Georgia · Concrete licensing · official-source guide
Georgia does not license concrete contracting. The State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors lists Concrete Work and Masonry as limited service specialty trades needing no residential or general contractor license inside that scope. Signing an owner's contract for a whole structure changes that, and triggers a trade exam, the Business and Law exam, and insurance minimums.
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Verify a licenseVerified against agency sources on 2026-10-26. Rules and fees change; confirm with the named authority before relying on this guide.
Georgia has no state license for concrete contracting. The agency that would issue one if it existed is the State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors, part of the Georgia Secretary of State's professional licensing operation. Its governing law is O.C.G.A. Title 43, Chapter 41, and its rules fill Department 553 of the Georgia Administrative Code. The board licenses four things: residential-basic contractors, residential-light commercial contractors, general contractors, and general contractors on a limited tier. Flatwork, footings, slabs, foundations and masonry are not among them. The board itself has said so. Its limited service specialty contractor policy statement, revised 01/31/12, names Concrete Work and Masonry on a list of trades that do not have to carry a residential or general contractor license. The board's consumer guidance repeats the point, listing brick masons among the specialty services that need no license from this board. Two naming details trip people up. The board's current landing page is headed State Licensing Board for Residential and Commercial General Contractors, and gives an address of 214 State Capitol, Atlanta, Georgia 30334. The rules chapter, the fee schedule and the exam bulletin all use the older name, State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors, and the fee schedule prints a Macon address of 237 Coliseum Drive. Same board. A concrete contractor searching for the wrong name will think the agency does not exist. What follows covers both halves of the picture. First, how far the specialty exemption carries a concrete company. Second, the residential and general contractor license that starts applying the moment a concrete company takes a contract wider than its own trade.
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The board publishes a page of limited service specialty contractor policy statements. Concrete Work appears on it. So does Masonry, Concrete Vaults, Sitework, Rough Carpentry, Finish Carpentry, EIFS and Stucco, Streetscapes, Tennis Court, Re-Roofing of Existing Structures, and roughly thirty more entries. The page states that traditional specialty contractors will not be required to carry a residential and general contractor license, as long as the work complies with applicable codes and ordinances. Three limits sit on that exemption, and all three matter to a concrete company. The first is scope. Most entries on the list carry the warning that a company may be required to hold a contractor license if it exceeds the stated scope of work. The board does not publish a bright line for Concrete Work. A crew that pours slabs, drives, curbs and footings under someone else's prime contract is squarely inside the trade. A company that signs the owner's contract for a whole structure is not. The second is Chapter 14. The policy page states that nothing in Chapter 41 permits a specialty contractor to perform work falling under Chapter 14 licensing. That chapter covers electrical, plumbing, conditioned air, low-voltage and utility contracting. Trenching for a sanitary sewer tie-in or setting conduit in a pour can cross that line, and the specialty exemption gives no cover for it. The third is that the list is the board's own working document. The page says the list is under development and subject to change, and invites written comment to the board in Macon. A concrete contractor relying on it should check the page before quoting unusual work rather than relying on a copy saved years ago. Employees of a licensed residential or general contractor working under a valid permit are separately exempt from holding their own license.
The line that catches concrete companies is the statutory definition of residential contractor in O.C.G.A. 43-41-2. A residential contractor is one who performs the covered work where the total value of the work or the contractor's compensation, whichever is higher, exceeds $2,500. The categories are residential-basic and residential-light commercial. Electrical, plumbing, conditioned air, low-voltage and utility work is carved out and reserved to Chapter 14 licensees. Read together with the specialty policy, the practical rule looks like this. Pouring a driveway, a patio, a garage slab or a set of footings is Concrete Work, a specialty trade, and the $2,500 figure does not drag it into licensure. Contracting with a homeowner to build the house those footings carry is residential contracting, and the license applies. The repair exception is the other door, and Georgia wrote conditions into it. Rule 553-8-.01 defines repair as fixing, mending, maintenance, replacement or restoring of a part or portion of real property to good condition. To use the exception, the person doing the work has to disclose in writing to the owner that the person or company is not licensed as a residential or general contractor. The work cannot be subcontracted out to anyone other than employees. It cannot affect life safety requirements or structural integrity, and it specifically cannot include removing or adding a load bearing wall or cutting a structural beam or load bearing support. Permits and inspections still have to be pulled from the local authority. That last condition is the one a foundation repair company has to read carefully. Underpinning, pier work and slab lifting touch structural integrity. The repair exception is written not to cover that. The same $2,500 figure also triggers the written warranty requirement for single-family residence contracts under O.C.G.A. 43-41-7.
