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Licensed since when

Every license record carries the date the license was first issued. Read across a state’s whole current set, those dates say how old the licensed population is: where the median contractor has held a license for fifteen years, where for four — and which licenses have been held since 1950.

15.6 years
Virginia’s median time licensed — the longest of the thirteen
25%
Of California’s dated licenses held 25 years or more
February 10, 1950
Issue date of California’s oldest current license

The states, by time licensed

The table reads each state’s published current licenses by their recorded first-issue dates. “Median years” is the midpoint license: half the state’s dated licenses were issued longer ago than that, half more recently. Only states whose records carry a real first-issue date appear — the exclusions, and why, are in the methodology.

StateDated licensesMedian years licensedIssued in the last 2 yearsHeld 25+ yearsOldest current license
California244,0361313.7%25%February 10, 1950
Virginia53,47815.610.3%21.9%January 1, 1954
Florida107,79110.416.4%16.9%March 11, 1953
Texas
Responsible Master Plumbers only
7,91612.314%17.8%December 15, 1967
Minnesota11,5809.518.2%11.3%December 4, 1991
Connecticut45,8299.518.3%19.5%January 21, 1969
Illinois4,8287.722.1%16.7%July 31, 1985
Oregon45,7487.419.9%12%July 1, 1972
Arizona58,3285.922.1%9.4%September 7, 1954
District of Columbia5,8323.731.5%0.6%February 15, 1990
Delaware89.20%12.5%June 30, 2000

Virginia’s licensed population is the oldest in the records — a median of 15.6 years, with only 10.3% of its licenses issued in the last two years. The District of Columbia is the mirror image: a median of 3.7 years and 31.5% issued in the last two years — a licensed population that turns over fast, or was recorded recently, or both; the dates alone don’t say which, and this study doesn’t guess. Arizona’s median of 5.9 years with 22.1% newly issued is what a fast-growing state’s roster looks like. Delaware’s row rests on just 8 published business licenses and is printed for completeness; no conclusion should lean on it.

California by trade

California’s records are deep enough to read by classification. The large classes are old: general building’s median license has been held 15.3 years, and more than a quarter of the licenses in every large class have been held 25 years or more.

ClassificationDated licensesMedian yearsHeld 25+ years
B — General Building107,76015.328.7%
C-10 — Electrical29,11714.626.1%
C-36 — Plumbing18,27813.425.3%
C-33 — Painting and Decorating16,19714.128.1%
A — General Engineering15,2061834.5%
C-27 — Landscaping12,64413.224.3%
C-20 — Warm-Air Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning12,21511.622.4%
C-15 — Flooring and Floor Covering7,11115.727.6%

At the other end, the B-2 Residential Remodeling classification’s median is 2.2 years across its 1,757 dated licenses — a young classification reads exactly like that, and it is a useful check on the whole table: a measure that can see a new class arrive is measuring something real.

The oldest licenses still current

California’s oldest current license was issued on February 10, 1950: NAPA SONOMA BUILDERS of Sonoma, a general building license recorded as CLEAR, still current in the board’s records more than 75 years later. Florida’s oldest dates to March 11, 1953 (the record), and Arizona’s to September 7, 1954. A license that old has been renewed through every cycle its board has run since — the date is the board’s, and the record pages print it next to the status so the pair can be read together.

Longevity is a fact, not a verdict: a license held for thirty years certifies that the license is thirty years old — nothing about the quality of next month’s work — and a license issued last year is new, not suspect. The date earns its place on the record because it is one of the few things about a contractor that can be checked exactly, and because “licensed since” claims are made constantly and verified rarely. Here, the claim and the board’s date sit on the same page.

Methodology

Sources: the published records of the California Contractors State License Board, the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, the Oregon Construction Contractors Board, the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, the District Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation — Arizona’s dated November 2, 2026, the rest November 3, 2026. Years licensed are counted from each record’s first-issue date to the date of the records it appears in.

Exclusions, stated once and applied throughout: Washington’s and Ohio’s records carry no original issue date (Washington’s records carry the current term’s start; Ohio’s, the current term’s effective date), so neither state appears in this study. Texas appears for its Responsible Master Plumbers only — the one Texas credential whose records carry an issue date — and 774 records in the plumbing board’s list carry a placeholder date of January 1, 1901; every one is excluded, as is any date before 1950 or after the records’ own date in any state. A handful of Illinois records carry expiration years of 3002 and 3003 — clerical artifacts, not dates; no figure here uses them. 70 of California’s published licenses carry no usable issue date — the date is blank or a placeholder in the records — and sit outside the California figures; the same exclusion applies in every state where it occurs.

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