Tennessee · HVAC licensing · official-source guide
Tennessee licenses HVAC contracting through the Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors, part of the Department of Commerce and Insurance. A contractor license with the CMC-C mechanical classification is required before bidding or performing HVAC work of $25,000 or more. The headline requirement is a CPA reviewed or audited financial statement, which sets your per-project monetary limit.
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The Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors issues the license that covers HVAC and refrigeration work. The board sits inside the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance at 500 James Robertson Parkway in Nashville. It was created in 1931, and its authority comes from Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 62, Chapter 6. The same board runs four other programs: Home Improvement Contractor, Limited Licensed Electrician, Limited Licensed Plumber, and pre-license course providers. HVAC sits inside the main contractor license, not inside a separate mechanical board, so an HVAC company applies through the same channel a general building contractor uses and meets the same financial and insurance tests. Applications and renewals run through the board's CORE portal at core.tn.gov. There is no separate state journeyman or master HVAC card in Tennessee. The license belongs to the business entity, and one person inside that entity, called the Qualifying Agent, carries the exam credit. That structure matters when you sell. A homeowner who asks whether your technician is licensed is asking the wrong question in Tennessee, because the credential attaches to the company and to its Qualifying Agent. Below the board's threshold, HVAC work is governed by city and county codes departments rather than by the state, so a Tennessee HVAC contractor usually carries two sets of credentials: the state contractor license for larger jobs and a local registration or permit privilege in each city where crews pull permits. Knowing which one applies to a given job is the difference between a clean bid and a rejected one.
Tennessee does not license HVAC work by task. It licenses it by dollar value. The board states that a contractor's license is required before contracting, which includes bidding, offering to engage, or negotiating a price, for projects of $25,000 or more when acting as a prime contractor, certain subcontractors, or a construction manager or consultant. A prime contractor is one who bids or contracts directly with the owner. The trigger is the moment you name a price, not the moment you start work, and that is the trap most HVAC companies fall into. You cannot quote a $40,000 rooftop unit replacement while your application is pending and plan to have the license by install day. The bid itself is the regulated act. The threshold includes materials, equipment, and labor, so a job where the equipment alone runs past $25,000 counts even if your labor share is small. Splitting a project into phases to stay under the number is specifically addressed by the board, which states that there is no limit on the number of projects a contractor may perform so long as they are not split into phases to circumvent the law. For change orders, the board allows a ten percent tolerance on the monetary limit carried on the license, with one exception for the restricted residential limited license. Below $25,000, the state contractor license is not the controlling requirement for HVAC, and the question moves to the county and the city, which is covered further down this page.
Tennessee splits mechanical work into four trade exam classifications, and the one you hold decides what you may legally bid. CMC-C is HVAC and refrigeration. CMC-A is plumbing. CMC is the full mechanical classification covering plumbing and HVAC together. CMC-D is fire sprinkler. An HVAC-only company takes the CMC-C exam. A company that wants both plumbing and HVAC and gas refrigeration needs the full CMC. The board requires pre-approval before you may sit for the CMC-A or the full CMC exam, and it charges $50 to process that request. CMC-C carries no pre-approval step, which is one practical reason HVAC-only firms get licensed faster than combination shops. The classification also reaches past the air handler. The board states that a contractor holding CMC, CMC-A, or CMC-C may perform gas piping to water heaters, laundry equipment, kitchen equipment, and to appliances, gas grills, swimming pool heaters, and gas logs. Geothermal systems require the CMC-C exam, with the well driller separately licensed through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. A contractor holding CMC-C or CE may register with the Alarm Systems Contractors Board rather than obtaining a separate alarm license. Fire sprinkler work is walled off: CMC-D holders also need NICET certification plus firm and RME licensure with the Department of Fire Prevention. Medical gas work requires certification through AMGI or PIPE with a minimum of 32 hours of training, eight of which must be in brazing.
