Oregon Construction Contractors Board

Construction Contractor License

Four hundred dollars for two years, raised from $325 — for renewals from July 2024 and new applications from July 2025 — plus sixteen hours of pre-license training and an eighty-question examination passed at seventy per cent. The license fee is the smallest part of the cost, because the endorsement you choose sets a bond and an insurance floor: a residential general contractor posts a $25,000 bond and carries $500,000 of liability cover, a residential specialty $20,000 and $300,000, a commercial general at level one $80,000 and $2 million. The split turns on the structure rather than the customer — a residential endorsement also reaches small commercial work, meaning a non-residential building under ten thousand square feet and twenty feet high, or any size of structure where the whole contract is $250,000 or less. Large commercial always needs the commercial endorsement, and holding both means two bonds but a single insurance policy at the higher limit. Commercial endorsements also require certified key employee experience, eight years at level one and four at level two, with substitutions for apprenticeships and relevant degrees. Treat the fee and bond figures on the state's general license directory as stale — it still shows the superseded $250 and $20,000.