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What we found checking 10,288 contractor licences

Every painter, roofer, electrician, plumber and HVAC contractor with an active licence in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Los Angeles and San Diego, read from the state registers on 3 Nov 2026.

  1. 10,288 licensed businesses checked: 1,559 in Phoenix, Scottsdale and Mesa and 8,729 in Los Angeles and San Diego.
  2. Half of the Arizona contractors have held their licence for under 3.6 years; in California the median is 10 years.
  3. 43% of the California contractors are exempt from workers' comp, which means they certify they have no employees and nobody else may work on the job.
  4. 1% of the Arizona contractors have an open or disciplined complaint on the ROC record; 2% of the California contractors have a CSLB disclosure.
  5. Only 46% of contractor websites we read show the licence number.
  6. Only 6% of licensed house painters in Los Angeles and San Diego, and 1% in the Phoenix area, hold the EPA Lead-Safe certification needed to disturb paint in homes built before 1978.
  7. We could match 29% of licensed businesses to a Google Business Profile and 28% to a BBB profile; 5% are BBB accredited.

How we checked

We downloaded the Arizona Registrar of Contractors and California Contractors State License Board registers for the painting, roofing, electrical, plumbing and HVAC licence classes and kept every active licence with a mailing address in the five cities. Each business was then matched to its bond and workers' comp records, board complaints and disclosures, EPA Lead-Safe certification, city permits, Google Business Profile, BBB profile and its own website. How we rank lists every source and the scoring formula.

The figures are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. The full data is available through the Theo Pros API.