To look up an HVAC license, search the licence holder's name in the official lookup run by whichever board issued it — a state board such as TDLR in Texas or the Department of Consumer Protection in Connecticut, or the city or county office where HVAC licensing is local.
Below is every state lookup portal our research verified, the states with no statewide search at all, and how to check your own licence status.
How to check an HVAC license, state by state
What a search turns up depends on what your state licenses.
As of September 2026, 13 U.S. jurisdictions license HVAC workers at an apprentice, technician or journeyman rung.
Nine states license HVAC only at the contractor level, so the state record lists the firm, not the worker.
Delaware and New Jersey license masters alone, with no licence beneath them.
Three states — Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont — have no single HVAC licence but do license pieces of the work: fuel gas, oil, refrigeration tonnage, HVAC electrical and boilers.
Four more — Maine, Oregon, Utah and Washington — appear to work the same way, but our research could not fully confirm each one, so treat that as unconfirmed.
North Carolina issues an individual technician licence that is optional for workers.
The full state-by-state map, including what each rung legally allows, is in our guide to HVAC license requirements.
Every portal in the table below is one our research opened and confirmed — each is linked from the issuing body's own pages.
Searches work by name: North Carolina's board says names can be checked in its search, and Louisiana's contractor search also runs by qualifying party.
| State | What the search covers | Official lookup |
|---|---|---|
| Texas | TDLR air-conditioning and refrigeration (ACR) licences — contractors and technicians | tdlr.texas.gov/LicenseSearch |
| Connecticut | Trade licences through the Department of Consumer Protection | elicense.ct.gov |
| Idaho | HVAC and plumbing licences, on DOPL's eDOPL online services — "Search for a License" | dopl.idaho.gov/hvac |
| New Jersey | HVACR and plumbing licences, Division of Consumer Affairs | newjersey.mylicense.com/verification |
| New Mexico | Construction Industries Division licences, via "Verify a License" | rld.nm.gov — Verify a License |
| North Carolina | Plumbing, heating and fire sprinkler licences; refrigeration licences on the separate Refrigeration Board search | public.nclicensing.org · ncrefrigerationboard.arlsys.com |
| West Virginia | Certified HVAC technicians and certified plumbers, Division of Labor | labor.wv.gov — HVAC technician certification |
| Florida | Contractor licences, DBPR — "Verify a Licensee" | myfloridalicense.com |
| Georgia | Licences, Secretary of State licensee search | goals.sos.ga.gov |
| Ohio | OCILB licensees in the electrical, HVAC, hydronics, plumbing and refrigeration trades, plus a downloadable roster | OCILB eLicense Center |
| Louisiana | LSLBC contractor licences, searchable by qualifying party | arlspublic.lslbc.louisiana.gov |
| Alaska | Contractor registrations and professional licences, MY LICENSE portal | professionallicense.alaska.gov |
| New Hampshire | Mechanical licences | forms.nh.gov/licenseverification |
| Vermont | Master list of trade licence and certification holders, Department of Fire Safety | data.vermont.gov |
| Washington | Contractor registrations and plumber/electrician certificates, L&I's "Verify a Contractor, Tradesperson, or Business" | lni.wa.gov — verify a contractor |
| Oregon | Building Codes Division licence holder search | oregon.gov/bcd/licensing |
| Arkansas | Contractor licences — "Find A Licensed Contractor" | labor.arkansas.gov — find a licensed contractor |
| New York | NYC Department of Buildings licences — "Check License Status"; Westchester County trade licences | nyc.gov/buildings — Check License Status |
Two trade boards carry a caveat, one inside the table and one outside it.
Arkansas licenses individual HVACR workers — everyone who designs, installs, services or repairs an HVACR system must hold a licence or registration from the HVACR Licensing Board within the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing, and workers who are not class holders must carry a current registration — but our research did not find a public lookup for those worker licences.
Contractors are searchable in the table above; for a worker registration, check with the board itself.
Alabama is not in the table because our research could not confirm a lookup for it: the Alabama Board of Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Contractors issues its certification in two exam categories — Heating & Air Conditioning and Refrigeration — and although the board's own consumer page links a licence lookup, our research could not confirm where it leads, so we do not publish it here.
Start from the HACR Board's website instead.
Eleven more states link a lookup from an official page that our research did not open or confirm: Arizona, California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee.
If yours is on that list, start from the state board's own website and follow its verify-a-licence link, rather than a third-party aggregator.
