Kansas has no statewide contractor licensing.
Requirements checked against the Kansas Attorney General (statewide roofing registration); all other contractor licensing is local published requirements on September 29, 2026.
| Licensing board | No state board or state general contractor license. Licensing is local by city or county (Johnson County, Sedgwick County MABCD for Wichita, Topeka, Wyandotte County Unified Government, Lawrence). The only statewide license is roofing registration through the Kansas Attorney General. |
|---|---|
| License required when | No dollar threshold. Local classes split by structure height and use, not contract value. Roofing for a fee anywhere in Kansas requires AG registration regardless of size. |
| What the state calls the qualifier | Named qualifying individual on each local license (an owner or full time employee); Kansas has no statewide general contractor qualifier |
| NASCLA exam accepted | no |
| Reciprocity and endorsement | none stated (only in state electrician reciprocity between Kansas counties and cities under K.S.A. 12-1526) |
| Exam waivers | No interstate waiver. Every out of state applicant must test and apply fresh in the Kansas jurisdiction where they will work. In state electricians licensed in one Kansas county or city are excused from retesting in another. |
| Experience required | None. Qualifying route is a passing ICC exam (75 percent) or, for some specialty classes, a relevant bachelor's degree or industry certification such as NICET. |
| Application and exam fees | Johnson County: 100 dollars to apply plus 225 dollars for the license, per license type. ICC exam 115 dollars per exam. |
| Renewal | Johnson County: 225 dollars annually, 75 dollar late fee after February 1. |
| Time to license | Sedgwick County MABCD: up to two weeks after a complete application. Johnson County and Topeka: no published turnaround. |
| Bond and financial requirements | No net worth statement or bond. General liability and workers compensation insurance required; Sedgwick County requires at least 300000 dollars general liability. |
| Penalty for unlicensed work | Roofing without AG registration: civil penalties up to 10000 dollars per violation. No penalty stated for local general contractor licenses. |
| Time to replace a qualifier | Not published by Johnson County, Sedgwick County, or Topeka. Confirm directly with each department. |
| Companies one qualifier may qualify | Not published locally. Each program requires a named qualifying individual (owner or full time employee); whether one person can qualify multiple companies must be confirmed with each county or city. |
Facts checked on August 12, 2026.
Each line was checked against the state board’s published requirements on the date shown. Not stated means the board material we reviewed did not state it, so we do not guess. Boards change rules; confirm the current figure with the board before you file.
General contractors and the electrical, plumbing, and mechanical trades are licensed city by city and county by county, with the Johnson County Contractor Licensing program, Wichita, Topeka, and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City running the programs that matter most. The one statewide requirement is roofing: any contractor offering roofing services for a fee in Kansas must register with the Kansas Attorney General under the Kansas Roofing Registration Act. Because there is no state license, there is no state qualifying agent requirement in Kansas, and your compliance work happens at the local permit counter.
Kansas has no statewide general contractor license; general contracting is licensed city by city and county by county, with license holders designated locally, such as MABCD's requirement that each company designate a qualified person authorized to bind it contractually. Roofing is the exception, licensed statewide by the Kansas Attorney General. Kansas has no statewide qualifying agent system.
Kansas has no statewide general contractor license. General contracting is licensed city by city and county by county (Kansas Business Center). The one exception is roofing, which is licensed at the state level by the Kansas Attorney General under the Roofing Contractor Registration Act (Kansas Attorney General, Kansas Revisor of Statutes). Electrical, plumbing, and mechanical/HVAC contracting are also handled locally rather than by a state board, despite some third party websites claiming otherwise.
MABCD, Wichita and Sedgwick County, issues General Contractor licenses in Class A, B, C, and D, plus separate categories for Cell Tower, Fire Sprinkler, Roofing and/or Siding, Swimming Pool, Wrecking, Solar, and a not otherwise classified category. Separate trade contractor licenses exist for electrical, plumbing, mechanical, gas fitting, drain cleaning, drain laying, elevator, fire suppression, handicap accessibility, lawn irrigation, refrigeration, sheet metal, solid fuel, and mobile home installation. General contractor licenses expire December 31 of even numbered years; trade licenses expire December 31 of odd numbered years (Sedgwick County).
Johnson County uses Class A for general work, Class B for building work up to three stories, and Class C for residential work, with a set of D series specialty licenses covering electrical, fire suppression, fire alarms, mechanical/HVAC, plumbing, roofing, swimming pools, and wood framing (Johnson County Kansas).
A bonding or net worth dollar threshold for MABCD or Johnson County is not stated in the board materials reviewed for this page. The financial requirement in both programs is liability insurance, not a bonded net worth tier the way some state boards run it.
Both MABCD and Johnson County use ICC, the International Code Council, standard exams, commonly called the Kansas Standard exam, with a minimum passing score of 75 percent (Sedgwick County, Johnson County Kansas). Johnson County also accepts a bachelor's degree in architecture, engineering, or construction science as an alternate path in place of the exam. Kansas statute historically recognized two testing agencies, ICC and Prometric, but Prometric stopped offering individual and contractor construction license testing nationwide effective August 31, 2021. Since then, ICC exams, delivered through Pearson VUE, are the exam vendor in use across Kansas municipal programs. References to Prometric or Block and Associates for a Kansas trade exam are out of date.
