Arkansas · Landscaping licensing · official-source guide
The Arkansas Department of Agriculture, Plant Industries Division issues a Landscape Contractor License to any firm whose primary objective is installing ornamental or horticultural plants for compensation. Fees run $150.00 to $450.00 by heelyard size and every license expires October 31. Bigger jobs add an Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board license at $2,000 residential or $50,000 commercial.
State-level license
Yes
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Verify a licenseVerified against agency sources on 2026-10-12. Rules and fees change; confirm with the named authority before relying on this guide.
Arkansas licenses landscaping at state level, and the agency is not the one most contractors expect. The Arkansas Department of Agriculture, Plant Industries Division issues the Landscape Contractor License through its nursery licensing program. The application form defines a nursery landscape contractor as any person or firm whose primary objective is the installation of ornamental or horticultural plants, or offering for sale, or selling nursery stock in Arkansas through the planting of nursery stock for compensation. If you plant for pay, you are inside that definition. The Department posts a Landscape Contractor Directory on the same page it posts the application, so the license is public from the day it is issued. A second agency sits beside it. The Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board, housed in the Department of Labor and Licensing, licenses contractors by project size rather than by trade, and its classification lists name this work directly. The commercial classification list includes Landscaping, irrigation, lawn sprinkler systems, and streams, and separately Landscaping with planting, which the statute marks as needing a trade license. That trade license is the Department of Agriculture one. So a planting crew in Arkansas can need a license from Agriculture, a license from the Contractors Licensing Board, or both, depending on what the contract is worth and who the customer is. Neither license substitutes for the other, and neither board enforces the other board's rules.
Sourcesagriculture.arkansas.gov 1media.ark.org 2labor.arkansas.gov 3labor.arkansas.gov 4
The Landscape Contractor License is priced by how much ground you hold plants on. The application sets three levels keyed to heelyard or display area. Level I covers a heelyard area of 0 to 5,000 square feet and costs $150.00. Level II covers 5,001 to 15,000 square feet and costs $300.00. Level III covers over 15,001 square feet and costs $450.00. Level I also covers planting site inspection of plants where the landscape contractor keeps no heelyard or display area at all, which is the common case for a design and install crew that takes delivery and plants the same week. The money is a license fee and an inspection fee together, so a Department inspector can look at the stock you hold. All licenses expire on October 31 following the date of issue. A renewal application postmarked after October 31 is charged an additional 50 percent of the total fee. Nursery certificate tags, needed only for out of state shipments, cost $0.90 each page and come six tags to a page. The form asks whether you want your business contact information included in the online directory, which is a free listing most Arkansas firms never claim. The application is incomplete without the second page, a required confidential information form, and it goes with the fee to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture at P.O. Box 1069, Little Rock, AR 72203. There is also an online application through the state portal.
Planting is one license. Reselling plants is another. The Department of Agriculture defines a nursery dealer as any person or firm not a grower of nursery stock who buys nursery stock for the purpose of reselling it. If your crew buys trees and shrubs and sells them to the homeowner as a priced line item rather than planting them under a labor contract, read that definition twice. The Nursery Dealer License uses the same three level ladder as the landscape contractor license: $150.00 for 0 to 5,000 square feet of heelyard area, $300.00 for 5,001 to 15,000 square feet, and $450.00 for over 15,001 square feet. Dealer licenses also expire on October 31 following the date of issue. Dealers must provide facilities for keeping nursery stock in viable condition, either outdoors or indoors, and the inspector checks those facilities as well as checking for infestations of insect pests, plant diseases and noxious weeds. The Department can cancel a dealer license for repeated substitution of varieties or kinds other than those ordered without the buyer's consent, for false statements or promises made for the purpose of making a sale, for repeated sales of poor quality, unthrifty, diseased or insect infested stock, and for failure to make the adjustments or replacements a prior agreement promised. A separate Nurseryman License covers growers, and the Department publishes a Nurseryman Directory beside the landscape contractor one.
The Contractors Licensing Board does not care that you call yourself a landscaper. It cares what the job costs. A commercial license is needed if a contractor performs work of $50,000 or more, including labor and materials, on a commercial project, and any project that is not a single family residence is a commercial project. On the residential side, a home improvement license is needed to do specialty work on a single family residence if the project is more than $2,000, including labor and material. Single family residence means a project of one but not more than four units built for residential occupancy; five units or more is commercial. A limited home improvement license holds you to projects less than $50,000. An unlimited license lets you perform any size residential project. Subcontractors of a properly licensed contractor may work on a registration certificate instead of a full license, but a contract with the owner makes you a prime contractor regardless of how the paperwork reads, and if the prime above you lacks the right commercial license you need the commercial license yourself. Owners acting as their own contractor on their own property are exempt, as are contractors licensed by another Arkansas board when the work falls inside the scope of that license. The filing fee on a new home improvement application is $50.00 and it is neither refundable nor transferable. Cash is not accepted. A temporary license is valid for only 90 days and may be issued once.
