CSLB Licensing Stats by the Numbers

As of June 1, 2018, CSLB licensed 282,972 business entities. Just over 80 percent of those licenses are active; just under 20 percent are inactive.

Here's how these numbers breakdown by business type:

The following link will take you to a breakdown of classifications held by the 282,972 licensed contractors. Note that a contractor license can include more than one classification, so the total number of classifications is more than the total number of business entities.

Click here to get a breakdown of classifications

Below is the number of license applications received by CSLB for each of the last six calendar years.

CSLB's Testing Unit administers 46 different computer-based examinations at eight test centers around the state. As shown below, between May 2017 and April 2018, CSLB scheduled over 46,000 exams.

The Testing Unit is also responsible for updating all of CSLB's licensing exams. Each is updated every five-to-seven years, a process that includes an occupational analysis and development of the exam.

The Occupational Analysis Phase determines what information is relevant to each contractor classification, and in what proportion it should be tested. The cycle starts with interviews of a sample of active California licensees statewide. Staff then conducts two workshops with these subject matter experts, along with online surveys about job tasks and relevant knowledge. The result is a validation report that includes an examination outline, which serves as a blueprint for constructing examination versions/forms.

The Examination Development Phase involves numerous workshops to review and revise existing test questions, write and review new test questions, and determine the passing score for examinations from that point forward.

As of June 1, 2018, five exams are undergoing an occupational analysis and five other exams are currently in the development phase.