South Carolina contractor license requirements
What you need before your first paid job in South Carolina, one page for each trade. The license, the least insurance you must carry, whether the state asks for a bond, when you charge sales tax, and the deadlines that protect your right to be paid.
Plumbing in South Carolina
- License you need
- Mechanical Contractor, plumbing classification (PB), Contractor's Licensing Board Renew Every two years. There is no common expiry date for everyone. Your own license carries its date, and the board renews in two-year blocks. The board's site was showing the 2026 to 2028 block open for renewal in September 2026
- Workers' comp
- Required as soon as you hire anyone
- Credit score
- None or take a 14-hour course
- South Carolina has two plumbing licenses from two boards. A residential specialty license from the Residential Builders Commission covers house jobs over $500. A mechanical contractor license from the Contractor's Licensing Board is needed once a job costs more than $10,000. Many websites still say $5,000. That figure changed in May 2023.
- The state does not set a minimum liability insurance amount for plumbers in the statute or the board rules read for this record. Instead it asks for proof of money. A Group One mechanical license needs a net worth of $7,000, and you can post a $7,000 bond instead.
HVAC in South Carolina
- License you need
- Mechanical Contractor, air conditioning (AC), heating (HT), packaged equipment and refrigeration classifications, Contractor's Licensing Board Renew Every two years. There is no common expiry date for everyone. Your own license carries its date, and the board renews in two-year blocks. The board's site was showing the 2026 to 2028 block open for renewal in September 2026
- Workers' comp
- Required as soon as you hire anyone
- Credit score
- None or take a 14-hour course
- A residential HVAC license from the Residential Builders Commission stops at 5 tons of cooling and 175,000 BTU per hour of heating per unit. Anything bigger, or any job over $10,000, needs a mechanical contractor license from the Contractor's Licensing Board.
- The mechanical license threshold is $10,000, not the $5,000 most websites quote. It changed in May 2023.
Not finished yet for South Carolina: Electrical. A page only appears once a person has checked every figure on it.
Across states
Sales tax on labor for plumbers and HVAC contractors by state. Which states tax the work itself, which tax only the parts, and how a repair differs from a new install.