Washington Contractor License Lookup: What to Check

Washington's Department of Labor and Industries runs a public tool called Verify a Contractor. Anyone can use it to look up a contractor's registration status, bond, insurance, violations, and more.

The tool is straightforward to find. What is less straightforward is interpreting what the results actually mean — especially the difference between a contractor who is technically registered and one who is fully compliant.

A contractor can show "Active" registration while their bond is expired, their insurance is unverified, and their specialty classification does not cover the work you need. The L&I record shows all of these fields, but it does not highlight the gaps. That is on you.

How to find the record

Go to the L&I Verify a Contractor page. You can search by:

• Business name — Use the legal name, not a trade name or DBA
• UBI number — The Unified Business Identifier assigned by the state
• Contractor registration number — The L&I-specific registration ID

If the contractor does not appear in the results, they may not be registered. Under RCW 18.27, most contractors performing construction work for compensation in Washington must be registered. Common area work for an HOA is not exempt.

What each field means

Registration status

This is the first field most people check, and the most commonly misunderstood.

Active — The contractor is currently registered with L&I. This is the only acceptable status for work to proceed.

Expired — The registration was not renewed. The contractor is not legally authorized to perform work for compensation.

Suspended — L&I has taken action against the registration. This is more serious than expired — it means there was a cause for suspension (unpaid taxes, missing insurance, violations).

Revoked — The registration has been permanently cancelled. The contractor cannot perform work under this registration.

What "Active" does not tell you: that the bond is current, that insurance is verified, or that the specialty matches your project. Those are separate fields on the same record.

Registration type

General Contractor — Can perform any type of construction work and hire subcontractors. Required when a project spans multiple trades.

Specialty Contractor — Registered for specific trade categories (electrical, plumbing, roofing, HVAC, landscaping, etc.). Can only perform work within the registered specialty.

The red flag: a specialty contractor being hired for work outside their registered trade. A plumbing contractor doing drainage work on a common area may not be covered if the work falls outside their classification. If something goes wrong, the registration the board relied on may not apply.

Surety bond

L&I requires all registered contractors to maintain a surety bond: $30,000 minimum for general contractors, $15,000 for specialty (effective July 2024).

The record shows:

• Bond amount — The dollar value of the bond
• Bond effective date and expiration date — The active window
• Bond company — The surety that issued the bond

Red flags:

• Expiration date in the past (bond has lapsed)
• Bond amount at the statutory minimum on a large project (limited recovery if something goes wrong)
• No bond on file at all

An expired bond means the contractor is non-compliant even if their registration status still shows Active. These are separate fields.

Insurance

L&I tracks whether the contractor has insurance verification on file. Check whether insurance is shown as verified and current.

If insurance shows as unverified or not on file, the contractor may have coverage but L&I has not confirmed it. From the board’s perspective, unverified insurance is functionally the same as no insurance — you cannot rely on it.

This is one of the most important fields on the record and one of the most overlooked. A contractor can be Active and bonded while insurance verification is missing. If that contractor causes damage or a worker is injured, the HOA may have no coverage to rely on.

Workers' compensation

L&I shows whether the contractor carries industrial insurance (workers' comp through L&I) or has an approved self-insurance program.

Workers' comp is separate from general liability. A contractor can have one without the other. Sole proprietors with no employees may not be required to carry workers’ comp, but the HOA’s risk does not change — an uninsured worker injured on common property can still file a claim against the association as the property owner.

Violations and infractions

L&I tracks violations, citations, and infractions. The record may show:

• Safety citations
• Lawsuits against the bond
• Unregistered work violations
• Workers' comp violations

A single old citation is different from a pattern of recent violations. Look at both the number and the dates. Recent and repeated violations are a stronger signal than one issue from years ago.

The five things to confirm before approving work

When you pull up a contractor's L&I record, check all five:

1. Registration status is Active — Not expired, suspended, or revoked
2. Specialty matches the work — Or the contractor is a general contractor
3. Bond is current — Expiration date is in the future
4. Insurance is verified — Shown as verified and current
5. No recent serious violations — Check the violation history

If any of these five checks fails, the contractor has a compliance gap — even if the others look fine. Each one is a separate system that can lapse independently.

What the L&I record does not show

The L&I record does not show:

• Whether the contractor has additional insured endorsement naming your HOA (you need to get that from the COI directly)
• The coverage limits of their insurance policies
• Whether they carry commercial auto coverage
• W-9 or tax compliance status
• Quality of work, customer reviews, or project history

The L&I record confirms state registration compliance. It does not confirm that the contractor is fully covered for your specific project. That requires additional verification.

For a more detailed breakdown of Washington registration requirements, including bond minimums and exemptions, see Washington Contractor Registration Requirements.

How BuildRated monitors this automatically

BuildRated pulls data directly from the L&I contractor database and evaluates every field described above as part of each contractor's compliance profile.

When a registration expires, a bond lapses, insurance verification drops, or a new violation appears, BuildRated's daily compliance check flags the change and notifies any HOA with a payment relationship to that contractor. Boards do not need to remember to re-check the L&I record before every project — the system watches for changes and surfaces them.

The VECR (Vendor Eligibility and Compliance Record) packages the full compliance picture — L&I status, bond, insurance, violations, and payment history — into a single document. For the full specification, see VECR: Vendor Eligibility and Compliance Record.