HVAC firms in Tennessee work as subcontractors more often than as primes, and the rule is different. The board states that subcontractors must be licensed when contracting directly with a contractor, rather than the owner, to perform electrical, mechanical, plumbing, HVAC, or roofing work when that portion of the project is $25,000 or more, including materials, equipment, and labor. So a general contractor handling a $2 million school can hand you the mechanical package, and your license requirement is measured against your slice, not the whole job. Masonry is the one trade with a different subcontractor number at $100,000 or more. Trades outside that list, such as painting, framing, landscaping, excavation, and flooring, are not required to be licensed when they contract with the prime. The second rule catches HVAC firms acting as primes on design build or tenant fit-out work. The board applies a sixty percent test: a contractor's classification must cover sixty percent of the project, or the contractor must hold a commercial building classification, and any portion over $25,000 outside the classification has to be subcontracted to a properly licensed contractor, citing T.C.A. 62-6-111. A CMC-C holder running a restaurant fit-out where mechanical is a minority of the value therefore cannot simply carry the whole contract. The board makes the same point in reverse: contractors holding non-tested or specialty classifications cannot perform mechanical work over $25,000 and must hire a licensed mechanical contractor for the refrigeration portion.
Tennessee does not license individuals as HVAC contractors. It licenses the entity and requires that entity to designate a Qualifying Agent who passes the exams. The Qualifying Agent may be an owner, an officer, or a full-time employee, and an employee without ownership must complete a Power of Attorney form. Up to two people may take each exam for the company, and the person who takes the Business and Law exam is not required to also take the trade exam. That split lets an HVAC owner handle the trade exam while an office principal handles Business and Law. A Qualifying Agent may be listed on up to two licenses only if they are a majority owner of one of the entities. Every contractor applicant takes the Tennessee Business and Law exam. The trade exam depends on classification, and HVAC contractors take CMC-C. Both exams are open book. The board treats exam results as valid for two years. Prov became the board's trade exam provider on July 1, 2026, replacing PSI, and new scheduling goes through Prov. The board also accepts the NASCLA National Commercial exam. If you passed a comparable proctored trade exam with a Tennessee municipality such as Nashville, Knoxville, Oak Ridge, or Chattanooga, you may request a waiver, which is worth checking before paying for a retake. Exam preparation courses must be taken through a board-licensed provider, and the board publishes that provider list with license numbers on its own site.
This is the step that decides how large an HVAC job you may legally bid, and it is where most Tennessee applications stall. The board requires a reviewed or audited financial statement prepared by a licensed independent accounting firm, in the exact name and mode of operation being licensed, less than twelve months old at submission, and prepared under GAAP. A reviewed statement covers monetary limits of $3,000,000 or less. An audited statement is required for limits above $3,000,000. The monetary limit is calculated as ten times the lesser of working capital or net worth, plus documented experience. The board's own example: a $150,000 limit requires $15,000 in both working capital and net worth, and if working capital is $10,000 while net worth is $200,000, the limit comes out at $100,000, because the lesser figure governs. An unlimited monetary limit requires $300,000 in both working capital and net worth, plus experience. The limit applies per project or contract, not to your annual volume, and there is a ten percent tolerance for bidding. The board warns against cash-heavy statements. A statement showing primarily cash with little or no fixed assets is treated as deficient in property, plant, and equipment under Rule 0680-1-.13, which then forces an indemnity. For an HVAC company that owns service vans, recovery machines, and shop equipment, listing that equipment properly is not paperwork housekeeping. It is what keeps you out of the guaranty track.
