How to verify a contractor in Washington State

Two minutes that prevent the worst remodeling stories

Every bad-contractor story you have heard in Clark County has the same first chapter: nobody checked the registration. Washington makes checking almost effortless, and the state database shows more than most homeowners realize. Here is exactly how to use it, and what a clean record looks like.

Step one: open L&I Verify

Go to secure.lni.wa.gov/verify, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries contractor lookup. Search by business name, registration number, or UBI. Every legitimately operating contractor in Washington is in this database, because working as a contractor without registration is illegal under RCW 18.27.

Step two: read the record like an inspector

Pull up any record and check five things:

• Status: ACTIVE. Suspended or expired means stop. A healthy record renews before expiration, cycle after cycle.
• Effective date. This tells you how long the company has operated under this registration in Washington. A registration issued three months ago behind a twenty-year sales pitch is a question worth asking out loud.
• Bond. The record lists the surety bond, its amount and carrier. The bond is what customers and suppliers can claim against when something goes wrong.
• Insurance. The record lists the liability policy, carrier and dates. Ask any contractor for a certificate of insurance naming you; a real one arrives from the agent, not the contractor's phone.
• Lawsuits and infractions. Verify lists suits against the bond and L&I citations. One old dispute is life; a pattern is a verdict.

Step three: match the number to the advertising

RCW 18.27.100 requires every ad that shows a contractor's name or address to display the current registration number: websites, yard signs, flyers, truck doors. The penalty runs up to $10,000 per violation. Ask for the number and match it to the record before you sign anything. An ad with no number means unregistered, or sloppy about the law that governs them; neither improves with a deposit check.

The red flags that end the conversation

• No registration number anywhere in their advertising or paperwork
• A bid dramatically below the others; in a market where contractors must collect 8.9 percent sales tax on the whole contract in Vancouver, a too-cheap bid is often a plan to skip the tax, the permit, or both
• Cash-only terms or pressure to pay large sums before work starts
• "We do not need a permit for this" on work that plainly moves walls, wiring or plumbing; see our permit explainer
• Door-to-door solicitation after storms, the classic pattern L&I warns consumers about

Verification is the floor, not the finish

A clean L&I record tells you a contractor is legal, bonded and insured. It does not tell you their work is good. For that, read how they write their scope: a line-item written price, a schedule, named materials, and a written workmanship warranty separate the professionals from the registered amateurs. Our license and insurance page shows our full record, and the estimate we give you puts everything in writing.