The home improvement application lists numbered specialties and you circle the ones you want. Number 21 is Landscaping, Irrigation, Lawn Sprinkler, Streams. The board grants a specialty only when you show experience performing that type of work, project by project, with the dollar amount and the square footage of each job you list. Asking for landscaping without landscaping references costs you the classification. If the applicant has one or more employees, a current certificate of insurance verifying workers compensation coverage must be provided. All residential builders and unlimited home improvement contractors submit a compiled financial statement with the application and with every renewal application, showing a positive net worth excluding the applicant's homestead and retirement accounts. A limited home improvement contractor is not required to submit a balance sheet and is not required to show proof of workers compensation to obtain the license. That exemption is only about getting the license. Under Ark. Code Ann. 11-9-102, generally all contractors with at least one employee are required to carry workers compensation, and the Workers Compensation Commission enforces that separately from the board. Residential roofing left the home improvement license on January 1, 2022 and now needs its own Residential Roofer Registration, which matters when an outdoor living project touches roof decking or roofing sheet metal. Arkansas building codes are mandatory statewide minimums and apply even where no permit or inspection is required.
Hardscape work splits across several home improvement specialties, and the landscaping classification alone does not cover all of it. Number 28 is Retaining Walls. Number 9 is Concrete. Number 23 is Masonry. Number 13 is Fencing, Gates. Number 2 is Base and Paving, which the form breaks out into base construction, hot and cold mixes, surface treatment, asphalt and concrete paving. Number 17 is Grading and Drainage, Excavating, and it is listed as including pipe and structures, culverts, clearing, grubbing and rip rap. Number 15 is Foundation Construction or Drilling, Pile Driving, Stabilization. Number 35 is Swimming Pools, Spas. Number 18 is Greenhouses, Sunrooms. Number 1 is Awnings, Canopies. Number 3 is Boat Docks. A patio with a seat wall, a fire feature and a new drain line can touch four of those numbers at once, and the board requires experience for each specialty requested. On the commercial side the classification list runs longer and splits the work in two: Landscaping, irrigation, lawn sprinkler systems, and streams sits in one entry, while Landscaping with planting appears separately and is flagged in the law as needing a trade license. Read your own certificate before you price a bid, because the classification you hold, not the work you are capable of, is what the board measures you against.
Cross the $50,000 line on a commercial job and the commercial rules take over. A business and law test is required, and the application carries the testing instructions and the study manual order. Ark. Code Ann. 17-25-404 requires a contractor, before commencing work in the state, to file with the Contractors Licensing Board a surety bond from a surety authorized to do business in Arkansas or a cash bond. The bond is a condition of licensure, the license is not released until it is properly filed, and the penal sum is ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00) payable to the State of Arkansas. Financials are heavier than on the residential side. Under 17-25-304, applicants transmit with their original and renewal applications a financial statement reviewed by a licensed certified public accountant or licensed public accountant. If the total cost of the work on a single commercial project is less than $1,500,000, a restricted license is available on lighter financials. An applicant who would rather not open the books may instead post a surety bond in an amount ten times the required net worth for the license classification. That bond must be continuous in form, maintained as long as the license is held, must list the State of Arkansas as obligee with priority over all other claims, and must run for the benefit of any person damaged by a breach of a construction contract or a contract for labor, materials or professional services. Any Arkansas project advertised for bid must be bid by a licensed prime contractor.
Sourceslabor.arkansas.gov 1labor.arkansas.gov 2labor.arkansas.gov 3
The title is protected and the protection is written in plain words. The Arkansas State Board of Architects, Landscape Architects, and Interior Designers states that a person shall not perform or offer to perform, either directly or indirectly, landscape architectural services, or assume or use the title or designation of Landscape Architect, unless the person has secured a license as a landscape architect from that board. Read the words offer to perform. The prohibition reaches your marketing, not only your drawings. A Google Business Profile category, a service page headline, a truck decal or a proposal cover sheet that says landscape architect is an offer to perform under that sentence. Holding a Department of Agriculture landscape contractor license does not change it, and neither does a home improvement classification numbered 21. If you are not licensed by the board, the safe wording describes what you actually hold: licensed landscape contractor, landscape designer, design and install contractor. Keep the claim tied to the license on file. The board also lists acts that stop an applicant from being considered at all, including practicing landscape architecture without registration in Arkansas or in any other state in violation of a law governing the practice, a felony conviction, and any misstatement or misrepresentation of fact in an application or other official communication with the board. An unlicensed firm that advertises the title and then applies has already created a problem for itself.