Since July 1, 2026, the board offers a Contractors' Surety Bond as an alternative to submitting a CPA-reviewed or CPA-audited financial statement. The bond must be in an amount equal to at least fifty percent of the monetary limit requested, and applicants must use the board-approved Contractors' Surety Bond form. The board updated its financial statement rules on November 18, 2025 under Rule 0680-01-.32. For a young HVAC company with strong backing but a thin balance sheet, that bond route can be faster than rebuilding a financial statement. The older tools still exist. An applicant may supplement a reviewed or audited statement with a Line of Credit in the board's exact format to increase working capital, or submit the statement with a Guaranty Agreement. An indemnity is required from the owners, personally or through a parent company, when the submitted statement shows a deficiency, including cash-only statements with little or no fixed assets, or statements where accounts receivable make up the majority of working capital. For receivables, the board will accept an updated statement showing the receivables have been collected. A personal guarantor must attach a personal financial statement, which does not need to be reviewed or audited and may be self-prepared. All indemnities expire at license renewal and cannot run longer than two years. In place of a Guaranty Agreement, a bond in the board's required format may be submitted in the amount of $500,000, or $1,000,000 for unlimited monetary limits.
The board publishes a fee schedule, and every fee paid in connection with these transactions is non-refundable. For the contractor license that covers HVAC, the initial application fee is $250, and the same $250 applies to reinstatement and to an ownership change. Renewal is $200. A late renewal penalty runs $20 per month for up to twelve months. Changing your mode of operation, for example converting from a sole proprietorship to an LLC, costs $100. A duplicate license costs $25. Retiring a license costs $25 per year of renewal for up to seven years, and every seven years a $200 reset fee keeps the license in retirement. Two related fees sit outside that schedule. Pre-approval to sit for the CMC-A or full CMC exam costs $50, which HVAC-only applicants taking CMC-C avoid. Exam sitting fees are paid to the board's exam provider rather than to the board. If your work also falls under the Home Improvement program, that license carries its own $250 initial fee and $200 renewal, with a $10 per month late penalty for up to three months. The Limited Licensed Plumber license, which HVAC contractors sometimes ask about, is $75 initial and $50 to renew, and the Limited Licensed Electrician license is $50 initial and $50 to renew. Budget the CPA engagement separately. For most HVAC applicants the reviewed financial statement costs more than every board fee combined.
Tennessee ties your general liability minimum to the monetary limit on your license, and the board publishes the schedule in its insurance resource document. For a monetary limit up to $500,000, the minimum general liability coverage is $100,000. From $500,001 to $1,500,000 the minimum is $500,000. From $1,500,001 through unlimited, the minimum is $1,000,000. Home Improvement contractors working under $25,000 also carry a $100,000 minimum. These are floors set to match your licensed contracting capacity, and the board is direct that your carrier may advise more coverage based on the work you actually perform. For an HVAC contractor that number rarely reflects real exposure, since a single refrigerant release, a gas line error, or water damage from a failed condensate line can exceed the state minimum on its own. Proof of general liability has been required to apply for and to renew a contractor or home improvement license since July 1, 2007. Workers compensation is also required unless proof of exemption is provided. Since March 1, 2011 under Public Chapter 1149, owners, officers, partners, and LLC members in construction may register as a Construction Services Provider with the Tennessee Secretary of State's exemption registry. Applicants and renewing licensees must supply proof of workers compensation, proof of registration as a Construction Services Provider, or a completed exemption questionnaire. The board also notes that municipalities, permit issuing agencies, and bid awarding authorities may require insurance and bonding beyond the state minimums.
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Tennessee contractor licenses renew on a two-year cycle, and the renewal option appears in your CORE account once you are within ninety days of expiration. The board asks that renewals be submitted at least thirty days before the expiration date so you are not working on an expired license. The renewal fee is $200. The grace period for the contractor license is twelve months, with a $20 per month late fee inside that window. Once a license has been expired for twelve months or longer, you must reapply from scratch and meet every initial licensure requirement again, including the financial statement. Renewal also requires documentation. A renewal for a monetary limit above $1.5 million needs a compiled financial statement prepared by a licensed CPA. A renewal below $1.5 million may use a self-prepared balance sheet on the board's form. You also upload a certificate of insurance for general liability, workers compensation or exemption registration, and proof of active status with the Secretary of State for corporations and LLCs. Continuing education is worth reading carefully if you hold CMC-C. The board requires eight hours of continuing education with every biennial renewal for BC-A and BC-A/r residential contractors. It does not impose that requirement on the mechanical classifications. A license may be retired for up to seven years at $25 per year, with a $200 reset fee every seven years. Bringing a license out of retirement requires a paper renewal form, the $200 renewal fee, insurance certificate, Secretary of State certificate, and balance sheet.