Commercial concrete work raises the second question: at what point does a concrete company need the general contractor license rather than the residential one. O.C.G.A. 43-41-2 defines a general contractor as a contractor whose services are unlimited as to the type of work, subject to the financial limits the board sets by subclassification under 43-41-5(b)(8). The board's licensure chart describes a general contractor as one who undertakes private, commercial, institutional, industrial and public buildings contracted directly with an owner. That phrase, contracted directly with an owner, is the test that matters. A concrete subcontractor placing tilt-up panels, slab on grade, suspended decks or mat foundations under a general contractor's prime contract is performing its specialty trade. The same company bidding the building itself to the owner is general contracting and needs the license. Georgia splits the license into two tiers. The limited tier is capped by rule 553-4 at any contract of no more than $1,000,000. The unlimited general contractor license carries no contract cap. Rule 553-4 also sets the route between them: a limited tier holder who wants the unlimited license submits a new application and meets the financial and other requirements for that type, rather than amending the existing one. Two outside limits apply on top. General contractors may not perform Chapter 14 electrical, plumbing, conditioned air, low-voltage or utility work. And O.C.G.A. 25-2-13 pulls certain buildings into mandatory licensed construction because their construction or use makes them a special hazard, which the board cites when explaining that an organization cannot build its own public assembly building without a licensed contractor. Splitting one job into phases to stay under the limited tier cap is treated by the board as circumventing the law.
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The board's licensure comparison chart, revised 06/22, sets out the scope of each license. Residential-basic covers detached one-family and two-family homes, one-family townhouses of no more than three stories, and their accessory buildings and structures. There is no contract dollar limit. Residential-light commercial covers everything residential-basic covers, plus multifamily and multiuse light commercial buildings and their accessory structures, where the building is fewer than four stories, under 25,000 square feet of aggregate interior floor space, and built of wood frame, light-gauge metal frame, brick veneer, prefabricated or manufactured construction. Pre-engineered steel buildings qualify up to 50,000 square feet of interior floor space. The building cannot be a special hazard occupancy under O.C.G.A. 25-2-13(b)(1). Again no contract dollar limit. General contractor limited tier is unlimited as to type of work but capped at $1,000,000 per contract. General contractor is unlimited as to type of work with no contract cap. For a concrete business, the choice is usually driven by what it wants to sign rather than what it wants to pour. A company that wants to add garage and addition work to its flatwork book needs residential-basic. A company moving into small retail pads, strip buildings and light industrial shells needs residential-light commercial or a general contractor tier, depending on the structure and the size. A company that only ever subcontracts concrete to builders needs neither. The board issues licenses to individuals and to business organizations. A business organization holds its license through a qualifying agent. The board's rules make every qualifying agent jointly and equally responsible for supervision of all operations, all field work at all sites, and financial matters. A qualifying agent who wants to qualify more than one organization has to show the board the insurance and financial responsibility of each.
