Michigan · Landscaping licensing · official-source guide
Michigan licenses no landscaping or landscape contractor trade. The Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs licenses the title landscape architect under Article 22, and its Bureau of Construction Codes licenses residential maintenance and alteration contractors. Hardscaping, concrete and excavation on a residential structure at or above the $600 statutory threshold needs that license. Pesticide and irrigation work pull in separate credentials.
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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.
Michigan issues no state license called landscaper, landscape contractor or landscaping company. The Occupational Code says so in writing. Article 22 of Public Act 299 of 1980 regulates the practice of landscape architecture, and the statute states plainly that its licensure requirement does not prohibit a person from performing or offering services as a landscape designer, landscape gardener, landscape contractor or landscape nursery operator, so long as that person does not use the term landscape architect. So design, planting, grading, sod, retaining walls, patios and pavers can be sold under your own business name with no occupational license for the trade itself. That is not the end of it. Three separate regulators reach a Michigan landscaping company depending on what the crew actually does on site. The Bureau of Construction Codes inside the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs licenses residential builders and residential maintenance and alteration contractors under Article 24 of the same act, which covers repair, alteration, addition, subtraction or improvement of a residential structure for compensation other than wages for personal labor. The Bureau of Professional Licensing inside that department handles landscape architects. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development certifies pesticide applicators and licenses pesticide application businesses. The Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy sits behind irrigation work through the cross connection rules of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Knowing which of those four touches your particular scope is the whole job of this page.
The credential most Michigan landscaping firms actually need is the residential maintenance and alteration contractor license, often shortened to M and A. The statute defines that contractor as a person who, for a fixed sum, price, fee, percentage, valuable consideration or other compensation other than wages for personal labor, undertakes with another for the repair, alteration, or addition to, subtraction from, improvement of, wrecking of, or demolition of a residential structure, or building of a garage, or laying of concrete on residential property. Read that last clause again. Laying concrete on residential property is named in the statute itself. A patio pour, a concrete walk, footings for a seat wall or a pergola, a concrete pad for a hot tub: that is the licensed activity, not a gray area. The definition of residential structure covers a detached one or two family dwelling and all related facilities appurtenant to that dwelling used or intended to be used as an adjunct of residential occupancy, plus a townhouse of not more than three stories above the grade plane with a separate means of egress. Appurtenant facilities is what pulls a backyard improvement in. The same article also defines a salesperson, meaning an employee or agent other than a qualifying officer who sells or negotiates the goods and services of a licensed builder or M and A contractor, with a carve out for an individual whose sales are occasional and incidental to their principal employment. A commission based design and sales role at a Michigan landscaping company is worth checking against that definition.
Sourceslegislature.mi.gov
Michigan wrote an actual dollar floor into the statute, which is unusual and worth knowing exactly. A person may work without a residential builder or M and A license if the person is working on one undertaking or project by one or more contracts and the aggregate contract price for the labor, material and any other items for the undertaking or project is less than $600.00. The legislature then closed the obvious loophole in the same subsection: the exemption does not apply if the work of a construction is only a part of a larger or major operation, whether undertaken by the same or a different contractor, or where a division of the operation is made into contracts of amounts less than $600.00 to evade the act. Splitting a paver project into six small invoices does not work. The other exemptions in the section matter to a landscaping company too. An owner of property may do the work for the owner's own use and occupancy. An owner of rental property is exempt as to maintenance and alteration of that rental property. An authorized representative of the United States government, the state, or a county, township, city or village is exempt. Most usefully, a person other than a salesperson that engages solely in the business of performing work and services under contract with a licensed residential builder or licensed M and A contractor is exempt. That is the subcontractor route: if your only residential work comes to you from a licensed builder, the statute does not require you to hold your own license for it.
Sourceslegislature.mi.gov
An M and A license is not generic. The statute says a license authorizes the licensee according to the applicant's qualifications, crafts and trades, and that the license shall specify the particular craft or trade for which the licensee is qualified. The crafts and trades named in the statute are carpentry; concrete; swimming pool installation; waterproofing a basement; excavation; insulation work; masonry work; roofing; siding and gutters; screen or storm sash installation; tile and marble work; and house wrecking. For a Michigan landscaping and hardscaping company, the ones that ordinarily apply are concrete, masonry work and excavation. Concrete covers poured patios, walks and footings. Masonry work covers segmental retaining walls, block, brick and stone. Excavation covers the digging, grading and site preparation that precedes both. A firm that installs water features or in ground pools should look at swimming pool installation. There is one more clause in the statute that keeps a specialty contractor out of trouble. It does not prohibit a specialty contractor from taking and executing a contract involving the performance of the craft or trade for which the contractor holds a license and one or more other crafts or trades, if the performance of the work in the other craft or trade is incidental and supplemental to the performance of work in the licensed craft or trade. So a concrete licensee can set a few timbers that are incidental to the pour. The word incidental is doing real work there, and it is not a license to run a general remodeling operation off a single specialty classification. The statute also requires a licensee to maintain a place of business in Michigan, with a branch office license issued for each additional place of business.