Tennessee is blunt about this: you cannot operate in Tennessee with a license from another state. There is no reciprocal agreement that lets an out-of-state HVAC contractor work here before obtaining a Tennessee license. What Tennessee does offer is a trade exam waiver. If you hold an active license in a participating state and the Tennessee classification you want requires a trade exam, the other state can complete the board's License Verification form and you submit it with your application. For HVAC contractors the relevant states are Alabama, for General, Electrical, Residential and HVAC; Louisiana, for Residential, Commercial, Electrical and Mechanical; Mississippi, for Residential, Commercial, Electrical and Mechanical Unlimited; Ohio, for Electrical, Plumbing and HVAC; South Carolina, through its Commercial Contractors Licensing Board and commercial only for Building, Electrical, HVAC and Plumbing; and West Virginia, for Residential, Commercial, Industrial Building, Electrical, Mechanical and Masonry. Arkansas is limited to Commercial and Residential Building, and North Carolina to Residential and Commercial Building and Electrical, so neither helps an HVAC applicant. Tennessee also accepts the NASCLA National Commercial exam. Two limits matter. The waiver covers the trade exam only, so you still take the Tennessee Business and Law exam, and you still submit the financial statement, insurance, reference letter, and affidavit. And the waiver agreement applies only to the Contractor license. It does not extend to the Home Improvement, Limited Licensed Electrician, or Limited Licensed Plumber programs.
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Below the $25,000 state contractor threshold, Tennessee has a second program that catches a lot of residential HVAC work. A Home Improvement license is required for residential remodeling projects from $3,000 to $24,999, but only in counties that adopted the law. The board lists those counties as Bradley, Davidson, Hamilton, Haywood, Knox, Marion, Robertson, Rutherford, and Shelby. That list covers Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville, Murfreesboro, Cleveland, and Memphis, which is where most Tennessee residential replacement volume sits. Home improvement is defined in T.C.A. 62-6-501(4)(A) and covers repair, replacement, remodeling, alterations, and additions to residential buildings. A system changeout in an existing home in Davidson or Shelby County priced at $9,000 therefore lands inside this program rather than outside regulation. The requirements are lighter than the contractor license and do not include a financial statement. You provide a $10,000 surety bond, or another approved form of financial responsibility such as a cash or property bond or an irrevocable letter of credit; photo identification and a Social Security number; proof of general liability and workers compensation insurance; Secretary of State registration if you operate as a corporation, general partnership, or LLC; and evidence of experience performing remodeling work. The application fee is $250 through CORE. Renewal is $200, with a three-month grace period and a $10 per month late fee. Miss that three-month window and you reapply as a new applicant.
Tennessee enforces this at the bid table, not just with fines. The board states that contracting without a license violates the law, is punishable by monetary penalties, and can cause a license application to be denied, citing T.C.A. 62-6-120. The law also prohibits participating on the project or any re-bidding of that project. For an HVAC contractor, that is the expensive part: quote a job you were not licensed to quote and you can lose the project outright, not merely pay a penalty. The same logic applies to the name on the contract. A contractor licensed as an individual who bids under a corporate name is treated as an unlicensed entity, and the board requires a mode change or a second license before bidding under the new name. Tennessee also has a display rule that is specific and easy to violate. The name, license identification number, classification, and expiration date must appear on the outside of the bid envelope for the prime contractor, and for subcontractors in electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and roofing when their portion of the bid is $25,000 or more, with masonry at $100,000 or more, under T.C.A. 62-6-119. So a CMC-C mechanical sub bidding a $60,000 package puts the license number, the CMC-C classification, and the expiration date on the envelope. Geothermal projects carry a parallel requirement to list the driller's TDEC license number, classification, and expiration date.
