What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in Los Angeles?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 11 records listed for a contractor or trade in Los Angeles, CA, 3 apply to every business of this type and 8 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

4 of the 11 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 1 has no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Business Tax Registration Certificate: No registration fee; the tax is charged on gross receipts by classification — $1.27 per $1,000 for retail and restaurants, $3.56 for miscellaneous services, $4.25 for professions, and $153 on the first $60,000 plus $1.01 per $1,000 thereafter for contractors

Building Permit and Plan Check: Charged on the total valuation of the work: $65 to $2,000, then $40 plus $1.25 per $100 to $20,000, $170 plus $6 per $1,000 to $50,000, $195 plus $5.50 per $1,000 to $100,000, $395 plus $3.50 per $1,000 to $500,000, $520 plus $3.25 per $1,000 to $1,000,000, and $920 plus $2.85 per $1,000 above that — plus plan check at 90 per cent of the permit fee

Annual LLC Tax and Minimum Franchise Tax: $800 a year for every LLC and every corporation. An LLC with California total income of $250,000 or more pays a further gross receipts fee on top: $900 from $250,000, $2,500 from $500,000, $6,000 from $1,000,000 and $11,790 from $5,000,000

Contractor Licence: $450 original application for one classification, then an initial licence fee of $200 for a sole owner or $350 otherwise. Renewal every two years is $450 sole owner or $700 otherwise, with C-10 electrical contractors paying $20 more at each tier

Permits for a contractor or trade in Los Angeles, CA come from 6 separate offices: Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, City of Los Angeles Office of Finance, California Secretary of State, Business Programs Division, California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, California Franchise Tax Board, Contractors State License Board. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• Los Angeles Department of Building and SafetyIssues 2 permits on this page: Certificate of Occupancy, Building Permit and Plan Check201 North Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 · (213) 473-3231dbs.lacity.gov
• City of Los Angeles Office of FinanceIssues 1 permit on this page: Business Tax Registration Certificate200 North Spring Street, Room 101, Los Angeles, CA 90012 · (844) 663-4411latax.lacity.org
• California Secretary of State, Business Programs DivisionIssues 5 permits on this page, including Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Statement of Information (LLC)(916) 657-5448bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov
• California Department of Tax and Fee AdministrationIssues 1 permit on this page: Seller's Permitonlineservices.cdtfa.ca.gov
• California Franchise Tax BoardIssues 1 permit on this page: Annual LLC Tax and Minimum Franchise Taxwww.ftb.ca.gov
• Contractors State License BoardIssues 1 permit on this page: Contractor Licencewww.cslb.ca.gov

The certificate is free, and the code says so in those words — the cost is whatever building permit and plan check the change of use requires. Do not confuse it with the $150 Certificate of Occupancy for Use of Land, which is a different instrument for land with no building work, and which is itself waived whenever a building permit is pulled. What triggers a new certificate is a change of occupancy group or division, and the code is explicit that this applies whether or not any alteration is required — so retail to childcare, retail to auto repair, or retail to a clinic all trigger one, while a new tenant in the same use does not. A temporary certificate costs $453 plus $98 per floor for a business, mercantile, factory or storage occupancy, and lasts no more than six months. Zoning comes before all of this and is not uniform: a salon is by right in C1 and up, childcare is by right in the commercial zones but needs a conditional use permit in residential, agricultural and manufacturing zones, auto repair is by right in C2 and less restrictive zones only if it meets a long list of operating conditions — spray painting is expressly not one of them — and an animal hospital is not a listed permitted use in any commercial zone at all, being first permitted in MR1.

There is no fee to register. Nothing in the Office of Finance's guidance or in LAMC article 1 imposes one — what you owe is the tax itself, and a business whose total gross receipts inside and outside the City stay under $100,000 owes none of it. Two traps sit behind that exemption. It is not automatic: file or renew after the delinquency date and the code makes the exemption inapplicable, so the full tax plus interest and penalty becomes payable, and a business that never registered cannot claim it at all. And the first year is not free — it is billed a year late, in the second year's renewal, which catches operators who assumed year one was exempt. Restaurants fall under Retail Sales at $1.27 per $1,000, not under services. A separate certificate is needed for each location and each classification, and liability for an unregistered business reaches back eight years.