Sourceslegislature.mi.gov
Michigan front loads the classroom. Since June 1, 2008, an applicant for a residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor license must complete 60 hours of approved prelicensure education before taking the examination or submitting a license application to the department. The hours are not a free choice. The Bureau of Construction Codes requires at least 6 hours in each of a set of named subjects: business management, estimating and job costing; design and building science; contracts, liability and risk management; marketing and sales; project management and scheduling; and the Michigan Residential Code. Courses have to be preapproved by the department, which publishes the approved prelicensure education course list and updates it as new courses are added. Pick a provider off that list rather than a generic online contractor course, because an unapproved course does not count toward the 60 hours. The examination comes next. The statute requires that an applicant pass an examination establishing that the applicant has a fair knowledge of the obligations of a residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor to the public and to the applicant's principal, and of the statutes relating to the applicant's licensure. Note what that sentence tests: duties to customers and the licensing law, not just construction method. The department may also require an applicant, or each partner, trustee, director, officer, member or shareholder of an applicant, to submit evidence of good moral character, and an applicant must submit a copy of an operator's license or state personal identification card as proof of identity before a license is issued. Plan the education and the exam before you plan the application.
The Bureau of Construction Codes publishes its own fee schedule for residential builders and maintenance and alteration contractors, and the figures are modest compared with the education cost behind them. The application for a residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor license is $195.00. The application for a residential salesperson license or a branch office license is also $195.00. Renewal of a builder, M and A, salesperson or branch office license is $150.00. A late renewal is $170.00. Relicensure, which is the route back after a license has lapsed, is $185.00. A qualifying officer change is $10.00 and a name or address change is $10.00. Those are state fees only. Budget separately for the 60 hours of approved prelicensure education and for the examination, which are bought from approved providers and the department's testing arrangements rather than paid to the fee schedule above. Price the branch office line carefully if you run more than one yard. The statute requires a residential builder or M and A contractor to maintain a place of business in Michigan, and if the contractor maintains more than one place of business in the state, the department issues a branch office license for each place of business maintained. A second location in another county is therefore another $195.00 application and another $150.00 on every renewal cycle, which is a real number when you are deciding whether a satellite yard should be a licensed place of business or just a storage lot. Check the fee page before you send money, because a published schedule is the only figure worth relying on.
Michigan issues the residential builder and maintenance and alteration contractor license for a period of three years. At renewal the statute requires the applicant to state to the department that he or she has a current copy of the Michigan residential code and meets the continuing competency requirements described in the article or in rules promulgated under it. A licensee must also maintain documentation of the activities that satisfy continuing competency for at least five years, so keep certificates rather than throwing them out after you file the attestation. The hour counts depend on when you were first licensed, which trips people up. A licensee originally licensed before January 1, 2009 completes three hours every three years: one hour covering building codes and laws related to the licensed occupation, one hour covering safety, and one hour covering changes in construction and business management laws. A licensee originally licensed after January 1, 2009 completes a minimum of three hours each year and a total of 21 hours within the first three years of licensure, plus another 21 hours during the second three year cycle. Those 21 hours consist of the same three named hours plus 18 hours of other approved topics. After six years of licensure the requirement drops back to the three named hours every three years. Qualifying activities are broader than a classroom: teaching or completing an approved prelicensure course, a Bureau of Construction Codes code update course, a MIOSHA safety course, a college course, trade association seminars, publishing an article as an expert, and attending board or code hearings all count. Any continuing competency course or activity may be earned through distance learning.
