What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in Las Vegas?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 8 records listed for a contractor or trade in Las Vegas, NV, 3 apply to every business of this type and 5 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 3 that always apply, 1 carry a flat fee, coming to $200.00. That is a floor, not a total. 4 of the 8 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 0 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

General Business Licence — Contractor: A one-time $50 non-refundable application fee, plus a semiannual licence fee of $125 where Las Vegas is the contractor's primary jurisdiction, or $100 for each additional secondary jurisdiction.

Building Permit (Commercial): Priced by ICC occupancy classification and project square footage on Table 3-A of the Building & Safety fee schedule, combining a separate Plan Check Fee and an Inspection/Permit Fee for each size band. Representative 'Complete' (new-construction) examples: a small Restaurant (under 50 occupants, up to 1,500 sq ft) is $964 plan check + $2,074 inspection/permit; a 500 sq ft Office is $325 + $1,249; a 1,000 sq ft General Retail (Mercantile) space is $442 + $1,167; a 250 sq ft Day Care Facility is $168 + $453; a 5,000 sq ft Repair Garage/Service Station is $1,175 + $2,920. Tenant-improvement work on existing space is priced on separate, generally lower TI bands for the same occupancy. A companion table (3-B/3-C) scales the same figures further by the building's fire-resistance construction type. A $55 Permit Issuance fee and, for most occupancies, a $220 (or $132 for some smaller TI categories) Fire Plan Review fee (Table 3-G) apply on top of the base building-permit fee.

Articles of Incorporation: $75 for authorised shares valued at $75,000 or less, rising in tiers to $375 for $1 million, then $275 for every further $500,000 authorised, capped at $35,000

Annual List: $150 a year for an LLC; a corporation pays the same tiered schedule as its formation fee, from $150 up to a $11,125 ceiling

Permits for a contractor or trade in Las Vegas, NV come from 5 separate offices: City of Las Vegas Department of Community Development, Business Licensing Division, City of Las Vegas Department of Building and Safety, City of Las Vegas Department of Planning, Nevada Secretary of State, Commercial Recordings Division, Nevada State Contractors Board. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Las Vegas Department of Community Development, Business Licensing DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: General Business Licence — Contractor495 S. Main St., Las Vegas, NV 89101 · (702) 229-6281www.lasvegasnevada.gov/Business/Business-License
• City of Las Vegas Department of Building and SafetyIssues 1 permit on this page: Building Permit (Commercial)495 S. Main St., Las Vegas, NV 89101 · (702) 229-6251www.lasvegasnevada.gov/Business/Permits-Licenses/Building-Permits
• City of Las Vegas Department of PlanningIssues 1 permit on this page: Zoning Verification Letter495 S. Main St., Las Vegas, NV 89101 · (702) 229-6301www.lasvegasnevada.gov/Business/Planning-Zoning
• Nevada Secretary of State, Commercial Recordings DivisionIssues 4 permits on this page: State Business Licence, Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual List401 North Carson Street, Carson City, NV 89701 · (775) 684-5708www.nvsos.gov
• Nevada State Contractors BoardIssues 1 permit on this page: Contractor Licence2310 Corporate Circle, Suite 200, Henderson, NV 89074 · (702) 486-1100www.nvcontractorsboard.com

Applies to any person licensed or required to be licensed as a contractor under NRS Chapter 624, whether or not the contractor's business is based in the City. A current Nevada State Contractors Board licence (recorded at the state layer) is required first. This is on top of, not instead of, that state licence. Confirmed current as of a 13 September 2025 archive capture.

Only a Nevada-licensed contractor may obtain a commercial building permit; electronic plan submission through the Citizen Portal/ProjectDox has been required since January 1, 2020. A childcare facility providing overnight (24-hour) care for more than 5 children under 2.5 years is classified I-2 rather than the ordinary I-4 Day Care Facility category, and is priced on a separate, higher table. This fee schedule, though dated 2021, remains the current document the City's own site links to as of this research.

An advisory letter confirming a property's zoning and permitted use, most often requested by lenders, buyers or new tenants rather than required to open every business — several LCAT category instructions do separately reference 'Conditional Use Verification from Planning' as a mandatory step for a specific setup (e.g., an Open Air Vendor site). This fee schedule, though dated 2008, is still the current document the City's own Business Licensing forms page links to as of this research.

Unlike most of the states covered here, Nevada genuinely does issue a statewide general business licence, and a corporation pays more for it than anything else — $500 a year against $200 for an LLC, a partnership or a sole proprietorship. It is filed alongside formation and renews every year on the anniversary month rather than a fixed calendar date. A handful of exemptions exist: government bodies, most Nevada nonprofits, licensed insurance companies, film companies registered with the state's motion picture division, and a home-based sole proprietor whose net earnings fall below a threshold tied to two-thirds of the state's average annual wage — that threshold moves with wage data each year rather than being published as a flat dollar figure, so confirm the current number rather than assuming a fixed exemption line.

Filing the articles themselves is $75, but Nevada requires an initial list of managers or members to be filed at the same time, at a further $150, and the state business licence application on top of both — so opening an LLC costs $75 plus $150 plus at least $200 for the licence, $425 in total before any expedited service. A corporation follows the same three-part structure at different prices; see the corporate registration record.

Priced by the value of the shares the corporation authorises rather than a flat figure, starting at $75 for the smallest tier and climbing through $175, $275 and $375 as authorised capital passes $75,000, $200,000 and $500,000, then $275 for every further $500,000 above a million, up to a $35,000 ceiling. An initial list of officers and directors is a further $150, filed at the same time, and the state business licence sits on top of both — a small corporation opens for at least $725 once every piece is added together.

An LLC's annual list is a flat $150 regardless of size. A corporation instead pays on the same tiered scale used at formation, keyed to its authorised share value, and that scale can run all the way to an $11,125 ceiling for the largest corporations — a genuine cost of scale that a small LLC never faces. Missing the filing adds a flat $75 default penalty under either statute, and an entity left in default or revoked status for five consecutive years cannot be reinstated at all.

Nine hundred dollars in total to get started — a $300 non-refundable application fee and, once approved, a further $600 for the two-year licence itself. Electrical and plumbing are not split off to separate boards here: they are simply two of the board's own classifications, plumbing and heating as C-1 and electrical as C-2, alongside the general engineering (A) and general building (B) classes and forty-two further specialty categories. A surety bond is required on every licence, set anywhere from $1,000 to $500,000 depending on the classification, the monetary limit requested and the applicant's financial standing — a monetary limit above $10,000 requires a CPA-prepared financial statement rather than the board's own simplified form. A residential pool and spa contractor needs an additional consumer protection bond of $10,000 to $400,000 on top.