The Michigan Qualifying Officer: What MCL 339.2405 Actually Requires (2026)

Michigan's state license for residential construction work comes in two forms: the residential builder license and the residential maintenance and alteration (M&A) contractor license, both issued by the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) under Article 24 of the state's Occupational Code. When the applicant is a corporation, partnership, LLC or other entity rather than an individual, the person who carries that license for the business is the entity's qualifying officer, and the rules governing that role are stricter, in one specific way, than any other state we have written up.

The strictness is not in the hours or the paperwork. It is that Michigan wires the individual's license and the company's license together so that discipline against either one automatically hits the other. In both directions. By statute.

That single feature changes the arithmetic on every casual "just put my license on your company" conversation happening in Michigan, and almost nothing published about the role mentions it.

At a glance

• Michigan licenses residential work through two credentials, the residential builder license and the M&A contractor license, both defined at MCL 339.2401.
• Work totaling less than $600 in labor and materials on one project is generally exempt from licensure, under MCL 339.2403(f).
• A qualifying officer must be an officer, partner, member or managing agent of the entity, and must also hold an individual license, under MCL 339.2405(1).
• Discipline against the qualifying officer suspends the company, and discipline against the company suspends the qualifying officer, under MCL 339.2405(2) and (3).
• Electrical, plumbing and mechanical (HVAC) contractors are licensed under an entirely separate law, the Skilled Trades Regulation Act, not this one.

New to licensing in Michigan? Start with the Michigan contractor license requirements, and for every other state see how to get a contractor license in each state.

Which Michigan license do you need

Article 24 of the Occupational Code defines two residential credentials, and the difference decides which one an applicant needs.

• A person who buys, substantially improves and resells residential property more than twice in one calendar year also needs an M&A contractor license, under the same section.
• Neither license covers electrical, plumbing or mechanical work, which Michigan licenses under the separate Skilled Trades Regulation Act.

Not every residential job needs a license. MCL 339.2403(f) exempts a project where the combined contract price for labor, materials and other items totals less than $600. That exemption does not survive splitting one job into smaller contracts to land each one under that figure, and it does not apply where the work is only part of a larger project. A standalone $450 contract is exempt; two $450 contracts against the same $900 job are not.

Electrical, plumbing and mechanical (HVAC) contractors sit outside the Occupational Code entirely, licensed instead under the Skilled Trades Regulation Act (2016 PA 407), with their own designations. See our Michigan electrical contractor license, Michigan plumbing contractor license and Michigan HVAC license pages for those.

How to get a Michigan residential builder or M&A license

The path is the same whether the applicant is an individual or the future qualifying officer of an entity applicant:

1. Complete 60 hours of LARA-approved prelicensure courses, with at least 6 hours in each of seven named subject areas, under MCL 339.2404b(1).
2. Apply to LARA for licensure before scheduling an exam; the department reviews the application and authorizes testing.
3. Register for and pass the required examination through the department's contracted vendor, PSI Services LLC.
4. If the applicant is an entity, designate one officer, partner, member or managing agent as the qualifying officer, who must independently hold the individual license.
5. Maintain the license with continuing competency hours each 3-year cycle, detailed further down this page.

Where the qualifying officer rule actually lives

Search "Michigan qualifying officer" and the statute you will be handed is MCL 339.2404b. That is the wrong section. MCL 339.2404b governs the 60-hour prelicensure course of study and the continuing-competency requirements; it mentions qualifying officers only incidentally, in the context of who is exempt from prelicensure courses at renewal. It is on page one of the search results because it happens to contain the phrase.

The operative section is MCL 339.2405, part of Article 24 of Michigan's Occupational Code (Act 299 of 1980). It is four subsections long and every one of them does work. Licensing itself is administered by LARA through its Bureau of Construction Codes.

Who can be a qualifying officer

MCL 339.2405(1) opens with the designation requirement:

"if a corporation, partnership, association, limited liability company, or other entity applies for a license, the applicant shall designate 1 of its officers, partners, or members or its managing agent as a qualifying officer."

