Rhode Island · Concrete licensing · official-source guide
Rhode Island issues no concrete, masonry or flatwork license. The Contractors' Registration and Licensing Board, under the State Building Office, instead requires a statewide certificate of registration before you bid or perform contractor work on a structure. The headline requirement is five hundred thousand dollars combined single limit liability insurance plus workers' compensation, a one hundred and fifty dollar fee, and five hours of pre-registration education.
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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.
Rhode Island has no concrete license, no masonry license and no flatwork license. What the state has instead is a mandatory certificate of registration issued by the Contractors' Registration and Licensing Board, which operates under the State Building Office. The registration is statewide. One certificate covers you in Providence, Warwick, Cranston, Pawtucket and every other city and town. The requirement sits in R.I. Gen. Laws section 5-65-3(a): a person may not undertake, offer to undertake, or submit a bid to do work as a contractor on a structure without a current, valid certificate of registration for all construction work issued by the board. Notice what that sentence covers. Bidding is regulated, not just pouring. Quoting a driveway replacement you never get hired for is already activity the statute reaches. The board registers contractors as a single class. It does not sort them into a general classification and a concrete specialty classification the way many states do, and it issues no separate trade credential for forming, finishing, block or brick. The board does issue true licenses, but only for five narrow disciplines: commercial roofing, home inspection, well drilling, pump installing and water filtration, and underground utility work. A concrete contractor who stays out of those five falls under registration. That distinction matters more than it sounds, because the word you use to describe yourself in advertising is itself regulated, and calling a registration a license carries a fine.
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You do not have to guess whether a sidewalk pour counts. Rhode Island wrote the list down. Section 5-65-3(i) names the subcontractors who must hold a registration certificate before doing any work when they are not employees of a registered contractor. Item four is foundation installers, including concrete installers and form installers. Item eleven is masons, including chimney installers, fireplace installers, and general masonry erectors. Item twelve is hardscape installers. The statute adds that the list is not all inclusive. The reach extends past the building itself. Section 5-65-1 defines contractor work to include appurtenances, and the board's own regulation at section 2.4 of Part 2 spells the term out: garages and carports, porches, patios, decks and deck steps, walkways, driveways, roads and bridges, retaining walls needed to protect a structure or to meet building code slope requirements, swimming pools, sidewalks, stone and masonry walls, towers, and roadways and parking areas. Read that list against a concrete contractor's invoice book and almost nothing is left out. A stamped patio, a monolithic slab, a garage apron, a block retaining wall behind a house, a parking lot in a strip plaza: all appurtenances, all contractor work, all registration territory. The practical consequence is that there is no volume of concrete work small enough to escape by calling it landscaping. The board explicitly folds retaining walls done in conjunction with landscaping work into its own definition.
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The board's Part 1 regulation states its scope plainly. It administers the contractor registration law in chapter 5-65, the home inspector law in chapter 5-65.1, the well drilling, pump installer and water filtration law in chapter 5-65.2, the underground utility contractor law in chapter 5-65.3, and the commercial roofing law in chapter 5-73. Everything else a contractor does on a structure in Rhode Island runs through the general contractor registration. For a concrete contractor this produces a simple map. Pouring footings, walls, slabs, piers, steps, curbing, flatwork, laying block and brick, setting pavers and building masonry walls all sit inside the plain registration. Two neighbors can pull you out of it. First, underground utility work. If you install, repair, alter or replace sewer lines, storm drainage lines or water lines outside a building, from the main up to within five feet of the outer wall, section 5-65.3-3 makes that unlawful without a separate underground utility contractor license. Concrete crews that bid site packages including drainage structures and storm lines run straight into this. Second, licensed trades. Section 5-65-2(10) exempts businesses already licensed by the state employing licensed trades persons under chapters 6, 20 and 56 of Title 5 and chapters 26 and 27 of Title 28, but only for work inside the purview of that license, and it still holds them to the insurance requirement in section 5-65-7.
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Registration attaches to the business, not just the person. Section 5-65-3(a) lets a partnership, corporation, limited liability company or joint venture do the work, offer it or bid it only if that entity is itself registered, and in the case of a corporation, LLC, joint venture or partnership an individual must be designated as responsible for the entity's work. The entity and that designee are jointly and severally liable for the registration fee and for compliance with the whole chapter. The board's Part 1 regulation at section 1.6.3 adds that a registration is for the exclusive use of that individual or entity and is not transferrable, and section 5-65-1(7)(iii) requires a separate certificate for each business entity even when the same individual owns them all. Run a forming company and a finishing company out of one truck yard and you need two certificates. Discipline follows the people, not the shell. Section 5-65-3(a) lets action on one registration affect other registrations held by the same principals, and lets the board refuse future registration where the disciplined registrant and the new applicant share a principal or responsible designee. Your subs matter too. Section 5-65-3(j) bars any contractor, general contractors included, from hiring a subcontractor who is not registered or exempt. Section 5-65-3(h) requires you to keep a list of every subcontractor's name, address and registration number and hand it to the board within twenty-four hours of a request during working hours. Missing that deadline can draw a twenty-five dollar fine per offense.