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Every route starts at age 21 and a finding of good character, competency, ability, integrity and, for the general tiers, financial responsibility. Residential-basic takes two years of proven experience working as or in the employment of a residential contractor, predominantly in the residential-basic category, or experience the division deems substantially similar. On top of that, the applicant must have had significant responsibility for the successful performance and completion of at least two residential-basic projects in the two years immediately preceding the application. Residential-light commercial offers three routes. A baccalaureate from an accredited four-year college in engineering, architecture, construction management, building construction or another acceptable field, plus one year of proven experience with a residential or general contractor. Or a combination of accredited college-level credits and practical experience totaling at least four years in the aggregate, with junior college and community college courses counting. Or four years of proven active experience in a construction-related field, at least two of them as or in the employment of a residential contractor. All three routes also require significant responsibility for at least two residential-light commercial projects in the four years before applying, proved by a reference letter from a Georgia registered architect, a designer, a licensed professional engineer practicing predominantly structural engineering, or another reference the subdivision accepts. General contractor and general contractor limited tier use the same three routes, measured against general contracting. The degree route needs one year with a general contractor. The mixed route needs four years in the aggregate. The experience route needs four years in a construction-related field, at least two as or in the employment of a general contractor, and at least one in administration, marketing, accounting, estimating, drafting, engineering, supervision or project management. Years spent running concrete crews count toward the construction-related total. The board wants proof, sworn on the application, and reserves a background check including criminal history.
PSI administers the Georgia examinations for the board. Every applicant passes two: a trade exam and the Georgia Business and Law exam. Passing the Business and Law exam once satisfies it for every other residential and general contractor license. Business and Law is 50 questions, 120 minutes, and a passing score of 70 percent, which PSI states as 35 correct. Its content outline runs licensing requirements, estimating and bidding, business organization and financial management, tax laws, labor laws, project management and lien law, contracts, risk management, and environmental and safety. Residential-basic is 80 questions, 200 minutes, 70 percent, which PSI states as 56 correct. The outline gives 8 items to Sitework, Footings and Foundation, 8 items to Concrete and Concrete Reinforcement, and 5 items to Masonry. That is 21 of 80 questions on the work a concrete contractor already does. Residential-light commercial is 90 questions, 230 minutes, 70 percent, stated as 63 correct, with 8 items on Sitework, Footings and Foundation, 8 on Concrete and Concrete Reinforcement, 6 on Masonry and 5 on Metals. The general tiers use the NASCLA Accredited Examination for Commercial General Building Contractors: 115 questions, 330 minutes, 70 percent, stated as 81 correct. Concrete gets 6 items and Masonry 4. The heaviest sections are Procurement and Contracting Requirements at 31 items and General Requirements at 25. All of these are open book. The Contractor's Guide to Quality Concrete Construction, 3rd edition, from the American Concrete Institute, is an allowed reference on the residential exams, along with the 2018 International Residential Code and the Georgia State Amendments to the State Minimum Standard Codes. Fail an exam twice and O.C.G.A. 43-41-6(g) imposes a one-year wait before a third attempt.
The board's fee schedule, revised 06/22, is short. An exam application is $200 plus a $10 processing fee. A reciprocity application is $200 plus $10. A prior approval application is $200 plus $10. A reactivation application is $200 plus $10. An inactive status application is $25 plus $10. A reinstatement application is $300 plus $10. The $10 processing fee was added to each application fee effective March 2022. Renewal, due June 30 of even-numbered years, is $100. Late renewal is $200. A duplicate license pocket card is $25. A written license verification from the board is $35, and the schedule notes that primary source verification can be obtained free of charge through the board's online prompts. Fees are non-refundable. Checks and money orders are made payable to the State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors, and a returned check draws a service charge under O.C.G.A. 16-9-20. Exam fees are paid separately to PSI. The Business and Law exam is $60. The Residential Basic and Residential/Light Commercial exams are $72 each, whether taken as an individual or as a qualifying agent. The NASCLA exam used for both general contractor tiers is $106, again for individual or qualifying agent. So a concrete company owner going after residential-basic is looking at $210 to the board plus $132 to PSI before any study material. A company owner going after the unlimited general contractor license pays $210 to the board plus $166 to PSI. Rule 553-6-.01 keeps fee setting with the board, which means the schedule can move. Pull the current PDF rather than quoting an old figure to a customer.