Sourceslabor.arkansas.gov
Initial registration runs through one of three doors. An applicant may be a graduate of a degree program from an accredited institution with at least two years of diversified and appropriate landscape architect experience, a graduate of a design program in a related field satisfactory to the board with at least four years of that experience, or a person with seven years of experience in landscape architecture satisfactory to the board. Every applicant must be of good moral character verified by employers and references, must have passed the Landscape Architect Registration Exam in accordance with current Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards standards, and must sign an affidavit attesting that the Landscape Architectural Practice Act and the rules have been read and understood. Reciprocity runs on a current and valid CLARB record plus a professional degree accredited by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board, a passing LARE score and a valid registration issued by another United States authority. The application fee for initial licensure is $245 and emeritus status registration is $19. Annual renewal of an individual registration is $98 and emeritus renewal is $19. Certificates expire January 31 each year and become invalid on February 1, and renewal happens during January. Reinstatement after expiry adds a penalty of fifty dollars per month for the first three months. Each registered architect and landscape architect must complete a minimum of twelve continuing education hours each calendar year in health, safety and welfare subjects. A first time registrant is exempt for the first renewal period.
Arkansas does not run a separate irrigator license, and the Plumber's Law draws the line for you. Ark. Code Ann. 17-38-105 lists exceptions to the chapter, and paragraph 2 excludes the construction, installation, maintenance, repair, renovation or removal of pipe or piping systems and related mechanical appurtenances, appliances or equipment used in connection with irrigation sprinkler systems from a point or location in a source of potable water supply at which point or location there exists any approved backflow preventer. Everything downstream of an approved backflow preventer is outside the plumbing chapter. The tie to the potable supply is not. That single sentence decides who can legally make the connection on an Arkansas sprinkler job, and it is the sentence to quote when a general contractor or a city inspector asks. Separately, 17-38-302 exempts plumbing work done by a property owner in a building owned and occupied as a home, unless a local ordinance requires the license, work on buildings whose primary use is agricultural outside city limits when not connected to a public water or sewer system, minor repairs consisting of repairing minor working parts or removing stoppages, and the construction, installation, maintenance, repair, renovation or removal of a storm sewer system not connected to a sanitary sewer system. Drainage work on a landscape job often sits inside that last exemption. Local ordinances can still be stricter, so confirm with the city before you cut into a water service.
Sourceshealthy.arkansas.gov
The backflow assembly on an irrigation system has to be tested, and the person testing it needs a certificate from the state. Ark. Code Ann. 17-38-302 exempts from the plumbing licensing provisions an individual certifying or repairing backflow devices within the scope of a plumbing system if the individual holds a certificate of competency from the Plumbing and Natural Gas Section of the Department of Health. The department's licensing rules define a State Certified Backflow Prevention Assembly Testing Technician, or Testing and Repair Technician, as any person meeting all the applicable certifications to test or test and repair backflow devices within the scope of a plumbing system. To qualify for the testing certification, an applicant must have successfully completed a Department Accredited Training Program for Backflow Prevention Assembly Testing, which the rules define as a forty hour course of classroom work including related plumbing codes and wet lab training approved by the department, followed by an examination. An applicant may instead document substantially similar training plus a current, substantially similar license in another state. The repair certification requires a current Arkansas testing technician certification first, then a department accredited repair program. Tester competency licenses expire on the date of the latest certification expiration date, but no later than thirty six months from the date of the applicant's latest certification or recertification training. The Department of Health explains that reduced pressure and double check valve assemblies are testable, while older swing checks, dual checks and atmospheric vacuum breakers are not.