Portals move — confirm the result with the issuer
States with no statewide HVAC license lookup
There is no lookup where there is nothing statewide to look up.
Nine states have no state HVAC licence at all — Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming — so licensing, if any, sits with cities and counties.
The negatives are verified at the source: the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation's A-to-W list of regulated professions includes Roofing Contractor but no HVAC, heating, mechanical or refrigeration licence, and the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency's list of licensed professions includes Plumbing but no HVAC, heating, mechanical or refrigeration profession.
Four more states — Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania and South Dakota — appear to be the same, but our research could not fully confirm each one, so treat that as unconfirmed.
Where the state stays out, the search moves to city hall.
There is no statewide HVAC or plumbing licence lookup in Kansas, Missouri or Wyoming, and none for HVAC in Illinois — check the city instead: Kansas City, St. Louis County and Casper are the examples our research recorded.
Kansas cities and counties that choose to license mechanical HVAC contractors and master and journeyman HVAC mechanics do so under uniform state standards.
Pennsylvania likely has no statewide lookup either, but our research did not confirm it — ask the city or county.
Three of those nine states do run state searches — just not for HVAC licences, because the state issues none.
Montana licensees can be verified in the Department of Labor & Industry's Licensee Lookup System, registered Nebraska contractors are searchable through the labor department, and North Dakota runs a Secretary of State FirstStop search for registered contractors plus a State Plumbing Board licence lookup.
They cover the adjacent credentials — but none of them will return a state HVAC licence.
City licences are real licences with real records.
Indianapolis states that HVAC licensing in Indiana is at the discretion of the local municipality, and its Board of Heating and Cooling Examiners issues heating and cooling contractor licences in five types — Air Conditioning 'A' (unrestricted), 'B' (25 tons cooling / 500,000 BTU heating), 'D' (5 tons / 300,000 BTU), Refrigeration, and High Pressure Steam — so an Indianapolis search runs through the city's Department of Business & Neighborhood Services, not the state.
Chicago sits at the other extreme: the city's trade-specific licences cover drain layer, electrical, elevator, mason and plumbing contractors — not HVAC — and HVAC (mechanical) permits require a licensed general contractor, Class A through E by project cost.
In Chicago there is no HVAC licence list to search, because the city issues none.
How to check your own HVAC license status
Use the same portals in the table above — they are public, and searching yourself is exactly how an employer will.
Type your name the way the licence records it, and read back what the board has on file: the licence class, the status and the expiration date.
Where your credential is a city or county licence, ask the office that issued it — the places Kansas City, St. Louis County and Casper licensees deal with.
Two details make the self-check worth doing before it's urgent.
First, the record is yours alone: New Mexico's journeyman certificates are individual and non-transferable — a licence issued to you does not ride along with your employer's.
Second, letting a licence lapse can cost more than a renewal fee.
Oregon's Building Codes Division says its licence holders can renew online within 45 days of expiration and must retest once a licence has been expired more than one year — a retest is a far bigger problem than a late fee, so check the expiry date well before it passes.
If your record is missing, stale or wrong, contact the board that issued it rather than assuming the lookup is broken.
Boards correct their own databases; a third-party site cannot.
Search the name exactly as licensed
What employers check when they verify an HVAC license
An employer verifying a tech runs the same search you would, in layers.
Where the state licenses workers, the individual licence comes first: in the 13 jurisdictions that license HVAC workers at an apprentice, technician or journeyman rung, the tech's own credential is the thing to confirm, through the issuing board's official lookup.
Where the state licenses only the contractor — nine states, from Alaska to Tennessee — the search confirms the firm's licence instead, because the wage-earning tech holds none.
Six more states appear to be contractor-only, but our research could not confirm each absence, so a careful employer checks with the board.
And where licensing is local, the city or county card is the document that gets checked.
One credential no state lookup will show is EPA 608 certification.
It is a federal refrigerant-handling certification, separate from any state or city HVAC licence, and EPA does not issue it — the certifying organizations do (EPA608-049).
Verifying it means going to the organization that certified the tech, not to EPA and not to a state licence search.
For a tech, the practical takeaway is that your record will be read, not taken on faith — keep the licence current and know what the portal says before an employer looks.
For an employer, the official portal is the only source worth acting on: a third-party copy is not the board's current record.
This page is career information, not legal or licensing advice. Licence rules and lookup portals change — confirm any licence status with the body that issued it: the state board, or the city or county office where licensing is local.