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Section 5-65-2 lists the exemptions, and none of them is a general small-job pass for a working concrete contractor. The ones that exist are narrow. A person working on his or her own personal property is exempt. So is work on a federal site or reservation. So is a supplier who furnishes materials and does not fabricate or consume them in contractor work, though that supplier must register before it can file a complaint under the chapter. An employee of a registered contractor is exempt, which is why crews do not each carry a certificate. An owner working on a single dwelling unit property, or on his or her own residence, is exempt, unless the work is done in pursuit of an independent business with intent to sell. The one that looks like a small-job exemption is not. Section 5-65-2(4) exempts a person working on one structure or project under one or more contracts where the price of all of that person's contracts for labor, materials and all other items is under five hundred dollars and the work is of a casual, minor or inconsequential nature. The board's regulation defines those words to mean work not of a structural nature that cannot affect the health or safety of the owner or occupant. A footing, a slab, a retaining wall and a set of steps are all structural. The statute then closes the door completely: the exemption does not apply to anyone who advertises or puts out any sign, card or other device indicating to the public that the person is a contractor. If you advertise, you are in.
Section 5-65-5 sets out what goes in. An applicant must be at least eighteen. The application takes a legible copy of valid government issued identification, a workers' compensation insurance account number or the carrier name if the number has not issued, an unemployment insurance account number, a state withholding tax account number and a federal employer identification number, each where applicable. Entities file the names plus business and residential addresses of every partner or venturer, the owner for a sole proprietorship, the corporate officers with a copy of the articles of incorporation filed with the Rhode Island Secretary of State, or the members and managers with the articles of organization for an LLC. Post office boxes are not accepted as the only address. You disclose prior applications and prior roles in other applicants. You file a valid insurance certificate for the type of work being performed. Falsified or withheld information on the application is punishable by a fine up to ten thousand dollars, denial or revocation, or both. New applicants must show five hours of pre-registration education. The board's regulation at section 2.8 breaks the five credit hours into one hour each of construction codes and standards, contracts, workplace safety, business principles and practices, and one hour related to the practice of construction or the applicant's business. Those hours must be completed within the twenty-four months before applying and must be in person, not online. Recent graduates of an accredited technical or vocational high school or college may submit transcripts and ask the board to accept the coursework instead.
The fee is set in statute, not left to the board. Section 5-65-9(a) requires each applicant to pay one hundred and fifty dollars for original registration or for renewal. Fees and fines go into a restricted receipt account used to support the board's programs. Section 5-65-9(e) allows new and renewal registrations to be filed online or through a third party approved by the board, with any additional cost of that route borne by the registrant, so the online total can land above the statutory figure. Term is where a concrete contractor should call before assuming. Section 5-65-8(a) says a certificate of registration is valid for one year from the date of issuance unless revoked or suspended, renewable by the same procedure as an original registration. The board's Part 1 regulation at section 1.7.3 still reads that registrations and licenses are valid for two years from the date issued, and its Part 2 regulation at section 2.8 still describes five hours of continuing education per two year registration cycle. The statute was amended after that regulation took effect, and section 5-65-5(f) now requires proof of two and one half hours of continuing education on renewal. Treat the statute as controlling and confirm your own cycle with the board. The board may also vary renewal dates by written notice with an adjusted renewal fee. Continuing education is not universal: the board's regulation exempts contractors engaging in only commercial contracting work from both the pre-registration and the continuing education requirements. The board charges a fifty dollar late fee and a thirty-five dollar returned check fee.
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Section 5-65-7 sets the floor and it is not a suggestion. Throughout the period of registration a contractor must keep public liability and property damage insurance covering that contractor's work in an amount not less than five hundred thousand dollars combined single limit, bodily injury and property damage. Every contractor must also carry workers' compensation insurance as required under chapter 29 of Title 28. You provide satisfactory evidence of both to the board at registration and again at each renewal, and section 5-65-5(a)(8) makes a valid insurance certificate for the type of work being performed part of the application itself. Three consequences follow. Failure to maintain the insurance invalidates the registration outright, which means the work you do while lapsed is unregistered work. It may also bring a fine against the registrant and suspension or revocation. And section 5-65-7(b) states that failure to carry the required insurance does not preclude claims from being filed against the contractor, so going bare removes the policy without removing the exposure. There is a separate notification rule. Section 5-65-7.1 addresses notice of cancellation or failure to renew policies. The amount is a statutory minimum for registration, not a measure of what a concrete job needs. Nothing in the chapter caps what a general contractor, a municipality or a commercial owner can demand in their own contract, and site packages routinely require more. Section 5-65-3(p) also requires the contractor to stipulate in the contract whether or not all proper insurances are in effect for each job.