This is the single most useful distinction in Michigan for a landscaping business, and the statute states it directly. Article 22 of the Occupational Code licenses the landscape architect, defined as a person qualified to engage in the practice of landscape architecture. The practice itself is defined broadly: consultation, investigation, research, planning, design or responsible field observation in connection with the development of land areas where the dominant purpose is the preservation, enhancement or determination of proper land uses, natural land resources, ground cover and planting, naturalistic and aesthetic values, the settings and approaches to structures or other improvements, natural drainage, and the consideration of inherent problems of the land relating to erosion, use and stress, blight or other hazards, plus the location and arrangement of tangible objects and features incidental and necessary to those purposes. Read on its own, that definition would swallow most design work. The next section narrows it. The licensure requirement of the article does not prohibit a person from performing or offering services as a landscape designer, landscape gardener, landscape contractor or landscape nursery operator, as long as that person does not use the term landscape architect. Michigan therefore protects the title, not the activity. You may sell design. You may call yourself a landscape designer. You may not call yourself a landscape architect, and you may not let a brochure, a truck or a website imply it. The article also states that it does not authorize a landscape architect to engage in the practice of architecture, engineering or land surveying as defined in Article 20, so a licensed landscape architect has limits in the other direction too.
If you do want the title, the Bureau of Professional Licensing runs it. The statute sets the floor: an applicant for licensure as a landscape architect shall be of good moral character, shall pass a written examination developed by the department, and shall have had not less than seven years of training and experience in the actual implementation and practice of landscape architecture. Satisfactory completion of each year, up to five years, of an accredited course in landscape architecture at an accredited school counts as the equivalent of a year of experience. The department's own licensing guide spells out the current routes. A baccalaureate degree from a program accredited by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board plus a minimum of 4,500 hours of experience over a three year period, verified by the supervising landscape architect, is one route. A baccalaureate plus a master's degree from an accredited program plus at least 3,000 hours over a two year period is another. The third combines education and experience to seven years, counting a minimum of 30 semester hours or 45 quarter hours per year of education credit to a maximum of five years, and a minimum of 1,500 hours per year of experience credit. The examination is the LARE, administered through the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards, with scores sent to the department directly by CLARB. Exam route applicants file at least five references from unrelated individuals, three of them from licensed or registered landscape architects. All licensure requirements must be completed within ten years after the department receives the application, or the application is void. Applications are filed online through MiPLUS.
Sourceslegislature.mi.gov 1legislature.mi.gov 2michigan.gov 3
The numbers here come from the department's current landscape architect licensing guide and its renewal page. A new landscape architect application costs $320.00, which the guide describes as the application fee plus the two year license fee, payable by credit or debit card. Relicensure, the route back after a lapse, is $340.00 for the two year application. Renewal is $120.00. The renewal cycle is two years, and Michigan landscape architect licenses expire biennially on July 31 of even numbered years. The department mails the renewal notification to the address on file roughly 90 days before the renewal date, which is a good reason to keep your address current through MiPLUS. Renewal must be completed online with a MasterCard, Visa or Discover card or by electronic check; the department states that payments received by mail or in person will not be accepted and the renewal will not be processed. Allow three business days for card processing and ten days for an e-check. Continuing education is 24 hours completed during the two year period immediately preceding the license expiration date, and a minimum of 16 of those 24 hours must be earned in a program or activity pertaining to public health, safety or welfare. The statute backs this up by requiring a demonstration of continuing professional competence for renewal as determined by the department and provided for by rule. The Bureau of Professional Licensing has partnered with CE Broker to help licensees track credits. A licensee who fails to renew online or to meet all renewal requirements by the expiration date cannot legally practice.
If your crews spray, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is in your business. Commercial certification is required for anyone who applies pesticides for commercial purposes, which MDARD defines as for hire or for anyone who applies non ready to use pesticides, during their employment. That phrasing catches a lot of lawn care work that owners assume is unregulated, because it does not depend on the product being restricted use. All commercial applicators must pass the commercial core exam and at least one category exam matched to the type of applications performed; MDARD publishes a commercial pesticide application certification categories list to help you choose. The commercial application fee is $75.00. A private application fee is $50.00, with honorably discharged veterans fee exempt, and a registered application fee is $45.00. Registered applicator status is a lighter credential for some situations: a registered applicator passes the commercial core exam and receives applicable category training from an approved trainer using the approved training program, rather than sitting each category exam. Applicator credentials are valid for three years after they are awarded and expire on December 31 of the third year. MDARD's license system automatically sends the renewal application to current credential holders, and applicators can renew by attending seminars approved to offer recertification credits. Reciprocity exists, but the applicator must be a resident of the originating state of the credential and must submit a copy of that credential with the Michigan application. Study manuals and training resources come through the Michigan State University Pesticide Safety Education Program. Certify the people before you sell the service.
