Who Has to Be Licensed in Michigan
Michigan requires a state license for residential construction work above a modest contract threshold, and that requirement covers far more than people assume. It isn't limited to whole-house builders — it applies to remodeling, additions, roofing, siding, basement finishing, and most of what homeowners think of as ordinary contracting work. The relevant licenses are the residential builder license and the maintenance and alteration contractor license, both administered by Michigan's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.
The distinction between the two matters. A residential builder license covers the full scope of residential construction, including new structures and structural work. A maintenance and alteration contractor license is limited to specific trade categories the holder has qualified in — a contractor might hold one for roofing and siding but not for carpentry or concrete. A licensed contractor working outside their licensed categories is a real and reasonably common problem, and it's invisible unless you look at what the license actually authorizes.
Certain specialty trades are licensed separately rather than under a builder license. Electrical, plumbing, and mechanical work are governed by their own licensing regimes, which is why a general contractor either employs licensed trades or subcontracts to them. When you're vetting a general contractor for a project involving those trades, it's fair to ask how that work is licensed and who is performing it.
The practical upshot: 'licensed and insured' on a truck or a website is a claim, not evidence. Verification takes a few minutes and the state provides the tool for it at no cost.
How to Actually Check the License
Michigan's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs operates a free online license verification tool covering the professions it regulates, including residential builders and maintenance and alteration contractors. You can search by the individual's name, the business name, or the license number, and it will return the license status, type, and expiration date.
Ask the contractor for the license number and the exact name the license is held under before you search, because this is where most surprises surface. Michigan residential builder licenses are issued to an individual — a qualifying officer — even when that person operates through a company. So the name on the license may be a person's name rather than the business name on the estimate, which is normal. What isn't normal is a contractor who can't tell you the name it's under, hesitates, or gives you a number that returns nothing.
When the record comes back, check four things. Status should read active, not expired, suspended, or lapsed. The license type should cover the work you're hiring for. The expiration date should extend past the expected end of your project, or you should ask about renewal. And the name should match who is actually signing your contract — if the contract is with a company, confirm the licensed individual is genuinely associated with it rather than lending a license to a business they don't control, which is a serious violation and leaves you badly exposed.
If a search returns nothing at all, don't accept 'the state's system is out of date' as an explanation. It's occasionally true for a very recently issued license, and it's much more often not true.
Insurance and Workers' Compensation Are Separate Checks
A license is not insurance, and verifying one tells you nothing about the other. The two coverages that matter to you are general liability, which responds if the contractor damages your property or a third party, and workers' compensation, which responds if someone is injured on your job.
Workers' compensation is the one homeowners most often skip and the one with the worst downside. If an uninsured worker is injured on your property, you may find yourself the party with the deepest pockets in the room. This risk is easy to overlook precisely because it has nothing to do with the quality of the work — a flawless remodel and a serious injury can happen on the same job.
Ask for a certificate of insurance sent directly from the contractor's insurance agent rather than a copy handed to you. A certificate forwarded by the contractor is a document you're trusting; one that arrives from the agent is verified at the source, and legitimate contractors have their agents do this routinely. Check that the policy dates cover your project window and that the coverage amounts are appropriate to the scale of the work.
For commercial projects, your landlord or property manager will generally require certificates naming them as an additional insured before work can start, which builds this verification into the process. Homeowners don't get that automatic backstop and have to ask.
What a License Does Not Tell You
A valid license establishes that someone met the state's requirements for education, examination, and renewal, and that they haven't lost the license to disciplinary action. That's a meaningful floor, and it rules out a category of operator you genuinely don't want. What it does not establish is competence at your particular project, reliability with a schedule, or how they behave when something goes wrong mid-project.
Licensing also doesn't tell you whether the contractor has ever done work like yours. A licensed builder who does excellent kitchens may have limited experience with a second-story addition, load-bearing structural work, or a commercial build-out with health-department requirements. Asking for recent projects specifically comparable to yours — not a general portfolio — is how you close that gap.
The complementary checks are the obvious ones: recent references you actually call, a written contract with a defined scope and payment schedule, a clear process for change orders, and permits pulled in the contractor's name rather than yours. That last one deserves emphasis. A contractor who asks the homeowner to pull the permit is shifting legal responsibility for code compliance onto you, and it's a meaningful warning sign. Our full guide on choosing a general contractor in Metro Detroit covers the rest of the vetting checklist, including the contract terms worth insisting on.
Red Flags Worth Walking Away From
A few patterns are consistent enough to treat as disqualifying rather than as questions. A contractor who won't provide a license number, or provides one that doesn't verify, has told you what you need to know. So has one who asks for a large deposit before any work or materials — a reasonable deposit covering material orders is normal; a majority of the contract price up front is not.
Pressure to decide immediately is a reliable signal, particularly in the door-to-door surge that follows a hailstorm. Legitimate contractors are busy after a storm and their price is not going to evaporate this afternoon. Any offer to cover, waive, or absorb your insurance deductible is insurance fraud, and agreeing to it exposes you, not only them.
Finally: no written contract, or a contract that describes the work in a sentence. The scope, the materials, the payment schedule, the change-order process, and the warranty should all be written down before money changes hands. A contractor confident in their work has no reason to resist putting it in writing, and the ones who resist are the ones you'll wish you had it with.