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Chapter 5-65 contains no bond requirement for a contractor registration. Read the chapter's index of sections and there is no bond section. A concrete contractor who registers, insures and renews does not post a state bond to hold the certificate. That changes the moment the work crosses into underground utility territory, which happens more often on concrete site packages than most crews expect. Section 5-65.3-10 requires every applicant for an underground utility contractor license to furnish a bond satisfactory to the board in the sum of twenty thousand dollars. The bond runs to the cities and towns of the state and their officers, indemnifying them against suits for injuries or damages arising from the applicant's work, improper materials, negligence in guarding the work, or any act or omission of the applicant or its employees and agents. The insurance floor is higher on that side too. Section 5-65.3-9 requires public liability and property damage insurance of not less than one million dollars combined single limit, bodily injury and property damage, throughout the period of licensure, plus workers' compensation under chapter 29 of Title 28. The license application fee is two hundred dollars under section 5-65.3-4. So the honest answer on bonding depends on scope. Pour slabs, footings, walls, walks and parking surfaces and you are in registration with no bond. Bid the storm lines, the drainage structures or the water service that feeds the pad and you are looking at a separate license, a bond and double the liability minimum. Municipal and public works contracts may require performance and payment bonds independently of either.
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There is no state examination for a concrete or masonry contractor registration. Section 5-65-5 lists what the application must contain and an examination is not in it. What it requires is the five hours of pre-registration education and a signed certification, on a form issued by the board, confirming the registrant is aware of certain provisions of the law. That certification must be signed before a registration is issued or renewed. The board's Part 1 regulation keeps a general examination provision at section 1.7.2 that applies as required, by discipline, and it states that examinations are conducted at least three times a year by an approved third party testing company, with locations, dates, times and fees posted on the board's website. The regulation also confirms that written examinations and pre-education requirements are not a required component of renewal unless the board orders it. Where exams actually bite is the adjacent licenses. Section 5-65.3-4 requires an underground utility contractor applicant to obtain a passing grade on a written examination given by a board-approved third party, testing understanding of the rules and regulations and the ability to read and interpret approved plans and specifications, with the board ensuring examinations are offered at least three times each year. Failed applicants may retest on payment of the prescribed fee. The same section bars any municipality from requiring a separately licensed underground utility contractor to obtain another license or take another test to perform underground utility work.
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This is where a concrete contractor loses money without ever doing bad work. Section 5-65-22 requires all contractors subject to the chapter to include their certificate of registration number on all advertising proposals, contracts and invoices, displayed in a conspicuous manner. Section 5-65-3(l) repeats the rule for advertising and bans advertising in any form by an unregistered contractor, including alphabetical and classified directory listings, vehicles, business cards and all other forms of advertisement. The board's regulation at section 1.6.3 of Part 1 is the specific one to work from. It requires the registration or license number displayed conspicuously on all forms of advertising, and it names them: newsprint classified advertising, newsprint display advertising, pamphlets, telephone directory space ads, online ads, website ads, social media ads, business vehicles and display ads. Numbers must also appear on all written contracts, proposals and invoices. The single stated exemption is company apparel. So the number belongs in your website footer, your Google Business Profile posts, your paid search ads, your Facebook ads, your truck lettering and your estimate template. Then there is the wording trap. Section 5-65-3(l)(ii) provides that use of the word license in any form of advertising when you are only registered may subject you to a fine of one hundred dollars for each offense at the board's discretion. Section 5-65-10 lists advertising with a license number when only registered as a ground for discipline. Call yourself a registered contractor, give the registration number, and do not write licensed and insured.