Two things about this table are routinely got wrong. The second band is charged per $100, not per $1,000 — a factor of ten. And the multiplier applies to the whole valuation, not only to the amount above the band floor; each band's formula lands exactly on the next band's boundary, which only works that way. On top of the permit fee come plan check at 90 per cent, a $27 issuing fee, a plan maintenance fee of 2 per cent capped at $300, a fire hydrant fee of 0.22 per cent once valuation reaches $50,000, and add-ons of 10 per cent for energy compliance and 12.5 per cent for disabled access work. The minimum inspection fee is $90, and $180 where a project needs more than one inspection. Valuation itself is set from the department's own square-foot table rather than from what you paid the contractor, and no part of the work may be excluded because another agency also permits it. Note too that every fee in the Building Code is adjusted for inflation each 1 July, so the counter figure can exceed the printed one.

$70 to file Form LLC-1, and it is the cheapest part of forming a California LLC by a wide margin. The cost that catches people is the Franchise Tax Board's $800 annual tax, which is due for the FIRST year as well — the waiver that removed it applied only to tax years beginning on or after 1 January 2021 and before 1 January 2024, and it has lapsed, so a great deal of advice still circulating is wrong on this point. Budget $70 to the Secretary of State and $800 to the FTB by the 15th day of the 4th month after you register. Forming a corporation instead costs $100. A sole proprietor forms nothing and pays neither.

$100 for articles providing for shares — the figure to compare against $70 for an LLC. A nonprofit filing articles that do not provide for shares pays $30. One difference from the LLC worth knowing before choosing: a newly incorporated corporation is exempt from the $800 minimum franchise tax in its first taxable year, and that exemption has no stated sunset, whereas the equivalent LLC waiver expired for tax years beginning on or after 1 January 2024. The corporation also files its Statement of Information annually rather than biennially.

$20 every two years for Form LLC-12, and the penalty for forgetting is twelve and a half times the fee: the Franchise Tax Board imposes a $250 penalty for failing to file. The initial statement is due within 90 days of registering. Reporting a change between filing periods costs nothing, so there is no reason to delay one. A corporation files the equivalent annually at $25.

$25 a year for Form SI-200 — $20 filing plus a $5 disclosure fee. Annual rather than the LLC's biennial, which is the single most-missed difference between the two structures in California: an incorporated business files this five times in the period an LLC files twice. Amending between periods is free.

There is no fee — CDTFA says so in as many words, which is worth stating because a blank reads as though nobody checked. What CDTFA may ask for instead is a security deposit against unpaid tax if the business later closes, set case by case at the time you apply and capped by statute at $50,000. The permit does not expire on a date but it is not permanent either: it is valid only while you are actively engaged in business as a seller, and CDTFA asks you to return it for cancellation when you stop.

The $800 is the real cost of operating a registered entity in California and it is due whether or not the business trades — the Franchise Tax Board's own wording is that it applies "even if you are not conducting business, until you cancel your LLC". Read the first-year position carefully, because most secondary advice is out of date: the waiver removing the first-year $800 for LLCs covered tax years beginning on or after 1 January 2021 and BEFORE 1 January 2024, so an LLC formed now owes it immediately, payable by the 15th day of the 4th month after registering. A newly incorporated CORPORATION is still exempt in its first taxable year, and that exemption carries no sunset — a genuine difference between the two structures. Above $250,000 of California total income an LLC owes the gross receipts fee as well, estimated and paid by the 15th day of the 6th month of the current tax year.

The fees are the small part. Every licensee must carry a $25,000 contractor's bond, raised from $15,000 by Senate Bill 607 with effect from 1 January 2023. Two more bonds can stack on top: a $25,000 Bond of Qualifying Individual where the licence is qualified by a responsible managing employee, or by a responsible managing officer who does not own at least 10 per cent of the voting stock; and, for an LLC licence, a further $100,000 surety bond for the benefit of employees for unpaid wages. An LLC contractor therefore carries $125,000 of bonding before it starts. Fingerprinting is paid separately to the Live Scan operator — $32 to the Department of Justice and $17 to the FBI, plus a rolling fee CSLB does not set. An inactive licence needs no contractor's bond while it stays inactive.

California has no statewide general business licence, and this record exists to say so plainly rather than leave a gap a reader would fill with a guess. The state's own small business advocate is explicit about where it comes from instead: a business inside an incorporated city gets it from the city, and one in an unincorporated area gets it from the county. CalGOLD, the state's official permit-assistance tool, routes it the same way. No amount is shown because the state charges none — the figure that applies is your city's or county's, and both the fee and the renewal cycle differ between neighbouring jurisdictions.