Sourcesmichigan.gov
Certifying your applicators is only half of it. Michigan also licenses the business. A pesticide application business license is required of any commercial applicator who holds himself or herself out to the public as being in the business of applying pesticides within the state for compensation, with exceptions including a person who applies pesticides onto premises he or she owns, leases or operates without compensation. A lawn care division inside a landscaping company that charges for applications is squarely inside that definition. The fee to apply or renew is $100.00 and licenses expire annually on December 31. To apply you submit a signed application on the department's form, a certificate of liability insurance, and the $100.00 fee. The applicant must be a certified applicator or have a certified applicator in their employ, and that certified applicator's credentials must cover the categories applied for. The insurance figures are published. For all license categories other than aerial application, fumigation and right of way pest control, coverage must be not less than $100,000 for bodily injury for each occurrence and not less than $25,000 for property damage for each occurrence. For aerial application, fumigation and right of way pest control, the requirement is the same per occurrence floor or a combined single limit of $300,000 for bodily injury and property damage. Where a licensee is qualified in two or more categories with different minimum liability requirements, the greater requirement applies. The certificate must show the limits of liability and the effective and expiration dates. MDARD asks for four to six weeks to process a business license on top of the time to issue the certification credentials, so start early in the winter.
Sourcesmichigan.gov
Michigan does not run a standalone irrigation contractor license, but irrigation is regulated at the point where it meets drinking water. The Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy explains that Part 14 of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act administrative rules prohibits cross connections and requires each water supply to implement a cross connection prevention program including inspections, testing, recordkeeping and education, and that those rules work together with the Michigan Plumbing Code to control cross connections. A lawn irrigation system tied into a municipal main is a textbook cross connection, so the local water supply's program, not a state irrigation license, is what governs your installation and the device on it. The sharper issue is testing. In a joint interpretive statement, the Bureau of Construction Codes concluded that the practice of plumbing under the Skilled Trades Regulation Act, 2016 Public Act 407, includes the testing of backflow prevention assemblies. The practical result is published in the agencies' own frequently asked questions: for a public water supply official to accept backflow prevention testing results, the tester must be a master plumber, journey plumber, or an apprentice plumber working under the direct supervision of a journey or master plumber, and must hold a valid American Society of Sanitary Engineers 5110 certification. ASSE 5110 alone is not enough in Michigan, and the agencies state there is no exception for testing in a building you or your company own. EGLE allowed a phase in period to July 31, 2024 before pursuing enforcement. Separately, a plumbing contractor license requires the applicant to hold a master plumber license or to employ a master plumber as a representative.
This is the rule competitors skip, and it is the one that costs licensed Michigan contractors money. The administrative rules for residential builders and maintenance and alteration contractors contain an advertising rule. A licensee shall include the name, license number, and actual business address, as shown on the license, in all advertising. The rule then names the common shortcut and bans it: the use of a telephone number or post office box number alone is prohibited. All advertising means all of it. Your website footer, your truck lettering, your yard signs, your paid search ads, your social profiles, your estimate templates and your Google Business Profile description are advertising. The three required items must match the license exactly, which is why a change of business address needs the $10.00 name or address change filed with the Bureau of Construction Codes before your marketing can be truthful. One carve out exists for new home sales: when sales of new homes are being made by a licensed builder through a licensed real estate broker, advertisements may indicate the broker's name or both the names of the builder and the broker. The same rule bars a different marketing tactic outright. A licensee shall not solicit any contract for home improvements by promising the purchaser or prospective purchaser a bonus, in merchandise or cash, contingent on the purchaser displaying a dwelling to a third person or on the licensee obtaining orders from a third person. The model home discount in exchange for showings is not available to a licensed Michigan contractor. Audit your own ads against those three required items this week.
Sourcesmichigan.gov 1michigan.gov 2
Michigan ties the license to your ability to collect, which makes this the most expensive section of the Occupational Code to ignore. A person, or a qualifying officer for a corporation or a member of a residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor, shall not bring or maintain an action in a court of this state for the collection of compensation for the performance of an act or contract for which a license is required by the article without alleging and proving that the person was licensed during the performance of the act or contract. The same section bars the lien: such a person shall not impose or take any legal or other action to impose a lien on real property unless that person was licensed during the performance of the act or contract. An unlicensed paver installer with an unpaid invoice has no suit and no lien. The statute adds one defense that runs the other way. Failure of the person bringing a complaint against a licensee to use a contractually provided alternative dispute resolution procedure is an affirmative defense to an action brought in a Michigan court against the licensee, which is a direct argument for putting a real dispute clause in your contract. The administrative rules also require that all agreements and changes to agreements between a builder or contractor and the customer be in writing and signed by the parties, with copies of all agreements and changes provided to the customer, and that the written agreements clearly state the terms of the transaction, including cost, the type and amount of work to be done, and the type and quality of materials to be used.