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Georgia sets the insurance minimums in the board's rules, not in a bond. Rule 553-3 requires residential-basic applicants to provide satisfactory proof of general liability insurance of not less than $300,000, and residential-light commercial applicants not less than $500,000. Rule 553-4 requires general contractor and general contractor limited tier applicants to provide proof of general liability insurance in an amount not less than $500,000. The licensure comparison chart states each of these as a per-occurrence figure. Net worth is where the tiers separate. Rule 553-4 has general contracting applicants affirm a minimum net worth of $150,000, and limited tier applicants affirm $25,000. The board's comparison chart and its own FAQ page both put the residential-basic and residential-light commercial minimum at $25,000. Workers compensation is required in the applicant's own name as required by the laws of this state. The board does not restate the employee threshold in its rules; it points to Georgia law. There is no statewide surety bond in the board's fee schedule or licensure chart for any of these four license types. Bonds on Georgia concrete work usually come from somewhere else: the owner's contract, a public works payment and performance bond, or a local permitting office. Two housekeeping rules carry real risk. Licensees must notify their division in writing within 30 days of any change in the information on file, including insurance coverages and affiliated entities. And the renewal application itself asks sworn questions about insurance and financial state, with the board entitled to demand supporting documents. A lapse in general liability coverage between renewals is a reportable change, not a private matter.
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Georgia contractor licenses renew biennially. The renewal fee is due and payable by June 30 of even-numbered years. The fee is $100, and a late renewal is $200. The late window is six months. Rule 553-12-.06 states that failure to renew within the six-month late renewal period ending December 31 of the renewal year has the same effect as revocation of the license. After that the only route back is a reinstatement application, which costs $300 plus $10, and reinstatement sits entirely in the division's discretion. The division can attach conditions, including retaking the licensure examination. Continuing education applies to the residential side only. A residential-basic licensee completes 3 hours of acceptable continuing education each year, with a year running July 1 through June 30. A residential-light commercial licensee completes 6 hours each year. Online and correspondence courses may not exceed 50 percent of the required hours. Credit is calculated in half-hour increments, providers have to get the course approved by the Residential Division in advance, and trade association meetings can qualify if they meet the same requirements. Records matter because the board audits. Documentation of course attendance has to be kept for at least two years following the end of the biennium in which the course was taken, by the licensee and by the provider, and produced on request. Hours used to renew during a penalty period cannot be counted again in the next cycle. Rule 553-12-.05 governs renewal for the general contractor limited tier and the unlimited general contractor, and it sets a renewal fee with no continuing education requirement attached. Renewal is also where sworn answers about insurance and financial condition come due.
The board publishes separate reciprocity applications for each license type, including commercial general contractor individual and residential contractor basic qualifying agent. The reciprocity application fee is the same $200 plus the $10 processing fee as an exam application. That is the mechanism. The board's own rules do not publish a list of states with reciprocal agreements, so a concrete company expanding into Georgia should get the current terms from the board before assuming an out-of-state license transfers. The more useful path for commercial work is the NASCLA exam. Georgia uses the NASCLA Accredited Examination for Commercial General Building Contractors as the trade portion for both general contractor tiers. NASCLA built the program so contractors licensed in several jurisdictions could sit one trade exam. Candidates who pass can send transcripts electronically to participating jurisdictions through the National Examination Database at ned.nascla.org, and NASCLA maintains the list of participating state agencies. The Georgia Business and Law exam still has to be passed separately, and the Georgia application still has to be filed. A contractor who already holds a Georgia license and changes business form does not automatically carry it over. The board's rules require a qualifying agent moving to a new business organization to show that organization's financial responsibility and insurance, after which the division issues a new license in the agent's name and the new affiliated entity's name without a further examination. Out-of-state concrete subcontractors working under a Georgia general contractor are in a different position. Concrete Work and Masonry remain limited service specialty trades regardless of where the company is based, so the state license question only arises if the company signs a prime contract.