Read that list closely, because it is the whole ballgame: an officer, a partner, a member, or the managing agent. Michigan does not describe the qualifying officer as an employee, and it does not require a W-2, which some people read as an opening. It is the opposite of an opening. Michigan requires the person to hold a position in the entity. An outside consultant on a monthly retainer is not an officer, not a partner, not a member, and not the managing agent. The structure is required at the corporate level, not merely in payroll.

Three more requirements follow in the same subsection:

The qualifying officer needs two licenses, not one. "A qualifying officer shall also obtain and maintain a license under this article as an individual." Passing the exam and qualifying for the company does not substitute for individual licensure, the person holds both, continuously.

The role carries an affirmative supervision duty. "A qualifying officer is responsible for exercising the supervision or control of the building or construction operations necessary to secure full compliance with this article and the rules promulgated under this article." That is not a title. It is responsibility for the company's compliance, assigned by name.

Everyone in the entity gets screened, not just the qualifier. LARA "shall not issue a license to a corporation, partnership, association, limited liability company, or other entity unless each partner, trustee, director, officer, or member, and each person that exercises control over the entity, is at least 18 years of age and meets the requirements for a license under this article other than those relating to knowledge and experience." The "each person that exercises control" language reaches past the org chart to whoever is actually running things.

Three smaller provisions worth knowing. If an individual licensee is also a qualifying officer, LARA "shall include the individual's name and license number on any license issued to the individual as a qualifying officer", the person is named on the license, the same feature that makes Indiana's plumbing corporation rule so hard to work around. A licensee who has been granted inactive status under MCL 339.2404b "is not eligible to serve as a qualifying officer," closing an obvious workaround: you cannot park your individual license in inactive status and still qualify a company with it. And any officer, partner, member or managing agent who receives a license under this subsection, whether or not they are the qualifying officer, must provide the department a copy of their operator's license or state personal identification card, used for identification only.

The part nobody publishes: discipline runs both ways

This is the feature that should govern how anyone in Michigan thinks about the role.

MCL 339.2405(2), the company falls when the person falls:

"The license of a corporation, partnership, association, limited liability company, or other entity is suspended when a license or license application of a qualifying officer, partner, trustee, director, officer, or member, or a person that exercises control of the corporation, partnership, association, limited liability company, or other entity, is suspended, revoked, or denied. The suspension shall remain in force until the board determines that the disability created by the suspension, revocation, or denial is removed."

Note that it is not limited to the qualifying officer. A suspension against any partner, trustee, director, officer, member, or person exercising control suspends the company's license. Note also that it reaches a denied application, not only discipline against an existing license.

MCL 339.2405(3), and the person falls when the company falls:

"If an individual's license under this article is suspended, revoked, or denied by the board, any other license issued or applied for under this article is suspended, revoked, or denied. If the license of a corporation, partnership, association, limited liability company, or other entity is suspended, revoked, or denied, any other license issued to or applied for by the qualifying officer of that entity is suspended, revoked, or denied."

Read the second sentence twice. If the company's license is suspended, revoked or denied, the qualifying officer's other licenses, including their personal individual license, and including applications in flight, go with it.

For a licensed builder considering qualifying a company they do not control, that sentence is the entire risk analysis. This is not a credential supplied for a fee. You are attaching your personal license to the compliance record of a business whose decisions you may not be making, under a statute that transmits that business's discipline to you automatically. If they get suspended, you get suspended. There is no severability clause.

This is the mirror image of the risk on the company's side, and it is why a real qualifying-officer relationship has to include real authority. A person who bears the consequences of the company's compliance record needs the ability to control it. That is not a contractual nicety in Michigan; it is what subsection (1) already requires and what subsection (3) prices.

When a qualifying officer leaves

MCL 339.2405(4):

"If the qualifying officer of a licensee ceases to be its qualifying officer, the license is suspended. However, on request, the department may permit the license to remain in force for a reasonable time to permit the qualification of a new qualifying officer."

