Out-of-state contractors · Reciprocity
Checked 22 September 2026 against CSLB, the Business and Professions Code and PSI · Written by the License Ladder team
Five: Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and North Carolina. They are the only states on CSLB’s reciprocity list, and Utah is not one of them. If your license is in a listed classification and has been in good standing for five years, reciprocity can waive California’s trade exam. For the B (General Building) waiver from Louisiana, Mississippi or North Carolina, you must also have passed the NASCLA Commercial Building exam. It does not waive the Law & Business exam.
It can waive one exam: the trade exam for your classification. You still sit for California’s Law & Business exam, and you still file the same application and $450 fee as any first-time applicant. Each point below comes from CSLB’s own reciprocity pages and application form.
Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and North Carolina. CSLB says California has “formal reciprocity agreements” with the contractor licensing agencies of those five states. No other state appears on its reciprocity pages.
The trade exam, and only at CSLB’s discretion. CSLB’s wording: it “may waive the trade portion of the exam but retains the right to require the trade exam.” A waiver is never automatic.
No. CSLB: “If the applicant is granted reciprocity, they still will be required to take the business law portion of CSLB’s exam.” The application form names one exception: you already passed California’s Law & Business exam within the last five years.
You need a license in a classification that appears on your state’s table in CSLB’s Reciprocal Classifications List, held active and in good standing for the previous five years. For a B waiver from Louisiana, Mississippi or North Carolina, add a passing score on the NASCLA Commercial Building exam (see the state notes below). Your state’s licensing agency confirms that on CSLB’s verification form.
Sources: CSLB, General Information on Reciprocity; CSLB, Reciprocity Exam Requirements; CSLB, Reciprocity Requirements; CSLB, Application for Original Contractor License (form 13A-1, rev. 01/2026). All checked 22 September 2026.
No. As of 22 September 2026, Utah does not appear on any of CSLB’s reciprocity pages: the program page, the general information page, the two requirements pages or the Reciprocal Classifications List. The same is true of every state except Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and North Carolina.
Utah is not on it. Neither are Oregon, Washington, Texas or Florida, nor any other state beyond the five. Checked 22 September 2026 on all five pages of CSLB’s reciprocity section.
Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina are on it, alongside California’s neighbors Arizona and Nevada. Those five are named on every CSLB reciprocity page that lists states, and each has its own table of classifications.
It lets CSLB’s registrar accept a contractor licensed in a similar classification in a state that recognizes California licenses, if the board finds that state’s standards at least equal to California’s, and waive the trade exam once that state certifies five years in good standing. Both steps are discretionary: the registrar may accept your qualifications and may waive the exam.
Section 7065.4 is two sentences long. It sets the conditions for accepting an out-of-state license and for waiving the trade exam. Here is the whole section:
“The registrar may accept the qualifications of an applicant who is licensed as a contractor in a similar classification in another state if that state accepts the qualifications of a contractor licensed in this state for purposes of licensure in that other state, and if the board ascertains, on a case-by-case basis, that the professional qualifications and conditions of good standing for licensure and continued licensure are at least the same or greater in that state as in California. The registrar may waive the trade examination for that applicant if the applicant provides written certification from that other state in which he or she is licensed, that the applicant’s license has been in good standing for the previous five years.”
Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §7065.4 (added 1990), checked 22 September 2026
CSLB turns the statute into four requirements, the same for all five states. In its words:
CSLB, Reciprocity Requirements, checked 22 September 2026
Three things the statute does not do. It never mentions the Law & Business exam; the only exam it lets the registrar waive is “the trade examination.” It names no states; the list of five is CSLB’s. And it promises no one a waiver. One more rule matters if you earned your experience outside California: the registrar must review it “to determine whether all of that experience was gained in a lawful manner in that state” (§7068(h)).
It depends on the state. Arizona’s table maps to 21 California classifications and Nevada’s to 25; Louisiana and Mississippi map only to B General Building; North Carolina maps to B and B-2. If your license isn’t on your state’s table, reciprocity doesn’t cover it.