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Section 5-65-3(o) requires all work performed, including labor and materials, in excess of one thousand dollars to be accompanied by a contract in writing. On concrete pricing that captures nearly every job. The contract must include the consumer disclosures and information required by board regulation and must carry a specific notice of possible mechanic's lien addressed to the owner, lessee or tenant, telling them that the contractor and any other person providing labor or materials under contract with the contractor may file a mechanic's lien on the land if they are not paid, and that it is the owner's responsibility to satisfy themselves that those other persons get paid. Failure to follow the subsection may bring a one thousand dollar fine against the contractor. It does not wipe out anyone else's lien rights, and the contractor who failed to give the notice must indemnify the owner against payments or costs from lien claims by parties not in privity with the owner. A notice given under section 34-28-4.1 satisfies the requirement. Section 5-65-3(p) adds that contracts must contain the notice of right of rescission required by Rhode Island consumer protection law and section 5-65-27 where it applies, and that the contractor must state whether all proper insurances are in effect for each job. Section 5-65-3(k) requires the contractor to deliver the board's summary of the chapter to the owner when work begins on a structure, and says failure to comply may result in a fine. Nonresidential contractors are relieved of subsections 5-65-3(k) and 5-65-3(p) by section 5-65-24.
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Rhode Island treats this as criminal, not merely administrative. Under section 5-65-19, a person who fails to register as a contractor as adjudged in a final board order, after proper written notification, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year of imprisonment, a fine of up to one thousand dollars, or both, for a first or second offense. A third or subsequent violation is a felony carrying up to two years and a fine of up to two thousand dollars. Violating a final order of the board where the monetary total is under five thousand dollars is a misdemeanor on the same terms. Where the total is five thousand dollars or more it is a felony carrying up to ten years and a fine of up to ten thousand dollars. Three or more final orders involving three separate aggrieved parties inside a twenty-four month window are prosecuted as a felony on the same scale. Courts must also order compliance with any outstanding board order and payment of outstanding fines. The administrative side runs in parallel under section 5-65-10. A violation of the chapter or a board rule can draw a fine up to five thousand dollars, with reduction available where corrective work or restitution is made. Certain violations reach ten thousand dollars. For a violation of section 5-65-3 by nonregistered contractors specifically, the fine is up to five thousand dollars for a first offense and up to ten thousand dollars for each subsequent offense. Fraudulent advertising used to entice someone to hire an unregistered contractor can bring up to ten thousand dollars.
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This is the question most multi-city concrete contractors get wrong, and the statute answers it in your favor. Section 5-65-3(g) states that the provisions of the chapter are exclusive and that no city or town shall require or issue any registrations or licenses, nor charge any fee, for the regulatory registration of any contractor registered with the board. Providence, Warwick, Cranston and the rest cannot make you register as a contractor a second time. The carve-out is narrow and specific: a municipality may still levy and collect a general, nondiscriminatory license fee imposed on all businesses, or tax business conducted in its jurisdiction, where state law permits. A general business license is not a contractor registration. What the municipalities do control is permitting, and the statute pulls your registration into that process. Section 5-65-3(c) bars any city, town or the state from issuing a building permit to anyone required to be registered who lacks a current, valid registration or license, requires each permit applicant to give the registration number and state that it is in full force, or to list the basis of an exemption, and requires the municipality to put the contractor's registration number on the permit. Where a homeowner pulls the permit, the building inspector must ascertain the registration numbers of every contractor on site and report any unregistered contractor to the board. Section 5-65-3(d) requires every city and town that issues business licenses to collect a signed statement of registration from each licensee and renewal applicant. Section 5-65-3(m) makes securing code-required permits the contractor's job, with the registration number affixed to the permit.
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Rhode Island enacted chapter 5-65.4, the Rhode Island residential contractor licensing law, effective July 2, 2025, and it changes the answer for anyone doing structural concrete on houses. The purpose stated in section 5-65.4-1 is to establish a licensing program and minimum standards for contractors supervising or performing structural work in residences of one to four dwelling units. Section 5-65.4-3 authorizes the board to license contractors that supervise construction of new residential structures or structurally remodel existing ones. Structurally remodeling is defined in section 5-65.4-2 as work the board identifies as impacting components that support a building's safety or integrity, plus other work the board identifies as requiring permits or inspections under the state building code. Footings, foundation walls and structural slabs are the kind of work that definition is pointed at. Two dates matter. The board must promulgate regulations establishing the licensing program on or before January 1, 2027. Beginning January 1, 2028, no person may supervise construction of a new residential structure or structurally remodel an existing one without licensure from the board. The statute says contractors only performing nonstructural home improvement work remain subject exclusively to registration under chapter 5-65, and that a license issued under the new chapter fulfills the chapter 5-65 registration requirement. Eligibility will include passing an examination approved or administered by the board. The board may build a pathway for contractors registered before January 1, 2027, but the statute forbids grandfathering based solely on prior registration status. Fees are left to the board. Penalties under section 5-65.4-5 mirror the registration penalties.
