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Septic Registry

How to verify a septic contractor's licence

A published roster is a photograph, not a live feed. It tells you who held a licence on the day the state compiled it — which is exactly the thing worth double-checking before money changes hands.

Step 1: find the company in the state record

Start with the county the business is based in — not necessarily the county you live in. Most states file records by the address on the licence, so a company working on your property may be listed under the county next door. Alabama and Missouri are the exceptions: both publish the counties a licensee may actually work in, and we list them under every one. The search box on the home page takes a company name directly.

If the company is not there at all, that is worth knowing on its own. It does not automatically mean the company is unlicensed — a name can be spelled differently, or a licence can post-date the record we hold — but it means the next step is not optional.

Step 2: check it with the state, which differs by state

Every state publishes differently, so the check is different too. Each of these is drawn from that state’s own record, and every listing on the site names the document it came from and the date it was published.

Georgia

Georgia certifies companies at state level and permits the work locally, so the county office is the one that can confirm a certification is current today. Check with your county environmental health office. The 2,069 businesses listed here come from Georgia DPH, as published August 21, 2026.

Certifications expire 28 February and renew every two years, in even-numbered years.

Virginia

Virginia licenses the contractor, and every listing here carries the licence number, so DPOR's lookup will confirm its status in seconds. The Virginia Department of Health, which permits the work, does not license the contractor. Check with DPOR's own License Lookup. The 440 businesses listed here come from Virginia DPOR, as published August 26, 2026.

Contractor licences carry an expiration date, shown on every listing. DPOR republishes the regulant lists roughly every five business days.

Florida

Florida authorises the business and registers the individual contractor who qualifies it. DEP permits septic systems in some counties and the county health department does it in the rest, so the permit office depends on where you are — but the licence check is always DEP. Check with DEP's own septic business authorisation search. The 609 businesses listed here come from Florida DEP, as published August 26, 2026.

Business authorisations and contractor registrations each carry their own expiration date, shown on every listing. DEP's list is generated live from its database, so what appears here is what DEP held on the day it was fetched.

North Carolina

North Carolina certifies the installer personally, and the board publishes the company each certified installer works for. The county health department permits and inspects the system itself, so a job normally involves both. Check with the certification board, or your county environmental health office. The 4,425 businesses listed here come from NC OWCICB, as published August 21, 2026.

Certifications run to 31 December and are renewed annually. Grade Level II requires 3 hours of continuing education a year and Grade Level IV requires 6.

Alabama

Alabama licenses the individual installer or pumper through the AOWB, and the board records both the county they are based in and every county they are authorised to work in. County health departments permit the system itself. Check with the Alabama Onsite Wastewater Board's own licence search. The 1,046 businesses listed here come from Alabama AOWB, as published August 26, 2026.

Licences are issued for a calendar year and renewed annually; every listing shows the date the current licence was issued.

Delaware

Delaware licenses onsite wastewater work by class, and publishes the whole licensee list as open data. Each class is a separate credential — a company licensed to haul liquid waste is not thereby licensed to install a system. Check with DNREC, or the state's own licensee dataset. The 217 businesses listed here come from Delaware DNREC, as published August 26, 2026.

Every licence in the published dataset carries an approved status; DNREC republishes the dataset as licences change.

Missouri

Missouri registers the individual installer and records the counties they serve. Your local health authority permits the system itself, and in some counties runs its own additional requirements on top. Check with Missouri DHSS, or the state's own published registration data. The 1,483 businesses listed here come from Missouri DHSS, as published August 26, 2026.

Registrations carry an expiration date, shown on every listing. The state republishes the dataset as registrations change.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma DEQ certifies installers and publishes the whole list. A certified installer may inspect their own installation and backfill without waiting for a DEQ inspector, which is why the certification is worth checking rather than assuming. Check with DEQ's own certified installer list. The 264 businesses listed here come from Oklahoma DEQ, as published August 26, 2026.

DEQ publishes the active list; an installer who has lapsed drops off it, so the list is the current state of play at the date it was read.

Rhode Island

RIDEM licenses the people who design onsite wastewater systems and the soil evaluators who assess whether a site can take one. It licenses installers too, but publishes a list only for designers and soil evaluators — so this covers who you need before the digging, not who does it. Check with RIDEM's OWTS professional licensing office. The 235 businesses listed here come from RIDEM, as published August 26, 2026.

Designer and soil evaluator licences expire 31 December and are renewed with continuing education. Every listing here shows its expiry date, and expired licences are left out entirely.

If your state is not on that list

There is no national septic registry, and a good number of states license septic contractors at county or municipal level rather than centrally — so there is no statewide roster for anyone to publish, ours included. A few license centrally but do not publish the list in a form anyone can read, and one sells it.

The state-by-state map says which applies to yours, and links its official lookup. That lookup is the authority regardless of what any directory says.

Step 3: understand what the date on the page means

Every listing here shows when the state published the record it came from, and those dates are worth reading. A roster republished every few days is close to live. One reissued every two years is a photograph of a trade that turns over in between — and a roster published just before a renewal deadline is about to describe a set of companies that has partly changed.

Where a state gives an expiry date on the licence itself, we print it rather than making you infer it from the publication date.

Step 4: ask the company directly — and know what the answer proves

A licensed company can produce its licence. What a licence does not establish is insurance, bonding, price, punctuality or quality of work. What states actually test varies — an exam and employment by a certified company in one, the class and specialty of the firm in another, the system types someone may build in a third. None of it is a workmanship guarantee. Ask separately about liability insurance and workers’ compensation, and get the quote in writing.

What this site can and cannot tell you

  • It can tell you whether a company appeared on a state licensing record as published on a specific date, which county the state filed it under, and — in Virginia — the licence number, class, specialties and expiry date.
  • It cannot tell you whether that is still true this morning, whether the company is insured, or whether it did good work for anyone. We do not license, rank, review or endorse companies, and none of them pays to be listed.

Found something that looks wrong? Send us the correction and we will check it against the source document.

Sources

Last reviewed August 2026. General information about how these licensing systems work, not legal or engineering advice. Tell us if something is out of date.