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

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 Portland, OR, 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.

Of the 3 that always apply, 1 carry a flat fee, coming to $400.00. That is a floor, not a total. 3 of the 11 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 4 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Portland Business License Tax & Multnomah County Business Income Tax: City of Portland Business License Tax: 2.6% of net business income (Portland City Code Chapter 7.02, effective for tax years beginning January 1, 2018 or later). Multnomah County Business Income Tax (MCBIT): 2.0% of net income, administered jointly under the same registration and combined return by intergovernmental agreement — a combined 4.6% of net income for a business operating inside Multnomah County. Small-business exemption thresholds are set on GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income, and differ by government: the City exempts gross receipts under $75,000 for tax years beginning in 2026 (rising to under $100,000 for tax years beginning 2027 or later; it was under $50,000 for 2007-2025); the County exempts gross receipts under $100,000 (in effect since 2020, up from $50,000, and originally $25,000). A related regional tax, the 1% Metro Supportive Housing Services (SHS) Business Income Tax, is also collected by the same Revenue Division but only on businesses with more than $5,000,000 in gross receipts, and is a three-county (Metro) tax rather than a City or Multnomah County requirement — it is deliberately excluded from the combined rate above.

Zoning Confirmation Letter: $100–$1,706 Tier 1 (e.g. a DMV new/renewal auto dealer licence, or an OLCC non-conforming-use confirmation) is $100; Tier 2 (a DMV auto-dismantler licence, a Land Use Compatibility Statement, a bank letter, or an ODOT outdoor advertising sign permit) is $409; Tier 3 (documenting a non-conforming situation, complex zoning analysis, review or release of covenants, or an archaeological evaluation) is $1,706

Commercial Building Permit: Calculated from total construction valuation in stacked tiers: $1-$500 is a flat $167 minimum; $501-$2,000 is $167 for the first $500 plus $3.59 per additional $100; $2,001-$25,000 is $220.85 plus $13.91 per additional $1,000; $25,001-$50,000 is $540.78 plus $10.26 per additional $1,000; $50,001-$100,000 is $797.28 plus $6.81 per additional $1,000; over $100,000 is $1,137.78 plus $5.63 per additional $1,000. A separate, additive Development Services Fee - Commercial applies to every building, site-development or zoning permit on the same stacked-tier structure at roughly one-sixth the size of the building permit fee ($26.49 minimum). A Zoning Permit Fee (commercial minimum $159) and a Zoning Inspection Fee (the greater of 20% of the building permit fee or a $125 minimum) also apply to new construction and any permit requiring Planning/Zoning review. New-construction valuation is set using the ICC Building Valuation Data Table as required by Oregon Administrative Rule 918-050-0100, not simply the applicant's stated cost.

Permits for a contractor or trade in Portland, OR come from 5 separate offices: City of Portland Revenue Division, Portland Permitting & Development, Oregon Secretary of State, Corporation Division, Oregon Department of Revenue, Oregon Construction Contractors Board. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Portland Revenue DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: Portland Business License Tax & Multnomah County Business Income Tax111 SW Columbia Street, Suite 600, Portland, OR 97201 · (503) 823-5157www.portland.gov/revenue
• Portland Permitting & DevelopmentIssues 3 permits on this page: Zoning Confirmation Letter, Commercial Building Permit, No Separate Portland Contractor Licence Beyond the State CCB1900 SW 4th Avenue, Portland, OR 97201 · (503) 823-7300www.portland.gov/ppd
• Oregon Secretary of State, Corporation DivisionIssues 4 permits on this page: Articles of Incorporation, General Business Licence (local, not state), Articles of Organization (LLC), Annual Report255 Capitol Street NE, Suite 151, Salem, OR 97310 · (503) 986-2200sos.oregon.gov/business
• Oregon Department of RevenueIssues 2 permits on this page: Business Identification Number (payroll), Corporate Activity Tax Registration955 Center Street NE, Salem, OR 97301 · (503) 945-8005www.oregon.gov/dor/programs/businesses/Pages/corporate-activity-tax.aspx
• Oregon Construction Contractors BoardIssues 1 permit on this page: Construction Contractor Licence201 High Street SE, Suite 600, Salem, OR 97301 · (503) 378-4621www.oregon.gov/ccb/pages/ccb%20license.aspx

Administered jointly by the City of Portland Revenue Division on behalf of both governments — one registration and one combined tax return covers both the City tax and the County tax. Portland's own code states the 'license' is 'strictly for revenue purposes' and is not a regulatory permit: there is no per-industry fee schedule like some cities use (a salon and a warehouse pay the identical 2.6%/2.0% rates on their net income), and there is no flat minimum fee — a business below both exemption thresholds must still register but owes no tax.