The penalty for unlicensed work in Michigan is unusually heavy for construction. A person who is not licensed under Article 24 as a residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor and who engages in the regulated occupation is guilty, on a first offense, of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than $5,000.00 and not more than $25,000.00, or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both. A second or subsequent offense carries the same fine range and up to two years. An offense that causes death or serious injury is a felony punishable by the same fine range and up to four years. Separately, a prosecuting attorney or the attorney general may bring a civil action against an unlicensed person, and the court shall assess a civil fine of not less than $5,000.00 and not more than $25,000.00, aside from civil damages or restitution. Using a protected title such as landscape architect without the license falls under the general penalty instead: a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $500.00 or 90 days, and not more than $1,000.00 or one year on a second offense. On top of the state license, cities add registration to pull permits. Grand Rapids tells contractors that if you have a State of Michigan license and want to apply for permits in the city, you must register that license with the city first. Customers verify you through the Accela licensee lookup that LARA runs for construction codes licenses, with a separate lookup for professional licensing.
Sourceslegislature.mi.gov 1legislature.mi.gov 2grandrapidsmi.gov 3aca-prod.accela.com 4aca-prod.accela.com 5
These are common details other guides publish about Michigan, but we could not verify them from the agency source. Confirm them directly before relying on them.
No. Michigan issues no landscaping or landscape contractor license. The Occupational Code states that its landscape architect licensure requirement does not stop a person from offering services as a landscape designer, landscape gardener, landscape contractor or landscape nursery operator, provided that person does not use the term landscape architect.
The residential maintenance and alteration contractor license. Its statutory definition names laying of concrete on residential property, and the crafts a license can specify include concrete, masonry work and excavation. Pick the craft that matches your scope, because a Michigan license states the particular craft or trade you are qualified for.
Yes. A person working on one undertaking or project may go unlicensed if the aggregate contract price for labor, material and other items is less than $600.00. The statute voids that exemption if the work is part of a larger operation or the job is split into smaller contracts to evade the act.
Yes. Michigan exempts a person, other than a salesperson, who engages solely in the business of performing work and services under contract with a residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor licensed under the article. Taking direct residential contracts yourself ends that exemption and the license requirement returns.
Sixty hours of approved prelicensure education, completed before you take the examination or submit the application. At least six hours must fall in each named subject, including business management and job costing, design and building science, contracts and risk management, marketing and sales, project management, and the Michigan Residential Code.
The Bureau of Construction Codes publishes the schedule. Application is $195.00. Renewal is $150.00, late renewal $170.00 and relicensure $185.00. A salesperson or branch office application is $195.00. A qualifying officer change or a name and address change is $10.00. Education and examination costs sit outside that schedule.
Three years. At renewal you state to the department that you hold a current copy of the Michigan residential code and meet continuing competency. Licensees first licensed after January 1, 2009 complete 21 hours in each of their first two three year cycles, then three named hours per cycle afterward.
Only if you hold the license. Michigan protects the title rather than the activity. You may sell design and call yourself a landscape designer, landscape gardener or landscape contractor. Using the term landscape architect without the Article 22 license is unlicensed use of a designated title under the Occupational Code.
The administrative rule requires a licensee to include the name, license number and actual business address, exactly as shown on the license, in all advertising. Using a telephone number or post office box number alone is prohibited. That covers your website, vehicles, signs and paid ads, not just print.
Commercial certification is required for anyone applying pesticides for commercial purposes, meaning for hire or applying non ready to use products, during employment. Applicators pass the commercial core exam plus a category exam. The commercial application fee is $75.00 and credentials expire December 31 of the third year.
Yes. A pesticide application business license is required of a commercial applicator holding itself out to the public as in the business of applying pesticides for compensation. The fee is $100.00, licenses expire annually on December 31, and you must carry at least $100,000 bodily injury and $25,000 property damage per occurrence.
The Bureau of Construction Codes treats backflow assembly testing as the practice of plumbing. For a public water supply to accept results, the tester must be a master plumber, journey plumber or supervised apprentice plumber and hold a valid ASSE 5110 certification. ASSE 5110 by itself is not sufficient.
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