Two things to take from that. The default is immediate suspension, the statute does not grant a grace period and then suspend; it suspends, and then allows relief. And the relief is discretionary and request-based: LARA "may permit" the license to stay in force for "a reasonable time," but only "on request." Nobody at the department is going to initiate that for you.

If you are looking for a fixed number of days in the statute, there is not one. "A reasonable time" is what the text says. Anyone quoting you a specific statutory replacement deadline for Michigan builders should be asked which provision they are reading, because MCL 339.2405(4) does not contain one. Practically, the implication is worse than a deadline, not better: a fixed window at least tells you where you stand, whereas Michigan puts you in suspension the moment the officer departs unless you have already asked for and received relief. Plan the transition before it happens, our qualifier contingency plan covers how to do that across states.

What the credential itself requires

The qualifying officer must hold an individual residential builder or M&A contractor license, which means clearing the same requirements as any individual applicant.

Prelicensure education. Under MCL 339.2404b(1), an applicant for initial licensure must complete 60 hours of approved prelicensure courses including at least 6 hours in each of: business management, estimating and job costing; design and building science; contracts, liability and risk management; marketing and sales; project management and scheduling; the current Michigan residential code; and construction safety standards under the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Act. There are narrow exemptions, including one for certain armed-forces applicants under subsections (11) and (12), and note subsection (13), which bars a military-exempt applicant who fails the exam on the first attempt from retaking it until they complete the prelicensure course of study.

Continuing competency. The requirement is tiered by when the licensee was first licensed and by disciplinary history. A licensee who obtained an initial license on or after January 1, 2009 must complete at least 21 hours of continuing competency activities in each 3-year license cycle, including at least 3 hours in each of the first six calendar years of licensure. Longer-tenured licensees with no disciplinary action against them are on a lighter 3-hour per-cycle requirement that must include 1 hour of codes, 1 hour of safety and 1 hour of legal issues. Where LARA has taken disciplinary action, the licensee must complete between 3 and 21 hours in the next full cycle as the department orders.

Exam and application. The department contracts with PSI Services LLC to administer the examination. Exam and licensing fees, scheduling and application specifics are set by LARA and PSI, and they change, confirm current fees and procedures directly with LARA rather than relying on any third-party page, including this one.

Age and screening. Everyone in the entity's management must be at least 18 and meet the non-experience licensing requirements, per subsection (1).

Where this leaves a Michigan company

Put the four subsections together and the picture is coherent. Michigan wants a licensed individual who holds a real position in the business, holds their own license continuously, is named on the company's license, carries personal responsibility for the company's construction compliance, cannot be parked in inactive status, and whose fate is tied to the company's in both directions.

That is a description of a principal or a genuinely embedded senior employee. It is not a description of a vendor.

For a company that has the work but not the credential, there are three honest paths: someone inside the business earns the license, you bring in a qualified person as a real officer, member or managing agent, or you place a licensed professional into the business as a genuine full-time employee with the authority the role requires. The first is slowest and cheapest. The third is what we do.

A qualifying officer qualifies the company as an owner or full-time W-2 employee who supervises the work, nothing less. See what a qualifying agent is and how hiring one works for how that works in practice, or look at our contractor qualifier services if you need to fill the role itself.

The Licensing Company places qualifying professionals as W-2, full-time employees of the licensed business, never as 1099 contractors, never on a percentage of revenue, never per project. In Michigan the reason is especially concrete: subsection (3) means the placed professional's own license is exposed to the company's compliance record, and no one should accept that exposure without the position and authority the statute contemplates. The broader legal picture is in can a qualifying agent be a 1099 contractor and whether your qualifier must be an owner or an employee.

What a placement costs depends on the classification, the scope of work being qualified and the compliance risk involved, so there is no single figure worth publishing here. Licensed Michigan builders curious about the other side can look at becoming a qualifying agent. For the underlying license itself, see our Michigan general contractor license guide; other states are indexed on the states page.