NASCLA acceptance in Kansas is not stated in the board materials reviewed for this page. There is no state license for NASCLA to attach to, and the two largest local programs, MABCD and Johnson County, both test on the ICC Kansas Standard exam, with no mention of NASCLA in either program's materials. NASCLA acceptance should not be assumed for any Kansas jurisdiction unless specifically confirmed by that jurisdiction.
Kansas runs no statewide qualifying agent system the way Florida, Georgia, or North Carolina do. MABCD requires each licensed company to designate a qualified person authorized to bind the company contractually, and a sole proprietor files under the format "applicant name doing business as company name" (Sedgwick County). Johnson County charges a $100 application fee plus $225 per license type and requires commercial general liability coverage of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence from a company licensed to write insurance in Kansas (Johnson County Kansas). The ICC exam required for Johnson County licensing costs $115 per exam through Pearson VUE (ICC State of Kansas bulletin, published August 20, 2026). MABCD's minimum general liability figure found was $300,000. A cap on how many companies one qualifying individual may qualify, or a fixed deadline to replace a qualifier who leaves, is not stated in either program's public materials. Confirm current numbers for both directly with the city or county licensing desk.
A uniform timeline for Kansas city and county GC programs is not stated in the board materials reviewed for this page. The one hard number is the roofing registration, where the Attorney General has 60 calendar days from application to issue or deny (Kansas Revisor of Statutes).
No true reciprocity exists between Kansas jurisdictions. MABCD's own materials state plainly that MABCD does not reciprocate with other jurisdictions, including other Kansas ones (Sedgwick County). Some other sources claim ICC exam scores can carry from one Kansas jurisdiction to another, for example from Johnson County into Sedgwick County or Topeka, but this is not confirmed in the official program materials reviewed for this page and directly conflicts with MABCD's own no reciprocity statement. Any claim of reciprocity between Kansas jurisdictions should be confirmed directly with the receiving jurisdiction.
Electrical, plumbing, and mechanical/HVAC contracting are all licensed locally in Kansas, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, the same as general contracting (Kansas Business Center). A commonly repeated error online claims the Kansas State Board of Technical Professions, KSBTP, licenses electricians. It does not. KSBTP regulates engineers, architects, landscape architects, land surveyors, and geologists only (Kansas Board of Technical Professions). Kansas statute does set some minimum statewide standards for journeyman electrician competency and recognized exam types, found in the Kansas Statutes Annotated chapter 12, article 15 (Kansas Revisor of Statutes), but licensing, testing, and issuance still happen at the city or county level, not through a state board.
The one genuine state level construction license in Kansas is roofing, under the Roofing Contractor Registration Act, administered by the Kansas Attorney General, not a local building department. It lives in chapter 50, article 6 of the Kansas Statutes Annotated (Kansas Attorney General, Kansas Revisor of Statutes). Anyone engaging in commercial or residential roofing services for a fee in Kansas, including construction, installation, renovation, repair, maintenance, alteration, or waterproofing of roofs, must hold this registration unless they qualify as an exempt general contractor. An applicant must be at least 18, submit a sworn statement of experience and qualifications, proof of general liability insurance of at least $500,000, proof of workers' compensation coverage or an exemption affidavit, a current Kansas tax clearance certificate, and government photo ID. There is no exam for this registration. The Attorney General has 60 calendar days to issue or deny. The certificate is valid one year and expires June 30 every year regardless of issue date, with renewal due by June 30, a 30 day grace period to July 31 with a late fee of up to $300, and automatic revocation after that. The registration and renewal fee is set by the Attorney General and capped by statute at $500. Other sources cite a current fee closer to $250; this is not confirmed in the primary statute or on the Attorney General's site, so the fee should be treated as up to $500, with the current amount confirmed directly with the Attorney General's office.
A general contractor can be exempt from registering separately for roofing under two paths, both codified effective July 1, 2015 by House Bill 2254 (Kansas Legislature, Kansas Revisor of Statutes, chapter 50 article 6 of the Kansas Statutes Annotated): first, if the general contractor is in compliance with Kansas business requirements, performs roofing as part of a broader construction, renovation, repair, or waterproofing project where roofing is not more than 50 percent of total project cost, and does not do door to door sales; second, if the general contractor subcontracts the roofing portion to a properly registered roofing contractor instead of performing it directly. Roofing should never be assumed to be automatically covered under a general contractor's status without checking which of these two exemption paths applies, because most standalone roofing companies and most reroof specialists do not qualify for either one and must register directly with the Attorney General.
There is no state board for general contracting. The programs most contractors in Kansas will encounter are the City of Wichita and Sedgwick County, run jointly as MABCD, the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department (Sedgwick County); Johnson County's Contractor Licensing division, which covers Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, Shawnee, and other member cities under an interlocal agreement (Johnson County Kansas); the City of Lawrence (City of Lawrence); the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas; the City of Topeka; and smaller programs such as Salina and Manhattan. Requirements, fees, and exam rules differ across every one of these, so a license from one Kansas jurisdiction should not be assumed to be valid in another.
Official Licensing Authority
All contractor license applications, renewals, and qualifying agent changes must go through this board.
We place a licensed qualifying agent with your company as a full time W-2 employee and prepare the qualifier filing with the Kansas Attorney General (statewide roofing registration); all other contractor licensing is local. Tell us your trade and what you have going on, and pick a time for a discovery call. Or call 615-219-2110.
Provide your information for a compliance assessment.
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