Plumbing Contractor License in Oregon: Requirements, Qualifier, Bond and Exams

Yes — statewide, on two layers.

Under ORS chapter 701, a person or joint venture that undertakes, offers to undertake or submits a bid to do work as a contractor must hold a current Construction Contractors Board (CCB) license with an appropriate endorsement, and the research records the rule as covering every Oregon contractor, plumbing contractors included.

State plumbing law then defines a licensed plumbing contractor as a person licensed as required under ORS 447.010 to 447.156 to engage in the business of furnishing labor and material, or labor only, to install, alter and repair plumbing.

On the trade side, a plumbing business needs the Building Codes Division's Plumbing Business (PB) license to advertise and furnish labor and material for plumbing.

Two bodies issue what a plumbing business holds.

The Construction Contractors Board issues the contractor license, and its classes are endorsements: residential and/or commercial.

On the residential side our research shows specialty, general and limited contractors; on the commercial side, commercial specialty contractors are classified at level 1 or level 2.

Which endorsement a plumbing business needs is not established in our research — it depends on the work — so ask the CCB before you apply.

The Building Codes Division issues the trade-side Plumbing Business (PB) license, and it offers combination business licenses such as Plumbing and Boiler Business, and Plumbing and Boiler Business and Limited Maintenance Specialty Contractor HVAC/R (PBH), each with one application, one renewal and one license number.

Oregon's qualifier at the CCB is the responsible managing individual (RMI): every CCB-licensed business must have one at all times.

What the board requires of the RMI personally was not in the sources we read; the experience figures our research confirms attach to the endorsement — commercial specialty level 1 requires key employees with 8 years' combined experience, and level 2 requires 4 years' combined experience.

On the trade side, your crew cannot ride on the business's licenses: the PB license does not entitle its holder to work as a journeyman plumber without an appropriate individual license, a licensed plumbing contractor may not let anyone work as a journeyman plumber without a valid Journeyman Plumber license nor charge a journeyman plumber's wage for apprentice work, and apprentice plumbers must be in a state-registered apprenticeship, employed by a licensed plumbing contractor and supervised by a licensed journeyman plumber.

Journeymen qualify through a registered 4-year apprenticeship (or a training-committee referral), or 576 classroom hours plus 3,850 commercial and 3,850 residential on-the-job hours, or 7,700 commercial plus 7,700 residential hours; whether the business must also employ a supervising plumber was not verified in our research — ask BCD.

The business-and-law layer sits at the CCB: applicants must complete board-required training on construction business practices and law and pass a CCB-approved test.

The training hours and the test vendor were not verified in our research.

The requirement we read names no plumbing trade exam for the business itself.

The trade exam belongs to the individual Journeyman Plumber license: a 4-hour, 64-question open-book exam.

Whether the Plumbing Business license itself carries an exam was not stated in the pages we read — ask BCD.

The surety bond and the liability insurance figures depend on the endorsement.

Residential specialty contractors need a $20,000 surety bond and at least $300,000 general liability insurance.

Residential general contractors need $25,000 and $500,000; residential limited contractors $15,000 and $100,000.

Commercial specialty contractors need a $55,000 bond and $1 million of insurance at level 1 — the level that also requires key employees with 8 years' combined experience — or a $25,000 bond and $500,000 of insurance at level 2, which requires 4 years' combined experience.

Which endorsement your plumbing business applies under decides which pair applies; confirm it with the CCB before you price the bond.

CCB application and renewal fees were not captured in our research — ask the board for current amounts before you budget.

On the BCD side, the license table lists the next renewal date for all PB licenses as July 1, 2029.

BCD license holders can renew online within 45 days of expiration, and a license expired more than one year requires retesting.

A combination BCD license — for example Plumbing and Boiler Business, or Plumbing and Boiler Business and Limited Maintenance Specialty Contractor HVAC/R (PBH) — means one application, one renewal and one license number to track.

Not for contracting businesses in our research.

The only reciprocity our research confirmed in Oregon is worker-side: BCD's reciprocal licensing page lists journeyman plumber agreements with Idaho and Montana — those cover individual journeyman plumbers, not contracting businesses.

Our research found no CCB reciprocity agreement with any state, so if you hold an out-of-state contractor license, ask the CCB what it requires of you — the training and test, the endorsement, the bond and insurance — before you bid Oregon work.

The statute anticipates the gap: when an RMI leaves, the business may operate with a temporary RMI for up to 14 days after notifying the board, or until a new RMI is approved, whichever is earlier.

Because the standing requirement is an RMI at all times, line up the replacement before the current one gives notice where you can, and notify the CCB as soon as a departure happens.

On the trade side, whether a plumbing business must employ a supervising plumber, and how quickly one must be replaced, was not verified in our research — confirm with BCD while you recruit.

Our research did not identify a dollar threshold below which contractors are exempt from CCB licensing — no rule of the form 'a license is required only over $X' appeared in the statute sections we read.

That is a gap in our research, not a confirmed no-threshold rule: the statute's exemptions list was outside the sections we reviewed, so ask the CCB whether any exemption covers small or occasional work before you bid unlicensed.

Oregon law does exempt some plumbing work from plumbing licensing itself: owners may do plumbing on their own property, and residential potable-water pump work up to 7.5 horsepower is exempt from plumbing licensing.