Sourceshealthy.arkansas.gov 1healthy.arkansas.gov 2healthy.arkansas.gov 3
Spraying is a separate license from planting. The Arkansas Department of Agriculture Pest Control Program regulates pest control services under the Arkansas Pest Control Law, Act 488 of 1975, and states that anyone performing pest control for compensation must be licensed or certified. The program defines pest control work to include treating lawns and turf for insect and weed pests, so a mow and maintain route that also puts down a pre emergent is inside it. A license is also required to use restricted use pesticides. Property owners working on their own property and employees working on their employer's property are not required to hold one unless restricted use pesticides are involved. There are ten classifications. Structural pest control covers classifications 1 through 3 and 7 through 8, and ornamental pest control covers 4 through 6 and 9 through 10. A commercial license fits a business offering services for hire; a non commercial certificate fits an employee working only for an employer; agent registration covers unlicensed employees working under supervision. The licensing exam costs $100.00 per category and the EPA Basic Core exam is administered at no charge. The agent exam is $30.00 per applicant. Operator fees are $150.00 for a first classification and $100.00 for a second, capped at $300.00. The license holder fee is $100.00 for 0 to 30 agents, $250.00 for 31 to 60, and $500.00 for 61 or more. A non commercial certificate is $70.00. Licenses run July through June.
Sourcesagriculture.arkansas.gov
Arkansas spreads your renewals across four different calendars, and missing one is how a working crew ends up unlicensed mid season. The Department of Agriculture landscape contractor and nursery dealer licenses expire on October 31 following the date of issue, and a renewal postmarked after October 31 is charged an additional 50 percent of the total fee. The pest control licenses and certificates are valid July through June and must be renewed annually before July 1. Landscape architect certificates expire January 31 and become invalid on February 1, with reinstatement penalties of fifty dollars per month for the first three months. On the contractor side, the board mails renewal notices about sixty days before expiration but makes clear that failure to receive one does not excuse a late renewal. A renewal filed within thirty days after expiration needs the late renewal fee; one filed later than that may wait for the next committee meeting, and the license is not valid until the application is approved. A license may be renewed up until two years after its expiration date, and a license expired two years or more has to go through reinstatement. The rules set a fifty dollar licensing fee on a new residential remodeler or residential specialty application, a twenty five dollar fee on a timely renewal of that license and fifty dollars if it is late. The board also charges a $50.00 late fee when a renewal is not complete by the expiration date.
Sourcesmedia.ark.org 1media.ark.org 2agriculture.arkansas.gov 3labor.arkansas.gov 4labor.arkansas.gov 5labor.arkansas.gov 6
The numbers are per day, which is what makes them bite. The penalty for acting as a commercial contractor without first being licensed or registered is $100 to $400 per day, not to exceed 3 percent of the total project being performed by the contractor. The penalty for working as a residential or home improvement contractor without first being licensed is $100 to $400 per day. Ark. Code Ann. 17-25-103 makes it a violation to submit a bid, contract, undertake or assume charge in a supervisory capacity over work costing fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) or more without first having procured a license or registration with the proper classification. Bidding counts. The board may revoke a license for fraud or deceit in obtaining it, for aiding or abetting another person to violate the licensing law, or for gross negligence, incompetence or misconduct in the conduct of the contractor's business, and failing to cooperate with a board investigation can itself be treated as misconduct. There is one more trap specific to residential work. A contractor on all residential projects is required to give the owner notice of the potential for a lien before the commencement of work. If that notice is not given, potential lien claimants may not enforce a lien on the project and the contractor could be subject to criminal prosecution. The notice has to be given exactly as stated in the statutes, and the board publishes the wording.
City paperwork sits on top of the state licenses. Little Rock requires zoning approval and a business license, and states on its own business portal that in addition to obtaining a business license with the city, all professional contractors and persons working on another's residence are required to obtain a contractors license from the Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board when the project is $2,000 or more. A business run out of a home needs a business license and a home occupation accessory use permit, and the city says home based applications are generally approved or denied within five to ten business days. Some businesses are charged on the number of employees and others on inventory. The city mails a statement and the owner has twenty days to pay. Little Rock business licenses are renewable each year on January 1; a license not paid by February 1 is charged a 10 percent penalty, an account not paid by March 1 is charged an additional 10 percent, and an account not paid by April 1 is subject to a 30 percent penalty. Fayetteville requires a business license for all businesses inside the city limits unless an exemption applies, requires application within 60 days of opening to avoid additional fees, and expires every license on October 31 with renewals opening September 1. Reviews can include accounting, fire marshal and zoning. Bidding city work in Fayetteville takes a current valid Arkansas contractor license above $50,000.