Several Arizona licenses can land on one California classification: Arizona’s B General Residential, B-1 General Commercial and B-3 General Remodeling and Repair all map to California’s B. California’s C-10 Electrical and C-36 Plumbing are on Arizona’s table.
Nevada’s table maps to 25 California classifications, but not to C-10 Electrical or C-36 Plumbing, so reciprocity from Nevada doesn’t cover those two trades (checked 22 September 2026).
Louisiana’s Commercial Building (1) and Residential Building (12) licenses map to California’s B General Building. CSLB’s note under the Louisiana table:
“*Candidates must have taken and passed the NASCLA Commercial Building exam and have held a General Builder license from Louisiana in good standing for five years or more to qualify for a B – General Building trade exam waiver.”
Mississippi’s Commercial Building license maps to California’s B General Building. CSLB’s note under the Mississippi table:
“*Candidates must have taken and passed the NASCLA Commercial Building exam and/or the Mississippi Commercial Building exam and have held a Commercial Builder license from Mississippi in good standing for five years or more to qualify for a B – General Building trade exam waiver.”
North Carolina’s Building Contractor license maps to B General Building and to B-2 Residential Remodeling. The B row carries an asterisk, and CSLB’s note reads:
“*Candidates must have taken and passed the NASCLA Commercial Building exam and have held a General Builder license from North Carolina in good standing for five years or more to qualify for a B – General Building trade exam waiver.”
Source: CSLB, Reciprocal Classifications List, checked 22 September 2026. The counts and short names above summarize CSLB’s tables. Each table pairs your state’s own license codes with the California classification they correspond to, so find your exact license there before you apply.
There is no separate reciprocity application. You file CSLB’s standard Application for Original Contractor License with a sealed license verification from your state, pay the $450 application fee, and then pass Law & Business with PSI.
Find your license on your state’s table in CSLB’s Reciprocal Classifications List. The California classification next to it is the one you apply for.
Fill in the top of CSLB’s License Verification Request (form 13L-25; CSLB’s requirements page calls it the Request for Verification of License) and send it to the agency that licensed you. That agency completes the bottom half, seals it and returns it to you. CSLB’s instruction: “DO NOT OPEN THE ENVELOPE.” It goes to CSLB sealed, with your application.
Use form 13A-1 and answer Question 17, which asks whether you are licensed in another state in an equivalent classification. Complete the whole packet, including the Certification of Work Experience, and include the sealed verification and the $450 application fee.
CSLB sends fingerprinting instructions once it accepts your application as complete. If you don’t live in California and won’t come here during the process, you get hard-copy fingerprint cards to return with a $49 processing fee. CSLB says those take three to six months or longer, substantially longer than Live Scan in California.
Once CSLB approves you for the exam, you schedule and pay PSI directly: $51.43 per attempt. You have 18 months from eligibility to pass, with 21 days between attempts. This exam can also be taken outside California, at any of 21 out-of-state PSI sites.
After you pass, CSLB mails the next steps. The initial license fee is $200 for a sole owner and $350 for other business types. What happens after you pass is the same as for every new licensee.
Sources: CSLB, License Verification Request (form 13L-25); CSLB, Application for Original Contractor License (form 13A-1, rev. 01/2026); CSLB, List of All CSLB Fees; CSLB, Fingerprinting FAQ; CSLB, Examination FAQ; PSI, Law and Business candidate bulletin. All checked 22 September 2026.
You apply as a first-time California applicant, with two possible exceptions for the trade exam: a NASCLA route to B General Building that CSLB offers to contractors from any state, and a B-2 Residential Remodeling waiver described on the application form. Both waive a trade exam only. Law & Business stays.
