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

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 Columbia, SC, 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.

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:

Contractor Business Licence: A dedicated Subclass 8.1: $60.00 minimum on the first $2,000 of gross income, plus $0.53 per additional $1,000. A contractor with no permanent place of business in the city pays double.

Commercial Building Permit: By construction value: $50.00 flat for $1.00–$5,000; $50.00 for the first $5,000 plus $9.00 per additional $1,000 (or fraction) up to $100,000; $905.00 for the first $100,000 plus $4.00 per additional $1,000 up to $1,000,000; $4,505.00 for the first $1,000,000 plus $3.00 per additional $1,000 up to $5,000,000; $16,505.00 for the first $5,000,000 plus $2.00 per additional $1,000 above that. A plan review fee of 30% of the permit fee applies only once plans reach a third review submittal. Demolition is $150 flat for two stories or fewer, or $200 plus $25 per additional story for three or more (a basement counts as a story). A construction trailer permit is $50; a driveway/curb cut is $20.

Local Business Licence: A tax on gross income at a rate each county or city sets, using a class schedule and licence year that are the same statewide

Corporate Annual Report and Licence Fee: $15 plus $1 for every $1,000 of capital stock and paid-in surplus, with a $25 minimum — and nothing at all for an LLC that has not elected corporate treatment

Permits for a contractor or trade in Columbia, SC come from 6 separate offices: City of Columbia Business License Division, Finance Department, City of Columbia Planning and Development Services, Development Center, South Carolina Department of Revenue, South Carolina Secretary of State, Division of Business Filings, South Carolina Contractor's Licensing Board, Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, South Carolina Residential Builders Commission, Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Columbia Business License Division, Finance DepartmentIssues 1 permit on this page: Contractor Business Licence1136 Washington Street, 3rd Floor, Columbia, SC 29201 · (803) 545-3345businesslicensing.columbiasc.gov
• City of Columbia Planning and Development Services, Development CenterIssues 1 permit on this page: Commercial Building Permit1136 Washington Street, 1st Floor, Columbia, SC 29201 · (803) 545-3483planninganddevelopment.columbiasc.gov
• South Carolina Department of RevenueIssues 2 permits on this page: Local Business Licence, Corporate Annual Report and Licence FeePO Box 125, Columbia, SC 29214 · (803) 898-3153dor.sc.gov/businesses
• South Carolina Secretary of State, Division of Business FilingsIssues 2 permits on this page: Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation1205 Pendleton Street, Suite 525, Columbia, SC 29201 · (803) 734-2158sos.sc.gov/online-filings/business-entities
• South Carolina Contractor's Licensing Board, Department of Labor, Licensing and RegulationIssues 1 permit on this page: General or Mechanical Contractor Licence110 Centerview Drive, Columbia, SC 29210 · (803) 896-4686llr.sc.gov/clb
• South Carolina Residential Builders Commission, Department of Labor, Licensing and RegulationIssues 1 permit on this page: Residential Builder Licence110 Centerview Drive, Columbia, SC 29210 · (803) 896-4300llr.sc.gov/resbuilders

The licence cannot be issued until the applicant has satisfied state/municipal trade qualification, filed the required performance and indemnity bonds, and obtained the applicable zoning permit. Subcontractors are licensed the same way as prime contractors.

This schedule is marked 'LR 06/20/14' (last revised June 2014) on the document the city's own Payments and PC Fee Schedule pages currently link to, and it is the only building-permit fee schedule the city publishes — chapter 5, article III of the codified Municipal Code ('Building Permits') is itself marked 'Reserved,' confirming fees are set administratively rather than in ordinance text. No newer version could be located. Confirm with the Development Center (803-545-3483) before relying on these figures for a large project, given the document's age.

South Carolina has no state business licence — the statute defines the term to mean something a county or municipality issues — but it did something more useful than creating one. An act effective from 2022 left roughly two hundred and thirty local licences in place while forcing them onto a single licence year running 1 May to 30 April, a single class schedule built from industry codes and federal profitability statistics, a single appeal route that starts with thirty days to request an adjustment and an informal conference within fifteen, and a single portal for reporting and paying. What is not standardised is the rate, which each jurisdiction still sets for itself. The tax is computed on the gross income of the preceding calendar or fiscal year, or on a projection for a new business, and a licence tied to a construction contract expires when the project completes rather than in April. You need one in every jurisdiction you do business in.

A hundred and ten dollars, fixed by statute, and then nothing recurring — a South Carolina LLC files no annual report at all. The evidence is structural rather than merely an absence of mention: the LLC act contains no annual report provision, and its own fee schedule has no annual report line, in direct contrast to the corporation schedule which does. The one exception is an LLC that elects to be taxed as a corporation, which then picks up the corporate obligations. Other filings are modest: an amendment or merger $110, a name reservation $25, termination or cancellation $10, reinstatement after administrative dissolution $25. Disregard the widely repeated claim that filing online costs $125 because of a $15 electronic records fee — no such fee appears on the Secretary of State's own page.

The advertised figure is $110 but the cheque is $135, because a form CL-1 and its $25 minimum licence fee must accompany the articles. That $110 is itself two things — a $10 filing fee and a $100 tax — which is why amendments and mergers also carry the $100 on top of their $10. Unlike an LLC, a corporation then has a recurring obligation, though not to this office: the annual report is a schedule of the corporate income tax return filed with the revenue department. A corporation that does not file with the Secretary of State at all must still submit the CL-1 within sixty days of starting business.

The common claim that South Carolina has no annual report is true for LLCs and wrong for corporations. A corporation files one, but it is not a Secretary of State filing at all — it is schedule D of the corporate income tax return, filed with the revenue department, and the fee is the corporate licence fee. That fee scales with capitalisation rather than being flat: $15 plus a dollar for every thousand dollars of capital stock and paid-in surplus, which works out at a tenth of one per cent, subject to a $25 floor. It is due when the return is due, on the fifteenth day of the fourth month after the tax year closes. A new corporation's first version of this is the CL-1, due within sixty days of commencing business.

The threshold doubled to $10,000 in May 2023, for general and mechanical contracting alike, so anything published before then understates it at $5,000. Three hundred and fifty dollars to license and $135 to renew every two years, with late penalties climbing from $100 to $200 as the delay passes thirty and sixty days. The fee is not the constraint — your financial position is, because the licence is issued in one of five groups that cap what you may bid. Group one is limited to $100,000 a job and needs $20,000 of net worth or $10,000 of working capital; group two $400,000; group three a million; group four three million; group five is unlimited and needs $350,000 of net worth or $250,000 of working capital plus an audited balance sheet on first application. Groups one and two accept an owner-prepared statement with an affidavit, three and four need a compiled statement from an accountant. A surety bond may be posted instead of financial statements. Mechanical contractors run on a separate and much lower group table, starting at $35,000 a job. Residential work belongs to the other board entirely.

Residential work sits with a different board and a much lower trigger — $5,000 for a residential builder, covering buildings up to three floors with no more than sixteen units in a single apartment block. A specialty trade has a lower trigger still, at $500, and which credential you get depends on the trade rather than the money: plumbers, electricians and heating and air installers must pass an examination and receive a licence at $135 plus $220, while siding installers, masons, drywall installers, carpenters, stucco installers, painters, paperhangers and solar panel installers merely register at $100 with no examination. Renewing late costs $50 for a licence or $20 for a registration; reinstatement within three years is $260 or $90. The commercial consequence of getting this wrong is severe and often overlooked: an unlicensed or unregistered residential contractor may not file a mechanics' lien and may not bring any action to enforce its own contract, so an unpaid job simply cannot be sued for.