Sourceslittlerock.gov 1littlerock.gov 2fayetteville-ar.gov 3fayetteville-ar.gov 4
Arkansas gives you four public lists, and they are the cheapest marketing asset a licensed firm owns. The Department of Agriculture publishes a Landscape Contractor Directory and a Nurseryman Directory on its nursery licensing page, each showing city, company name, phone number, website and full address. The landscape contractor application asks directly whether to include your business contact information in the online directory, so the listing is opt in and plenty of licensed firms leave it blank. The Contractors Licensing Board runs a Find a Licensed Contractor page. The Arkansas State Board of Architects, Landscape Architects, and Interior Designers publishes a roster searchable by first name, last name, business name, license number, license type and license status, with Landscape Architects and Landscape Architects Emeritus as separate types. Point customers at the right list and the trust question answers itself. On wording, the limit that is written down is the title. The board's rule bars performing or offering to perform landscape architectural services and bars assuming or using the title or designation of Landscape Architect without its license. Describe yourself by the license you hold instead. None of the Arkansas sources read for this page imposed a rule requiring a license number on advertising, vehicles, estimates or websites for landscape or home improvement contractors, so that requirement is not asserted here. Confirm it with the issuing board before you redesign a truck wrap.
Sourcesagriculture.arkansas.gov 1media.ark.org 2labor.arkansas.gov 3labor.arkansas.gov 4labor.arkansas.gov 5
These are common details other guides publish about Arkansas, but we could not verify them from the agency source. Confirm them directly before relying on them.
Yes. The Arkansas Department of Agriculture, Plant Industries Division issues a Landscape Contractor License, and its definition reaches any person or firm whose primary objective is installing ornamental or horticultural plants, or selling nursery stock through planting it, for compensation. Planting for money puts you inside that definition.
The fee is set by heelyard or display area. Level I covers 0 to 5,000 square feet at $150.00, Level II covers 5,001 to 15,000 square feet at $300.00, and Level III covers over 15,001 square feet at $450.00. Level I also covers contractors who keep no heelyard at all.
On a single family residence, a home improvement license is required once the project exceeds $2,000 including labor and material. On anything that is not a single family residence, a commercial license is required at $50,000 or more including labor and materials. The thresholds are about project cost, not trade.
Not without the state board license. Its rule bars performing or offering to perform landscape architectural services and bars assuming or using the title or designation of Landscape Architect without a license from the Arkansas State Board of Architects, Landscape Architects, and Interior Designers. Advertising is an offer to perform.
Ark. Code Ann. 17-38-105 excludes irrigation sprinkler piping from the plumbing chapter from the point in the potable supply where an approved backflow preventer exists. Downstream of that device the chapter does not apply. The connection to the potable water supply itself is not excluded, and local ordinances can be stricter.
Someone holding a certificate of competency from the Plumbing and Natural Gas Section of the Arkansas Department of Health. Qualifying means completing a Department Accredited Training Program for Backflow Prevention Assembly Testing, defined in the rules as a forty hour classroom and wet lab course followed by an examination.
Yes. The Arkansas Pest Control Program, acting under Act 488 of 1975, says anyone performing pest control for compensation must be licensed or certified, and it counts treating lawns and turf for insect and weed pests as pest control work. Ornamental classifications cover that work.
The licensing exam is $100.00 per category and the EPA Basic Core exam is free. Operator fees are $150.00 for a first classification and $100.00 for a second, capped at $300.00. The license holder fee starts at $100.00 for up to 30 agents, and each agent is $30.00.
They are separate specialties on the home improvement application. Retaining Walls is number 28, Concrete is number 9, Masonry is number 23, and Base and Paving is number 2. Number 21 is Landscaping, Irrigation, Lawn Sprinkler, Streams. The board requires experience references for every specialty you request.
Working as a residential or home improvement contractor without a license carries $100 to $400 per day. Acting as a commercial contractor without one carries $100 to $400 per day, capped at 3 percent of the total project. Submitting a bid is itself a violation under Ark. Code Ann. 17-25-103.
The Agriculture landscape contractor and nursery dealer licenses expire October 31, with a 50 percent surcharge if the renewal is postmarked later. Pest control licenses run July through June and renew before July 1. Landscape architect certificates expire January 31. Contractor board renewals carry a $50.00 late fee past expiration.
Three public lists. The Department of Agriculture posts a Landscape Contractor Directory and a Nurseryman Directory on its nursery licensing page. The Contractors Licensing Board runs a Find a Licensed Contractor page. The architects board publishes a roster searchable by name, business, license number, type and status.
We can review the local market, your current search visibility, and paid-search fit before recommending any marketing work.