CSLB lists this route for “Contractors, Regardless of State, Who Have Passed the NASCLA Commercial General Builders Examination.” The conditions: you’re applying for B General Building; you’ve held a general building license (or similar title) in good standing for the previous five years; your licensing agency completes the verification form; you file the standard application with a signed, dated statement requesting the NASCLA exam waiver; and you ask NASCLA, through your NASCLA account, to share your results with California. On the application it is Question 18.
CSLB, Reciprocity Requirements; form 13A-1, Question 18. Checked 22 September 2026.
The application form describes a separate trade-exam waiver for B-2, in these words:
“The CSLB offers a waiver of the trade exam of the B-2 Residential Remodeling Contractor classification based on being licensed in an equivalent general building classification or residential remodeling classification in another state and meeting the following licensing requirements.”
The requirements are a License Verification Request from your licensing state, and having been the qualifier on an equivalent license in good standing for at least the previous five years. The form doesn’t say which states count, so confirm with CSLB’s Licensing Information Center, 1-800-321-CSLB (2752), before you rely on it.
CSLB, form 13A-1 (rev. 01/2026), Question 19. Checked 22 September 2026.
Seven areas, from business organization and finances to liens, contracts, public works and safety, weighted as PSI’s bulletin shows below. By law California’s exam must include “pertinent questions relating to the laws of this state and the contracting business and trade” (§7065(a)): California’s rules, wherever you learned the trade.
It is multiple choice, four options per question, and CSLB offers it in Spanish as well as English. For what each area asks in practice, see the Law & Business topics in our exam guide, or the page that takes all seven sections apart.
Sources: PSI, Law and Business candidate bulletin (percentages are approximate, as PSI notes); Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §7065(a); CSLB, Examination FAQ. All checked 22 September 2026.
The Law & Business package is $99: the printed 142-card Law & Business deck, study guides, and one year of digital access. That’s a launch price; it goes to $189 when the launch ends.
No. None of them is on CSLB’s reciprocity list, checked 22 September 2026. Only Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and North Carolina are.
Five years. CSLB requires “an active license in good standing in one of the reciprocal states for the previous five years,” and the statute asks for written certification that your license “has been in good standing for the previous five years.”
Yes. CSLB says the Law and Business exam “can be taken out of state,” and PSI’s bulletin lists 21 out-of-state sites that offer it, from Vancouver, Washington, to Charlotte, North Carolina. Trade exams are given only in California or Oregon.
No. Section 7065.4 says the registrar “may” waive the trade exam, and CSLB says it “retains the right to require the trade exam.” Plan for the possibility that CSLB asks you to take it.
Not if you passed it within the last five years. The application form says the Law and Business exam “will still be required if the applicant has not passed that examination within the last five (5) years.”
It runs through the other state’s process. CSLB’s instruction: a California contractor applying elsewhere “must ask that state for its reciprocity form and have it forwarded to CSLB.”
We read each source below on 22 September 2026. CSLB can change its list at any time, so if anything here differs from CSLB’s pages when you read it, CSLB’s pages govern.
CSLB reciprocity section: Reciprocity Program · General Information on Reciprocity · Reciprocity Requirements · Reciprocity Exam Requirements · Reciprocal Classifications List
CSLB forms and pages: Application for Original Contractor License, 13A-1 (rev. 01/2026) · License Verification Request, 13L-25 · List of All CSLB Fees · Fingerprinting FAQ · Examination FAQ
Statutes: Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §7065.4 · §7065 · §7068
PSI: Contractors State License Board Licensing Examination Information Guide: Law and Business
Scope note, checked 22 September 2026: CSLB’s four other reciprocity pages name all five states, and the tables of its Reciprocal Classifications List include Mississippi. Two shorter CSLB summaries name four states (Arizona, Louisiana, Nevada, North Carolina): the opening sentence of the Reciprocal Classifications List, and the forms-page description of the License Verification Request. If you are applying from Mississippi, CSLB’s Licensing Information Center, 1-800-321-CSLB (2752), can confirm your case.
Sources checked 22 September 2026. General information, not legal advice.
License Ladder is independent study material, not affiliated with or endorsed by CSLB or PSI.