Not every business needs this — the fee schedule's own Tier 1/2 examples are largely third-party licence support (an auto dealer or auto dismantler licence application, for instance) or documenting a legal nonconforming use. A prospective tenant can get a free preliminary zoning read from Portland Maps or the Zoning information line before paying for a formal letter.

Issued by Portland Permitting & Development (PP&D) — the bureau many local guides still call by its former name, the Bureau of Development Services (BDS). Plan review is billed separately at 65% of the building permit fee for the original submittal (two checksheets included, $336 per additional checksheet). Electrical, plumbing, mechanical and fire-alarm/sprinkler work are permitted and fee'd separately under related tables in the same schedule.

Portland does not issue its own separate municipal contractor licence: PP&D's own permitting page requires only a valid Oregon Construction Contractors Board (CCB) licence — and, for electrical work, the state Building Codes Division's electrical contractor and supervising-electrician licences — to pull a permit. No fee is charged beyond the state credential; a contractor still owes the general Business License Tax / MCBIT recorded above like any other business.

The same $100 as an LLC — Oregon prices by domestic against foreign rather than by entity type, so the choice between an LLC and a corporation costs nothing either way at formation or at renewal. A foreign corporation is $275, a nonprofit $50.

There is no fee, and one number covers everything: state withholding, unemployment insurance, the statewide transit tax, Paid Leave Oregon, the workers' benefit fund assessment and the TriMet or Lane Transit district payroll taxes where they apply. You must have it before paying anyone, and a corporation with no other staff still needs one to report what it pays its own officers. Register online rather than on paper — the revenue department warns that paper takes substantially longer, which matters when the deadline is your first payroll.

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-licence training and an eighty-question examination passed at seventy per cent. The licence 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 licence directory as stale — it still shows the superseded $250 and $20,000.

No fee, because Oregon issues no general business licence, and unusually the registering agency says so outright rather than leaving it to be inferred: the state does not issue a general business licence, and your business registration serves that purpose. Cities and counties are another matter — Portland and Multnomah County, Salem, Eugene and Beaverton all impose their own, and for most Oregon businesses that local licence is the only thing resembling a general business licence they will encounter.

A hundred dollars, and a corporation costs the same. The number that catches people out is the foreign one: registering an out-of-state company to do business in Oregon costs $275, nearly three times the domestic fee, and the same premium applies every year at renewal. A nonprofit is $50. An assumed business name is $50 and renews every two years. Because Oregon has no sales tax there is no seller's permit to obtain after this — the registration is the whole of the entry step for a business with no employees and modest revenue.

Oregon charges as much to keep a company alive each year as it charged to create it, which puts it among the more expensive states to maintain an entity in. The due date is the anniversary of your own filing, not a fixed date shared by everyone, and the notice goes out about forty-five days ahead. The penalty structure is the unusual part: there is no late fee. Miss the report and the entity is administratively dissolved, and the way back is reinstatement plus every missed year's fee. That can be done online if the dissolution is less than five years old; beyond five years it needs special forms and documentation. The reinstatement fee itself is not published on the fee schedule, so budget for it as an unknown rather than a figure — and file on time, which is cheaper by definition.

There is no fee to register, and the two thresholds are constantly confused. Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of Oregon commercial activity triggers a duty to register, within thirty days of hitting it. One million triggers the duty to file a return and pay. A business between the two must register and owes nothing — and failing to register anyway costs $100 a month up to $1,000 a year. Above a million the tax is $250 plus 0.57 per cent of taxable commercial activity over that first million. It is a gross receipts tax, not an income tax, which means it is owed on turnover regardless of whether the year was profitable.