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Holding the state CMC-C license does not by itself let you pull a mechanical permit in Nashville. The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County requires separate registration as a Registered Metropolitan Mechanical Gas Contractor under Metropolitan Code Chapter 16.16, Section 780. The registration form covers Master Mechanical, HVAC and Refrigeration, and Gas and Appliance, and it is signed by the licensed individual who holds the Metro certificate. The firm must certify that the license holder is employed full time, and the form is notarized. If that person also works elsewhere, the form asks who employs them and for how many hours per week, which effectively blocks renting a license from someone who is not really on your payroll. Metro also requires a permit bond, and the amount depends on job size: a $10,000 permit bond for contracts or bids under $25,000, and a $40,000 permit bond for contracts or bids of $25,000 and over. The bond must be in exactly the same name as the state license. Metro's contractor requirements also restate the state layers, noting that bids over $3,000 and under $25,000 on a single family, duplex, triplex, or quad require a state Home Improvement license or a state contractor license, and bids of $25,000 and over require the state contractor license. Gas and mechanical trade permits are issued by the Department of Codes and Building Safety, and only licensed contractors with an e-permit account can apply online.
Sourcesfiletransfer.nashville.gov 1filetransfer.nashville.gov 2nashville.gov 3
Memphis and Shelby County run construction code enforcement jointly, and mechanical work sits under a joint Memphis and Shelby County Mechanical and Gas Code Board. That board has eight members: four appointed by the mayor of Memphis and confirmed by the Memphis City Council, and four appointed by the Shelby County mayor and confirmed by the Shelby County Commission, each serving three-year terms. Its seats are reserved for trade practitioners, and current vacancies are posted for a Commercial Mechanical Gas Contractor and an Industrial and Commercial Mechanical Gas Contractor. The board advises the administrator of Code Enforcement, considers changes to the joint technical codes, and rules on new materials and assemblies. Code Enforcement operates from 6465 Mullins Station in Memphis. Practically, that means a Memphis HVAC contractor deals with a local code body on top of the state board, and code amendments adopted locally can differ from the state-adopted mechanical code. Shelby County is also one of the nine counties where the state Home Improvement license applies to residential jobs from $3,000 to $24,999. Knox County and Hamilton County, covering Knoxville and Chattanooga, are on that same list, as are Rutherford, Robertson, Bradley, Marion, and Haywood. The state board recognizes that several Tennessee cities administer their own proctored trade exams, naming Nashville, Knoxville, Oak Ridge, and Chattanooga, and it will consider a waiver of the state trade exam for a contractor who has passed one of them.
Every state license discussion for HVAC has a federal layer underneath it. EPA regulations at 40 CFR Part 82, Subpart F, issued under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act, require that technicians who maintain, service, repair, or dispose of equipment that could release ozone depleting refrigerants into the atmosphere be certified. Certification is by type: Type I for small appliances, Type II for high-pressure equipment, Type III for low-pressure equipment, and a universal certification covering all three, each with a core section. EPA does not issue the cards itself; approved certifying organizations do. This applies to the technician, not to the company, and it applies regardless of job value, so the Tennessee $25,000 threshold has nothing to do with it. A technician doing a $600 condenser repair in Jackson still needs the card. On the verification side, Tennessee maintains a public license search at verify.tn.gov, run by the Department of Commerce and Insurance, where anyone can look up a contractor license. The department also publishes a separate Qualifying Agent verification tool, which lets a general contractor or building owner confirm that the person carrying your exam credit is actually tied to your license. That second tool is the one commercial customers use, and it is worth knowing your record is clean there before a bid opening. Put your license number and classification on estimates and proposals so the customer can run both checks without calling you for the number.
