What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in New Orleans?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 13 records listed for a contractor or trade in New Orleans, LA, 2 apply to every business of this type and 11 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 13 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:

Occupational Licence Tax — Contractors: $50–$750 a year, by gross receipts bracket under Table 2, statutorily capped at $750 regardless of size

Commercial Building Permit: $60 base plus $5 per $1,000 of construction value. Plan review, where required, adds $1 per $1,000 (minimum $60); a re-review after a required resubmission is $0.50 per $1,000 (minimum $45). Demolition is $95 base plus $5 per $1,000 of demolition cost. Unpermitted work is penalised at 200% of all applicable fees. Work reviewed by the Vieux Carré Commission or the Historic District Landmarks Commission adds a flat 50% surcharge to the building permit, plan review, and demolition fees.

Conditional Use Permit: $1,160–$4,640 by building size — $1,160 up to 4,999 sq ft, $2,320 for 5,000–24,999, $3,480 for 25,000–74,999, $4,640 for 75,000 and above; a multi-family or townhouse project is $500 to $700 instead

Plumbing Licensing (transitioning to a single board): $50 to $190 for the individual journeyman or master plumber's licence, plus a separate $100 contractor licence for the plumbing business itself

Permits for a contractor or trade in New Orleans, LA come from 5 separate offices: City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue, Department of Finance, City of New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits, City of New Orleans City Planning Commission, Louisiana Secretary of State, Commercial Division, Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue, Department of FinanceIssues 1 permit on this page: Occupational Licence Tax — Contractors1300 Perdido Street, Room 1W15, New Orleans, LA 70112www.nola.gov
• City of New Orleans Department of Safety and PermitsIssues 1 permit on this page: Commercial Building Permitnola.gov
• City of New Orleans City Planning CommissionIssues 1 permit on this page: Conditional Use Permitnola.gov/conditional-use-request
• Louisiana Secretary of State, Commercial DivisionIssues 4 permits on this page: General Business Licence (not required by Louisiana), Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual Report8585 Archives Avenue, Baton Rouge, LA 70809 · (225) 925-4704www.sos.la.gov/business-services/forms-fee-schedule
• Louisiana State Licensing Board for ContractorsIssues 6 permits on this page, including Commercial Contractor Licence, Residential Contractor Licence, Home Improvement Registration600 North Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70802 · (225) 765-2301lslbc.gov

On top of, not instead of, the state contractors board licence recorded at the state layer.

A Neighborhood Conservation District application adds $250 (residential) or $500 (commercial) on top of these fees.

Only triggered where the zoning district does not already permit the intended use as of right. The zoning ordinance's own use table indicates a bar is Conditional Use in a Neighborhood Commercial (C-1) district but permitted outright in C-2/C-3; an animal hospital is permitted everywhere but a boarding kennel is Conditional Use; minor auto repair is Conditional Use in C-1 but permitted in C-2/C-3; and a large child care facility sited in a residential district can require this approval even where one in a commercial district would not. These district-by-district designations were extracted from the zoning ordinance's own published table rather than manually verified cell by cell — confirm for a specific address and use with the City Planning Commission before budgeting for it. The process also requires a public hearing before both the Planning Commission and the City Council, typically taking several months.

No fee, because Louisiana issues no general business licence — its geauxBIZ portal is a filing and registration hub, not a licence itself. It bundles entity formation with the Secretary of State, tax account registration with the revenue department and unemployment insurance registration with the workforce commission, and generates a checklist of whatever industry-specific licences a particular business needs, rather than issuing one licence that covers all of them.

A hundred dollars today, verified directly from the Secretary of State's own live fee page rather than an older archived figure. That figure has a firm expiry date: Act 921 of the 2026 legislative session raises the whole Commercial Division fee schedule on 1 October 2026, taking this to $125. A corporation costs less to form outright, at $75 rising to $95 on the same date — see the corporate registration record.

Seventy-five dollars today, cheaper than an LLC's $100, and rising to $95 on 1 October 2026 under the same statewide fee increase — still cheaper than the LLC's $125 after the change. Louisiana also unusually folds amendments, mergers, dissolutions and corrections into the same fee bracket as new formation rather than pricing them separately.

Thirty dollars a year for an LLC or a corporation alike, rising to $35 under the same 1 October 2026 fee increase that touches formation. It can only be filed within thirty days of the entity's own renewal date, which the Secretary of State notifies individually rather than fixing on one shared calendar date for everyone. A nonprofit's version is a flat $10 regardless of the increase touching the for-profit figures.

Commercial work needs this licence once the project's value reaches $50,000, under the board's general Building Construction classification. The fees are statutory caps rather than fixed points — an examination fee of no more than $50, a licence fee of no more than $100 and a renewal of no more than $100 — and unlike residential work below, a commercial licensee may choose to renew for one, two or three years at a time rather than being locked into an annual cycle. A contractor not domiciled in Louisiana can be charged a further surcharge of up to $400.

The threshold that triggers this licence is genuinely unresolved in the board's own current material: the amended statute defining a residential contractor sets it at $50,000, but the board's own bundled administrative rules — last formally amended in 2023 and apparently not yet brought into line with the newer statute — still state $75,000 for the same category. Both figures are recorded here because neither can be confirmed as the one actually enforced; treat $50,000 as the statutory floor and confirm with the board before relying on either. What is confirmed without ambiguity is the insurance requirement, recently raised: a residential applicant must carry at least $500,000 of liability insurance, up from a prior $100,000 minimum, and because that insurance certification is a condition of the licence, it cannot be renewed for more than one year at a time the way a commercial licence can.

A distinct, lower tier sitting between ordinary handywork and full residential contracting: work on an existing home worth $7,500 or more but under $50,000 needs this registration rather than the full residential contractor licence, and a home improvement registrant may not perform work that is structurally integral to the building. The fee cap is lower too, no more than $50. Like the residential licence above, it depends on insurance certification and so renews annually rather than on a multi-year cycle.

Electrical contracting work worth $10,000 or more needs this licence, priced on the same statutory caps as the general commercial licence — no more than $50 to examine, $100 to obtain and $100 to renew. Its most distinctive feature is what it does once held: state law excludes a statewide-licensed electrical contractor, and that contractor's own employees, from any local municipal or parish examination or certification requirement, letting a licensed contractor bid and perform work in any jurisdiction in the state on the strength of this one credential. A local government may still license electricians who are not working for a statewide-licensed contractor, and may still require its own business licence and inspect the work.

Plumbing is licensed on two layers at once, and the second layer is mid-transition into the first. A separate State Plumbing Board still licenses the individual tradesperson — a journeyman's application and exam run $135 with a $50 initial licence, a master plumber $110 with a $190 active licence, renewed annually by 31 December — while the general contractors board separately licenses the plumbing business itself once a project reaches $10,000, on the same statutory caps as its other trades, and exempts a business from its own trade exam if the applicant already holds the board's Master Plumber licence. That two-board structure is being dismantled: the plumbing board relocated into the contractors board's own building on 1 September 2026 under a 2026 act, and full legal consolidation into a single agency lands on 1 January 2027, which is likely to reshape both the fee schedule and the training-hour requirements shortly after. Confirm the current structure directly before publishing anything dated after that changeover.

Mechanical work worth $10,000 or more needs this licence, on the same fee caps as the board's other major classifications. Heating, air conditioning, ventilation, duct work and refrigeration sit inside it as a subclassification rather than as their own separate board, so an HVAC business is licensed as a mechanical contractor rather than under a distinct HVAC category, still at the same $10,000 threshold.