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The board runs a public search, and you should assume every serious prospect uses it. The page is Search a Registrant/Licensee on the board's own site, maintained under the State of Rhode Island, Contractors' Registration and Licensing Board, State Building Office. Treat that page as part of your sales process rather than a compliance chore. A homeowner comparing three concrete bids can see in seconds whether your certificate is current, and a general contractor assembling a site package has a statutory reason to look, because section 5-65-3(j) forbids hiring an unregistered subcontractor. Your discipline history is public too. Section 5-65-25 requires the board to post all final decisions and orders it issues, by way of the board's website, by request, or by any other means the board approves, and requires claims and violations adjudicated in the contractor's favor to be removed as soon as practicable. The board may expunge a record under its rules, and its regulation sets an expungement request fee of twenty dollars for the first matter and five dollars for each additional matter in the same request. The board also provides a formal certification of registration on written request and payment of the fee, listing the registration numbers, the registered name and any business names on file, the type of business entity, the owners, partners or corporate officers on record, and the pertinent dates and actions in the registration history. General contractors and institutional owners ask for that document. Keeping the record clean, and the number visible on every ad and invoice, is cheaper than explaining a posted final order.
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These are common details other guides publish about Rhode Island, but we could not verify them from the agency source. Confirm them directly before relying on them.
No. Rhode Island issues no concrete, masonry or flatwork license. The Contractors' Registration and Licensing Board requires a certificate of registration instead, and section 5-65-3(a) makes it unlawful to undertake, offer to undertake or bid contractor work on a structure without one. Registration is statewide and covers all construction work.
Yes. Section 5-65-1 reaches appurtenances, and the board's Part 2 regulation names driveways, walkways, sidewalks, patios, retaining walls, stone and masonry walls, roadways and parking areas. Section 5-65-3(i) separately names concrete installers, form installers, foundation installers, masons and hardscape installers as subcontractors who must register.
Section 5-65-9(a) sets one hundred and fifty dollars for original registration or renewal. Section 5-65-9(e) permits filing online or through a board-approved third party with the extra cost borne by the registrant, so an online total can run higher. The board's regulation adds a fifty dollar late fee and a thirty-five dollar returned check fee.
Section 5-65-7 requires public liability and property damage coverage of not less than five hundred thousand dollars combined single limit, bodily injury and property damage, kept in force for the whole registration period, plus workers' compensation under chapter 29 of Title 28. Letting coverage lapse invalidates the registration and can bring fines.
Not for the contractor registration. Chapter 5-65 has no bond section. A bond appears if your scope crosses into underground utility work: section 5-65.3-10 requires a twenty thousand dollar bond running to the cities and towns, and section 5-65.3-9 raises the liability minimum to one million dollars combined single limit.
No examination is listed in section 5-65-5. New applicants instead show five hours of pre-registration education and sign a board certification. Exams apply to the adjacent licenses: section 5-65.3-4 requires a written examination for an underground utility contractor license, offered at least three times a year by a board-approved third party.
Section 5-65-5(e) requires five hours of pre-registration education. The board's regulation splits it into codes and standards, contracts, workplace safety, business principles and practices, and one elective hour, completed in person within the prior twenty-four months. Section 5-65-5(f) requires two and one half hours of continuing education on renewal.
Yes. The board's regulation at section 1.6.3 requires the number displayed conspicuously on newsprint ads, pamphlets, directory ads, online ads, website ads, social media ads, business vehicles and display ads, and on all written contracts, proposals and invoices. Section 5-65-22 states the same duty. Company apparel is the only exemption.
Not while you are only registered. Section 5-65-3(l)(ii) allows a one hundred dollar fine for each offense when the word license is used in any form of advertising by a registrant. Section 5-65-10 also lists advertising with a license number when only registered as grounds for discipline. Write registered contractor instead.
No. Section 5-65-3(g) makes the state chapter exclusive and bars any city or town from requiring or issuing contractor registrations or licenses, or charging a regulatory registration fee, for a contractor registered with the board. Municipalities may still charge a general nondiscriminatory business license fee and still control building permits.
Section 5-65-3(o) requires a written contract for all work, labor and materials included, in excess of one thousand dollars. It must carry the board's required consumer disclosures and the statutory notice of possible mechanic's lien. Skipping the subsection may bring a one thousand dollar fine and shifts indemnity for other parties' lien claims onto you.
Chapter 5-65.4 took effect July 2, 2025. The board must adopt licensing regulations by January 1, 2027, and from January 1, 2028 no person may supervise new residential construction or structurally remodel a one to four unit dwelling without a board license. Eligibility includes a board-approved examination. Nonstructural home improvement work stays on registration.
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