PA Home Improvement Contractor License Search: Steps and Risks

Pennsylvania’s Attorney General runs a free PA home improvement contractor license search at hicsearch.attorneygeneral.gov, where you can confirm in about two minutes whether a contractor is registered with the state before you sign anything.¹ Pennsylvania doesn’t license general home improvement contractors the way it licenses electricians or plumbers. What the state requires instead, under the Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act (HICPA), is registration with the Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. That registration is what the search tool verifies.

How to Run the Search

The portal is separate from the Attorney General’s main website. You can search by any of several fields:¹

Registration number. This is the fastest path. Every registered contractor has a number beginning with “PA” followed by digits. The system needs at least six characters to return a result.
Business name. Minimum three characters. Use the legal name if you have it, not just a trade name painted on the truck.
Primary applicant. The person who filed the registration. Useful for sole proprietors.
Address, city, state, zip, or county.
Phone number. Full ten digits.
Type of work, from a dropdown filter.

Results can be downloaded to Excel, and you can pull a Redacted Business Report as a PDF for any individual contractor. Save that report if you want documentation before you sign.

What the Results Show

A match returns the contractor’s registration status, the business name and address on file, and the type of work they registered to perform. The record also confirms the Attorney General’s office received the required insurance certificates.¹

Compare what the database says against what the contractor gave you. If the address on the estimate doesn’t match the one on file, or the registration number on their paperwork returns nothing, treat that as a signal to slow down.

One thing the results don’t mean: registration is not an endorsement, recommendation, or approval by the Attorney General.¹ It confirms paperwork and minimum insurance. It says nothing about workmanship.

A critical detail about blanks: the tool only displays active registrations.¹ A contractor whose registration lapsed or was revoked will not appear. So no result doesn’t necessarily mean you typed something wrong. It may mean the contractor is not currently registered, which is itself the answer you were looking for.

Who Has to Be Registered

Anyone performing more than $5,000 of residential improvement work in a tax year must register.²³ Once registered, the PA number must appear on all contracts.

HICPA does carve out categories that never appear in the database because they don’t have to register:²

Anyone whose total home improvement work last tax year was under $5,000.
Home improvement retailers with net worth over $50 million, and their non-installing employees.
New home construction, which HICPA excludes from “home improvement” entirely.
Sellers of goods or materials who don’t arrange or perform installation.
Sellers of removable appliances such as refrigerators, stoves, freezers, and room air conditioners.
Landscapers certified by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, unless the job involves retaining walls, drainage systems, patios, or driveways.
Homeowners doing uncompensated work on their own property.

Plumbers, electricians, and similar trades often carry their own separate state or municipal licenses. HICPA is a different, broader layer.

If the Contractor Doesn’t Come Up

Try variations before drawing a conclusion. Search by phone number, by street address, and by the owner’s personal name in the primary applicant field. A trade name on a business card is sometimes different from the legal business name that was registered.

If nothing still surfaces, ask the contractor directly for their PA registration number. A legitimate registrant has it ready. If they tell you they’re exempt because they do less than $5,000 of work annually, weigh that against what you’re seeing: a business that markets services and issues formal estimates is rarely operating below that threshold.

To file a complaint about an unregistered contractor or about work already performed, the Attorney General’s office accepts submissions online or by printed form at attorneygeneral.gov.⁴ Include the contractor’s name, any estimates or business cards, photos of the work, and records of payment.

Why Hiring an Unregistered Contractor Is Risky

The point of checking isn’t paperwork for its own sake. An unregistered contractor cannot enforce a home improvement contract against a homeowner in court. In a dispute, they may be limited to recovering the actual value of work performed, which can fall well short of the contract price.⁵

HICPA violations also trigger Pennsylvania’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, which allows a court to award a homeowner three times their actual losses plus attorney fees. Home improvement fraud can be charged criminally, from misdemeanor up to second-degree felony, and courts can revoke a registration for at least five years.

Any contract you sign should carry the contractor’s PA registration number on the document itself, along with the contractor’s name, physical address, and phone number.⁵ Match the number on the contract to what the search returned. If they don’t line up, you don’t have the protections you think you have.

Other Checks Worth Making

HICPA registration is the legal floor. A few additional steps fill in what the database can’t tell you:

Workers’ compensation coverage. Pennsylvania employers must carry it, and municipalities generally require proof (or an affidavit of no employees) before issuing a building permit. If an uncovered employee is injured on your property, you could face liability. Ask for a certificate of insurance before work starts.⁶
Local permits. Structural, electrical, plumbing, and addition work usually need one. The contract should say who pulls them.
References and reviews. Registration confirms paperwork. Past clients tell you whether the contractor shows up, stays on budget, and cleans up.

The search itself takes less time than reading a single estimate. Run it on every contractor, every time.

1
Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Home Improvement Contractor Search
2
Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Pennsylvania Code 73 PS 517.2 – Definitions
3
Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Home Improvement Contractor Registration
4
Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Submit a Complaint
5
Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Pennsylvania Code 73 PS 517.7 – Home Improvement Contracts
6
Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. Workers Compensation Employer Information