Delaware Contractor License: Requirements, Cost and Exams

Trades

Electrical, plumbing, and HVAC licensing

Delaware's competency licensing for construction trades lives with the Division of Professional Regulation, DPR, through two separate boards.

The Board of Electrical Examiners, under Title 24 Chapter 14, issues apprentice, journeyperson, master electrician, master electrician special, limited electrician, and limited electrician special licenses, with the special and limited special tiers restricted to specific scopes such as elevators or HVAC work (Delaware Division of Professional Regulation). The board meets monthly in Dover except August and December.

The Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners, also under Title 24, issues master plumber, master HVACR, and master restricted HVACR licenses, with the restricted license limiting practice to a stated specialty such as air conditioning (Delaware Division of Professional Regulation). This board revised its regulations effective March 11, 2025: a restricted HVACR applicant now needs to pass only the exam section tied to their restriction, and new continuing education requirements apply starting with the 2026 renewal cycle (Delaware Division of Professional Regulation). The board meets monthly in Dover except June and December. Plumbing licensing reciprocity may be available with Connecticut, Iowa, and Maryland. This is not stated in the board materials reviewed for this page and should be confirmed with the board before being relied upon.

Sources disagree on the exact renewal and expiration dates for HVACR licensing: one source states renewal happens in even years expiring December 31, while Delaware's Business First Steps listing states that Plumbing and HVACR licenses expire October 31 of even years. The Delaware Division of Professional Regulation and its official regulations search should be treated as controlling, and the exact renewal date should be confirmed before relying on it.

What changed

Recent updates

Delaware still has no statewide general contractor license, no competency exam for general contracting, and no qualifying individual system for a general contracting company. The non resident contractor bond rule and the statute numbers behind it are confirmed below with exact citations. The Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners revised its regulations effective March 11, 2025, under Title 24. The revision clarifies that a restricted HVACR applicant only has to pass the exam section tied to the restriction, and it adds continuing education requirements that take effect for the 2026 renewal cycle (Delaware Division of Professional Regulation, checked against the official state regulation search). Anyone renewing a plumbing or HVACR license in Delaware should plan for continuing education as part of the 2026 renewal, since this requirement may be new compared to earlier renewal cycles.

General contracting: no state license, no exam, two registrations instead

Delaware does not license general contractors through any state board, and there is no general contracting competency exam. Two separate state requirements apply instead to anyone doing contracting business in the state, and both are administrative rather than competency based (Delaware Division of Revenue; Delaware Code Online).

The first is the Division of Revenue contractor business license. Anyone doing business in Delaware as a contractor must obtain this license before or in conjunction with executing a contract. The statutory fee is 75 dollars, with an additional ongoing license fee of 0.6472 percent of aggregate gross receipts payable monthly as part of the state's gross receipts tax system (Delaware Code Online, Title 30 Chapter 25 Section 2502). Residents file a Resident Contractors Package, and non residents file a separate Non Resident Contractors Package, both through the Delaware One Stop portal (Delaware Division of Revenue).

The second is registration with the Department of Labor's Office of Contractor Registration under the Delaware Contractor Registration Act, Title 19 Chapter 36. A contractor, defined broadly to include subcontractors and lower tier subcontractors, must register before performing construction services or maintenance work in the state (Delaware Department of Labor; Delaware Code Online, Title 19 Chapter 36). This is a two year certificate. Sources differ on the exact registration fee, with figures ranging from 200 to 500 dollars depending on whether the work is private, public, or both. The application portal states that fees depend on the type of work performed, so the exact number should be confirmed on the application itself (Delaware One Stop business portal). Registered contractors appear on a public lookup at the Delaware contractor registry lookup, and a contractor missing from that list has either not applied or has been removed. The application requires a safety plan and proof of Delaware workers compensation coverage.

Because there is no competency license, there is no NASCLA acceptance in Delaware and no exam vendor to verify for general contracting. Delaware does not appear on the NASCLA Accredited Commercial Building Contractor exam's participating jurisdiction list (NASCLA). A NASCLA certificate does not help in Delaware, because Delaware has no general contractor exam for it to satisfy.

Because there is no license, there is also no qualifying individual concept for a general contracting company in Delaware. The business license and the contractor registration both attach to the business entity itself through the registration packet, not to an individual qualifier, so there is nothing equivalent to a qualifier replacement deadline for general contracting in this state.

Non resident contractor bond

Non resident contractors and subcontractors licensed under Chapter 25 must post a bond when their contract, or their combined contracts in one calendar year, total 20,000 dollars or more. The bond amount is 6 percent of the contract price, or 6 percent of the combined total when multiple contracts in a calendar year reach that threshold amount together, and for cost plus contracts it applies to the contractor's estimated cost and profit (Delaware Code Online, Title 30 Chapter 3 Subchapter V Section 375(a)(1)). The Division of Revenue may accept a cash bond in place of a surety bond, held in a special state fund (Delaware Code Online, same section). The Division's non resident contractor forms also list a Non Resident Contractor Bond form, a Cash Bond Receipt form, an Irrevocable Letter of Credit option, and a Letter for Contract Under 20,000 Dollars, confirming that contracts under the statutory threshold amount can be handled with a simple letter instead of a bond (Delaware Division of Revenue). The statute language above is the authoritative source for this bond requirement and should be treated as controlling over any third party fee or process summary; current procedures should be confirmed directly with the Division of Revenue.

Local rules on top of the state layer

Delaware's statewide requirements sit under local permitting. In at least Wilmington, local contractor registration with its own bond and insurance rules applies before pulling permits. Specific Wilmington bond and insurance figures are not stated in the materials reviewed for this page and should be confirmed directly with the city. Other counties and municipalities may layer on their own registration or permit rules as well.