These are common details other guides publish about Tennessee, but we could not verify them from the agency source. Confirm them directly before relying on them.
Not the state contractor license. That threshold starts at $25,000. But if the home is in Bradley, Davidson, Hamilton, Haywood, Knox, Marion, Robertson, Rutherford, or Shelby County, a residential job between $3,000 and $24,999 falls under the state Home Improvement license, which needs a $10,000 surety bond, insurance, and a $250 application. Outside those counties, check the city codes department.
CMC-C, listed by the board as HVAC and Refrigeration. You also take the Tennessee Business and Law exam. Both are open book. CMC-C does not require board pre-approval, unlike the plumbing CMC-A and the full mechanical CMC, which carry a $50 pre-approval fee. Prov took over exam administration from PSI on July 1, 2026.
The license is issued to the business entity. One person, the Qualifying Agent, carries the exam credit and may be an owner, an officer, or a full-time employee. An employee without ownership completes a Power of Attorney form. A Qualifying Agent can appear on at most two licenses, and only if they are a majority owner of one of them.
Your monetary limit controls that, and it is per project. The board calculates it as ten times the lesser of working capital or net worth, plus experience. A $300,000 limit needs $30,000 in both figures. Unlimited requires $300,000 in both. There is a ten percent bid tolerance. A reviewed statement covers limits up to $3,000,000; above that you need an audit.
No. Tennessee states plainly that you cannot operate here on another state's license. Alabama does appear on the trade exam waiver list for HVAC, so your Alabama license can excuse the CMC-C trade exam if Alabama completes the board's License Verification form. You still take Business and Law and still file the financial statement, insurance, reference, and affidavit.
Your company name, license identification number, classification, and expiration date, on the outside of the envelope. That applies to the prime and to HVAC subcontractors whose portion is $25,000 or more, under T.C.A. 62-6-119. Leaving the classification or expiration date off a sealed bid is a routine reason mechanical bids get pulled from consideration.
The board requires eight hours of continuing education at every biennial renewal for BC-A and BC-A/r residential contractors. It does not place that requirement on the mechanical classifications. Your CMC-C renewal still needs the $200 fee, a general liability certificate, workers compensation or exemption proof, Secretary of State status, and a balance sheet or compiled statement.
It scales with your monetary limit. Up to $500,000 of limit, the minimum is $100,000 of general liability. From $500,001 to $1,500,000, it is $500,000. From $1,500,001 through unlimited, it is $1,000,000. Home Improvement contractors carry $100,000. The board notes your carrier may recommend more, and refrigerant and gas exposure usually justifies it.
Yes. Metro requires registration as a Registered Metropolitan Mechanical Gas Contractor under Metropolitan Code Chapter 16.16, Section 780, with a full-time licensed individual named on a notarized form. Metro also requires a permit bond: $10,000 for contracts under $25,000 and $40,000 for contracts of $25,000 and over, in exactly the same name as the state license.
Completely separate. Section 608, under 40 CFR Part 82, Subpart F, certifies the individual technician who services equipment that could release ozone depleting refrigerants. Types are I for small appliances, II for high-pressure, III for low-pressure, plus universal. EPA does not issue the cards; approved certifying organizations do. It applies at any job value, including small service calls.
The bid itself is the violation. Tennessee regulates bidding, offering to engage, and negotiating a price, not just performing work. The board cites T.C.A. 62-6-120 for monetary penalties, notes an application can be denied, and states the law prohibits participating on that project or re-bidding it. You can lose the job outright, not just pay a fine.
Tennessee runs a public search at verify.tn.gov through the Department of Commerce and Insurance, plus a separate Qualifying Agent verification tool. General contractors and building owners use the second one to confirm the person carrying your exam credit is tied to your license. Print your license number and CMC-C classification on estimates so they can check without calling.
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