FAQ

What is a qualifying officer in Michigan? The individual a corporation, partnership, LLC or other entity designates to qualify it for its residential builder or residential maintenance and alteration contractor license. Under MCL 339.2405(1) the person must be one of the entity's officers, partners or members, or its managing agent; must also hold and maintain an individual license under Article 24; and is responsible for exercising the supervision or control of construction operations necessary to secure full compliance.

What is the difference between a residential builder license and an M&A contractor license? The residential builder license covers new construction, prefabricated housing, and major alteration or demolition of a residential structure, under MCL 339.2401(a). The M&A contractor license covers repair, alteration, garage building, laying concrete, and flipping residential property more than twice a year, under MCL 339.2401(b); it does not authorize new construction.

Is there a dollar threshold under which a Michigan license is not required? Yes. MCL 339.2403(f) exempts a project where the combined contract price for labor, materials and other items totals less than $600. Splitting one job into several contracts to stay under that figure, or treating part of a larger project as its own small job, does not qualify for the exemption.

Does a Michigan qualifying officer have to be an owner? Not necessarily an owner, but they must hold a position: officer, partner, member, or managing agent. Michigan's list does not include "employee" or "contractor," so the relationship has to be structural. This differs from states like North Carolina and Wisconsin, which route the requirement through employment instead.

Does a Michigan qualifying officer have to be a W-2 employee? The statute does not use that language, it requires an officer, partner, member or managing agent instead. That is not a lower bar than employment; it is a different and in some ways higher one. States that do name the tax form are covered in our 1099 versus W-2 explainer.

Can one person be the qualifying officer for more than one Michigan company? MCL 339.2405 does not state a numeric cap, but subsections (2) and (3) create serious practical exposure: discipline against one entity reaches the qualifying officer's other licenses and applications. Anyone considering multiple entities should get advice specific to their situation from LARA or counsel before proceeding.

What happens to a Michigan company license if the qualifying officer leaves? Under MCL 339.2405(4) the license is suspended. On request, LARA may permit the license to remain in force for "a reasonable time" to allow a new qualifying officer to qualify, but the relief is discretionary and has to be requested. There is no fixed statutory number of days.

Can a builder in inactive status serve as a qualifying officer? No. MCL 339.2405(1) states that a licensee granted inactive status under MCL 339.2404b is not eligible to serve as a qualifying officer.

How many prelicensure hours does Michigan require? 60 hours of approved prelicensure courses for initial licensure, with at least 6 hours in each of seven named competency areas, under MCL 339.2404b(1). Narrow exemptions exist, including for certain armed-forces applicants.

Is the qualifying officer named on the license? Yes. Where an individual licensee is also a qualifying officer, LARA includes that individual's name and license number on the license issued to them as qualifying officer.

Ready to put a qualifying officer in place

If your Michigan company needs a residential builder or M&A contractor license and you do not yet have someone who can serve as qualifying officer, talk to us before you accept an informal arrangement that this statute does not protect. Call 615-219-2110 or start with how hiring a qualifying agent works.

Sources

• MCL 339.2401, Definitions, Michigan Occupational Code, retrieved October 12, 2026
• MCL 339.2403, Exemptions, Michigan Occupational Code, retrieved October 12, 2026
• MCL 339.2404b, Prelicensure and continuing competency, Michigan Occupational Code, retrieved October 12, 2026
• MCL 339.2405, Qualifying officer, Michigan Occupational Code, retrieved October 12, 2026

Statutory text cited here is MCL 339.2401, MCL 339.2403, MCL 339.2404b and MCL 339.2405, Michigan Occupational Code (Act 299 of 1980), read at official sources in October 2026; current through the 2025 compilation. Licensing requirements, fees and procedures are set by LARA and change, verify the current text and current fees with LARA before relying on them. This article is general information, not legal advice.