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The money penalty is not the main one. O.C.G.A. 43-41-17(b) makes a covered contract unenforceable in law or in equity by the unlicensed contractor, and states that no lien or bond claim shall exist in favor of the unlicensed contractor. A concrete company that signed a prime contract it needed a license for cannot sue to collect, cannot file a valid lien, and cannot make a claim on the payment bond. The owner keeps the work. On top of that, O.C.G.A. 43-41-12 makes a violation a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than $500 or imprisonment of three months, or both, at the court's discretion. The same section reaches a person who falsely represents, advertises or holds himself or herself out as a licensee. O.C.G.A. 43-41-16 lets the board impose an administrative fine not to exceed $5,000 for each violation, and lists false advertising of a license among the grounds for discipline. Timing is part of the offense. The board's consumer guidance states that a contractor must hold the license before offering a price, negotiating, contracting or bidding. Quoting first and applying later is not a cure. Name discipline is the second trap. The board treats bidding in a name other than the name on the license as unlicensed activity, even when the same person owns both companies. A concrete company operating under a trade name has to bid in the licensed name. Splitting a project into multiple contracts to stay under a tier limit is treated as circumventing the law rather than as clever structuring.
Georgia's display rules are narrower than many states, and the narrowness is worth knowing precisely. O.C.G.A. 43-41-14(a) puts the license number on the building permit application. The applicant has to provide, in a sworn written document, his or her residential contractor or general contractor license number to the permitting authority, and it is unlawful for the authority to issue the permit without that information. That is why a local building department, not the board, is usually the first to catch unlicensed work on a Georgia job. What the statute does not do is require a license number on advertising, on vehicles, on websites or on written estimates. No section of Chapter 41 imposes that. A concrete company in Georgia that prints its number on a truck is doing marketing, not compliance. What is prohibited is claiming a license you do not hold. O.C.G.A. 43-41-12 reaches anyone who falsely represents, advertises or holds himself or herself out as a licensee, and 43-41-16 lists the same conduct as grounds for board discipline. For an unlicensed concrete contractor, the safe wording is the trade itself: concrete contractor, flatwork, masonry, foundations. The wording to avoid is residential contractor, general contractor, licensed contractor or any state license number that is not yours. A company relying on the repair exception has an affirmative duty running the other way. Rule 553-8-.01 requires the person performing repair work to disclose in writing to the owner that the person or company is not licensed as a residential or general contractor. That disclosure belongs in the written estimate, not in a conversation. Business name changes have to be reported to the board within 45 days.
The Secretary of State runs a public search for professional licensees at verify.sos.ga.gov/verification/. The page is headed Search for a Professional Licensee and invites a search on any field, with the instruction that less is more. The board's consumer guidance tells homeowners to verify a contractor there by name or by license number before signing anything. The board's fee schedule prices a formal written license verification at $35 and states that primary source verification is available free of charge through the online prompts. A general contractor vetting a concrete subcontractor does not need to pay for anything; the free lookup is the same record. That lookup only answers one question, and a concrete contractor should understand which one. It shows whether a residential or general contractor license exists and is current. It does not show whether a specialty trade is permitted to do a job, because Concrete Work and Masonry are not licensed by this board at all. A homeowner who searches a flatwork company's name and finds nothing has not found a problem. The board's consumer guidance gives the rest of the checklist it expects Georgia homeowners to run: ask for proof of general liability insurance and check that the name on the policy matches the licensed individual or business, get a written contract covering work, materials, cleanup, completion date and payment schedule, never pay the full cost up front, and be suspicious of any contractor who suggests the homeowner pull the permit. Complaints against licensees go to the board, which can impose probation, suspension or revocation. The board's jurisdiction starts at July 1, 2008, the law's effective date.
