Independent research · Ohio · statewide only

Ohio Contractor & Specialty-Trade Licensing Intelligence

Name: Ohio contractor official source snapshot
Creator: Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board

Ohio does not have one universal statewide general-contractor license. The Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board (OCILB) licenses five commercial specialty trades: Electrical, HVAC, Hydronics, Plumbing, and Refrigeration. The license holder is an individual. A company association on the roster is not a separate state company license. One license holder can hold multiple trade credentials on the same numeric identity. Residential and general contracting can involve local registration. Fire-protection installer and designer systems are separate. Missing or search-only evidence is not zero. This is not a ranking, recommendation, or Trust Score.

No Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, or other local Ohio contractor pages are published from this statewide page.

Snapshot contractor-oh-state-intel-v1 · fingerprint b7e441958066 · retrieved 2026-09-18T13:30:18.794218+00:00. Retrieval is not a license effective date. The current no-fee listing is ACTIVE and ACTIVE IN RENEWAL; it is not a historical inactive/expired/suspended census.

9,528

Distinct OCILB numeric license identities in the current no-fee listing

Not 12,461 trade-credential rows. Not a statewide general-contractor census. Not every Ohio residential contractor. One person can hold multiple trade prefixes on the same numeric identity.

4,489

OCILB electrical credentials (EL.)

Distinct EL. credentials. Not unique contractors across all trades.

19,990

Distinct SFM fire-protection individual certificate IDs

Category rows are 30,042. Do not treat category rows as unique installers. SFM is not OCILB.

2,182

SFM fire-protection company certificates

Company certification is not installer certification and not an OCILB contracting-company license.

Trace this number

Source: OCILB eLicense no-fee Generate Roster; SFM Testing and Registration no-fee Generate Roster
Source date: 2026-09-18
Denominator: Separate official datasets. Trades, fire certificates, and discipline are not added.
Calculation: Numeric OCILB license identity is the hero grain. Trade-credential rows are kept distinct. SFM individual certificates collapse category repeats.
Reporting grain: OCILB formatted credential / numeric identity; SFM certificate ID
Coverage: Statewide Ohio intelligence only. No Columbus or Cleveland pages.
Caveat: ACTIVE IN RENEWAL is not expired. Search-only discipline is not zero. Local registration is not an OCILB license.

OCILB commercial specialty-trade licensing

Chapter 4740 licenses an individual for a licensed construction project and excludes a residential building as defined under the building-code chapter. OCILB is not a statewide general-contractor license and not a universal residential-contractor license. Statewide general-contractor roster status is UNSUPPORTED. Verify on OCILB License Lookup. No-fee roster generation: Generate Roster(s). Board: Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board. Statute: ORC Chapter 4740.

Electrical (EL.): 4,489 distinct credentials / 4,492 listing rows
HVAC (HV.): 3,129 / 3,131
Hydronics (HY.): 955 / 955
Plumbing (PL.): 3,063 / 3,064
Refrigeration (RE.): 818 / 819

All-trade listing rows: 12,461. Distinct formatted credentials: 12,454. Distinct numeric license identities: 9,528. Distinct licensee person keys: 9,504. Distinct associated company names (ESCROW excluded): 8,568. Do not publish the all-trade row sum as unique contractors. Training Agency (TA) was excluded.

Person, credential, and company

The license belongs to an individual. The roster may name a contracting company associated with that individual. That association is not a separate OCILB company license. 1,664 numeric identities appear in more than one trade prefix (example: HY.10621 and PL.10621). Person keys are not merged by name: 23 name keys map to more than one numeric identity. Exact roster person-to-company bridges: 12,363. The dedicated Company Licensee Lookup remains OPEN_SEARCH_ONLY; this ticket did not reconstruct employers by fuzzy name matching. Public address is not headquarters. Company string is not a proven legal entity. Licensee address is not service territory.

Status / active / renewal

Source-native statuses in the current listing: ACTIVE 11,486 credential rows; ACTIVE IN RENEWAL 975. ACTIVE IN RENEWAL is not expired and not inactive. Expired, suspended, and revoked counts in this current listing are 0 because those records are not in the no-fee current roster — that is not proof Ohio has zero inactive licenses. Some rows encode ESCROW as the company string (88 rows); ESCROW is not a contracting company. Do not add incompatible trade rows into an “active contractors” total without deduping the license holder.

General / residential gap and local registration

Local jurisdictions may separately regulate or register contractors. Local contractor registration is not an OCILB license. Municipal general-contractor registration is not a statewide contractor license. A Columbus or Cleveland contractor is not a statewide credential. No local Ohio intelligence routes are authorized in this ticket.

OCILB discipline and unlicensed enforcement

Specialty sections may suspend, revoke, refuse to issue, require additional continuing education, or fine. This ticket found no bounded public structured statewide discipline catalog, so coverage is OPEN_SEARCH_ONLY — not zero. A complaint is not a disciplinary action. A notice of proposed action is not a final order. A fine is not a revocation. Additional CE is not a suspension. A criminal conviction is not an administrative action. Name-only attachment is unsafe.

Ohio law permits the attorney general, on request of a specialty section, to seek an injunction against a person acting as a Chapter 4740 contractor without required licensure. No structured public injunction catalog was acquired. Unlicensed enforcement rows remain null / OPEN_SEARCH_ONLY. This hub does not publish a news-derived blacklist.

Fire-protection installers, companies, and designers

The Ohio State Fire Marshal separately certifies persons and companies engaged for profit in installing, testing, repairing, or maintaining fire-protection equipment. That is not an OCILB electrical contractor license. Individual installer certification is not company certification. Current no-fee SFM listing: 19,990 distinct individual certificate IDs (30,042 category rows) and 2,182 company certificates. Largest individual category is Fire Alarms / Detection (14,583 category rows). Verify on SFM License Lookup. Certification rules: Fire Protection Certification.

Low-voltage firewall: ORC 4740.13(D) excludes certain systems using less than fifty volts — including qualifying fire alarm, burglar alarm, cabling, tele-data, sound, communication, and landscape lighting / irrigation — from OCILB electrical-contractor licensure. Absence of an EL. credential does not automatically prove a low-voltage fire-alarm contractor is unlicensed. Research the SFM certification path.

Board of Building Standards fire-protection system designer certifications (water-based, fire alarm, special hazards) are not contractor licenses. Public license lookup for BBS certifications is a future portal update; designer rows remain null / OPEN_SEARCH_ONLY. Designer is not installer is not OCILB contractor. BBS: Board of Building Standards certifications.

Prevailing wage and permits

The Commerce Prevailing Wage Portal publishes commercial public-works rates and requires OHID for rate access. No public structured contractor debarment or enforcement catalog was acquired. Prevailing-wage debarment rows remain null. Rates are not contractor identities. Portal: Prevailing Wage Portal.

Building permits are LOCAL_OR_FRAGMENTED. This ticket does not begin local permit acquisition.