CILB rule excludes journeymen and technicians from the 14 hour requirement. County contractors renewing an active certificate do need the 14 hours from an approved provider, and the certificate is attached to the online portal renewal.
What happens if my application misses the first Friday deadline?
It rolls to the next board meeting rather than the next week, because applications are scheduled monthly. The board does not meet in September at all, so a late August application can sit longer than you expect. The county puts the full process at 30 to 45 days.
Does a state licensed contractor need anything from Palm Beach County?
You do not need a county certificate, but you do enrol your state license with the county to work in unincorporated areas, reported at a $50 enrollment fee, and you re-enrol in even years. Insurance and a business tax receipt are separate requirements.
Rules and fees change without notice. This page was verified on the date shown and is rechecked on the weekly refresh. If you hit something different, tell us in the comments.
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