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State licensure is only one of three layers for a Georgia concrete contractor. The other two are local. In Atlanta, the Atlanta Department of Transportation requires a Qualified Contractor Permit for any person engaging in construction activities within the city's public right-of-way. For a concrete company that is not an edge case: driveway aprons, sidewalk replacement, curb cuts and ADA ramps sit in the right-of-way. The permit is applied for through ATLDOT's online permit system before work starts. The same page notes that any contractor installing utilities must be licensed by the State of Georgia as a Utility Contractor, which is the Chapter 14 license, not a Chapter 41 one. ATLDOT also tells contractors to check the last resurfacing date for a street, because that drives the restoration required after the work. In Savannah, the City of Savannah Revenue Ordinance, Article Y, requires operating businesses to hold a business tax certificate, applied for through the Revenue Department. A concrete contractor working in Savannah registers there regardless of whether the state board licenses the trade. Those are examples of the pattern, not the whole of it. Georgia counties and cities issue their own occupation tax certificates and building permits, and local building departments enforce the state requirement through O.C.G.A. 43-41-14 because the license number is part of the permit application. One state-level carve-out is worth knowing on public work. O.C.G.A. 43-41-17 exempts contractors qualified by the Georgia Department of Transportation from Chapter 41 licensure for Department of Transportation work, which covers a large share of the structural and paving concrete let in Georgia.
These are common details other guides publish about Georgia, but we could not verify them from the agency source. Confirm them directly before relying on them.
No. The State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors lists Concrete Work and Masonry as limited service specialty trades. The board states traditional specialty contractors will not be required to carry a residential and general contractor license, provided the work follows applicable codes and ordinances and stays inside that scope of work.
Concrete Work, Concrete Vaults, Masonry, Sitework, Rough Carpentry, Finish Carpentry, EIFS and Stucco, Streetscapes, Tennis Court and Re-Roofing of Existing Structures are among roughly 38 entries. The board says the list is under development and subject to change, so check the page before quoting unusual work.
When it signs the owner's contract for the structure rather than the concrete. O.C.G.A. 43-41-2 defines a residential contractor by work whose total value or compensation, whichever is higher, exceeds $2,500 in the residential-basic or residential-light commercial categories. Subcontracted flatwork under a builder's prime contract stays specialty work.
O.C.G.A. 43-41-14 requires a permit applicant to give the permitting authority a sworn written document containing a residential or general contractor license number, and makes issuing without it unlawful. Specialty work that needs no Chapter 41 license still needs whatever permits and inspections the local authority requires.
Detached one-family and two-family homes, one-family townhouses of no more than three stories, and their accessory buildings and structures, with no contract dollar limit. Requirements include two years of residential-basic experience, responsibility for two such projects in the prior two years, and general liability insurance of not less than $300,000.
The residential-basic exam gives 8 items to Concrete and Concrete Reinforcement, 8 to Sitework, Footings and Foundation, and 5 to Masonry out of 80 questions. The NASCLA exam used for the general tiers gives 6 items to Concrete and 4 to Masonry out of 115 questions.
General liability of not less than $300,000 for residential-basic, and not less than $500,000 for residential-light commercial, general contractor limited tier and general contractor. Workers compensation is required as Georgia law requires. Licensees must notify their division in writing within 30 days of any change in insurance coverage.
The board charges $200 plus a $10 processing fee for an exam or reciprocity application, $300 plus $10 for reinstatement, and $25 plus $10 for inactive status. PSI charges $60 for Business and Law, $72 for each Georgia residential trade exam, and $106 for the NASCLA exam.
Renewal is biennial, due by June 30 of even-numbered years, at $100, with late renewal at $200. Failure to renew within the six-month late period ending December 31 has the same effect as revocation. Reinstatement then costs $300 plus $10 and sits in the division's discretion.
Rule 553-12-.05, which governs renewal for the general contractor limited tier and the unlimited general contractor, sets a renewal fee without a continuing education requirement. Residential licensees do have one: 3 hours each year for residential-basic and 6 hours each year for residential-light commercial, running July 1 through June 30.
O.C.G.A. 43-41-17(b) makes the contract unenforceable in law or equity by the unlicensed contractor and states that no lien or bond claim exists in its favor. O.C.G.A. 43-41-12 adds a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than $500 or three months imprisonment, or both.
No section of Chapter 41 requires a license number on ads, vehicles, websites or estimates. The number belongs on the permit application under 43-41-14. Claiming a license you do not hold is the offense: 43-41-12 reaches anyone who falsely represents, advertises or holds himself or herself out as a licensee.
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