Q.01
Does my license number have to be on my website?
Yes. Florida Statute 489.119(5)(b) says the registration or certification number of each contractor shall appear in each offer of services, business proposal, bid, contract, or advertisement, regardless of medium, as defined by board rule. The Construction Industry Licensing Board's rule names electronic media including internet sites, so your website is an advertisement and the number belongs on it.
Most owners think of the license number as permit-desk paperwork. The four words that change that are "regardless of medium." The statute does not list the places your number has to appear and stop there. It sends you to the board's rule for what counts as an advertisement, and that rule was written broadly enough to cover things that did not exist when the law was first drafted.
The website itself is the easy one. The misses are almost always in the places nobody thinks of as advertising: the estimate template, the social profile a former marketing company set up, the landing page built for one campaign that never inherited the footer.
One note before the details. We build websites and run ads for Florida home-service companies. We are not attorneys, and nothing here is legal advice. The statutes and the board rule are linked so you can read them yourself, and your attorney or the Department of Business and Professional Regulation is the right stop for a question about your specific license.
Q.02
What counts as an advertisement in Florida?
The board defines it in Rule 61G4-12.011(3), and the list is long. Business cards, business proposals, contracts, construction site signs, newspapers, electronic media including internet sites, phone directories, handbills, billboards, flyers, shopping and service guides, magazines, classified advertisements, manufacturer "authorized dealer" listings, and vehicle signs.
Read that list against your own marketing and the gaps show up fast. The yard sign at the job counts. The flyer the crew leaves on the neighbors' doors counts. So does the dealer listing a manufacturer's rep set up for you three years ago.
The exclusions are narrower than people hope. The statute says advertisement does not include business stationery or promotional novelties such as balloons, pencils, trinkets, or articles of clothing. The board rule adds pens and hats, and excludes a single-line phone directory listing carrying only your name, company name, address and telephone numbers in standard format.
- Covered: your website, landing pages and anything at a web address you control
- Covered: business cards, proposals, bids, contracts and construction site signs
- Covered: flyers, handbills, billboards, magazine and classified ads, coupon guides
- Covered: manufacturer "authorized dealer" listings and vehicle signs
- Not covered: business stationery, and novelties like balloons, pens, pencils, hats and shirts
Q.03
Does the number have to be on my trucks?
Yes, if the vehicle is lettered. Florida Statute 489.119(5)(c) says that if a vehicle bears the name of a contractor or business organization, or any text or artwork which would lead a reasonable person to believe that the vehicle is used for contracting, the number must be conspicuously and legibly displayed with the name, text, or artwork.
The test is what a reasonable person would think, not what kind of vehicle it is. A full wrap on a box truck and a magnet on a personal pickup land in the same place if both say "Smith Roofing" and a phone number. So do trailers, and so does the tailgate decal somebody added without telling you.
"Conspicuously and legibly displayed with the name" is worth checking in the parking lot rather than on a design proof. A number set in six-point type under the door handle technically appears on the vehicle. It is not what the statute asks for, and it is exactly what gets noticed at a jobsite by a competitor who is already annoyed with you.
Q.04
What about Google Business Profile, Facebook and paid ads?
The rule names electronic media including internet sites, and it does not carve out the profiles you post on rather than own. The safe working rule: anywhere a platform lets you enter your own text about your business, the number goes in that text.
In practice that means the description on your Google Business Profile, the about section on Facebook and Instagram, the bio on any directory you are listed in, and ad copy where the platform gives you the characters. Where a format genuinely leaves you nowhere to put it, send that traffic to a page that carries it.
Local Services Ads are worth not confusing with this. Google verifies your license as part of the screening you pass to go live, which is Google's rule for running the ad, not Florida's rule about what appears in your advertising. Clearing that check does not put your number in your ad copy or on your site. Our guide on passing the Local Services Ads background check covers what Google wants; this covers what the state wants.
The other place this surfaces is when you do not control the account. If a former marketing company still owns your profiles, you cannot fix a compliance gap on your own, which is a good reason to sort out who owns your website and Google Business Profile before it matters.
Q.05
Where exactly should it go on the site?
A sitewide footer is the baseline, because it puts the number on every page including the ones built later. Then work outward to everything that leaves your office as a document: proposals, estimates, contracts and the PDFs your software generates.
Footer-only is where most contractor sites stop, and for the site itself it usually holds. It stops holding the moment somebody builds a campaign landing page outside the main template, which is how most of the gaps we find got there.
If you hold more than one license, show the one that covers the work on the page. A company with a certified general contractor license and a roofing license advertising a reroof should be showing the roofing number on that page. Listing both is fine and is what most multi-trade shops do.
- Sitewide footer, so every page inherits it
- Every service page and every campaign landing page, including ones outside the main template
- The quote or estimate request page, and the confirmation page after the form
- Estimate, proposal and contract templates, including PDFs generated by your CRM
- Profile descriptions and ad copy on every platform where you can enter text
Q.06
What happens if you leave it off?
Florida Statute 489.119(5)(e) says the board shall issue a notice of noncompliance for the first offense, and may assess a fine or issue a citation for failure to correct within 30 days or for any subsequent offense. So the first one is a warning with a clock on it.
Thirty days is generous if the fix is a footer and brutal if it is a fleet and a print run. That asymmetry is the argument for doing it now rather than when a letter arrives.
There is a second provision worth knowing even though it is not aimed at you. Under 489.119(5)(f), a local government may impose a civil fine under s. 489.127(5) against a person who is not certified or registered and who claims to be licensed, or claims to be insured, in an offer of services, business proposal, bid, contract, or advertisement. If you are licensed and your number is visible, you are on the right side of that one, and the unlicensed operator underbidding you is not.
Q.07
Is it different for electrical and alarm contractors?
Slightly. Electrical and alarm contractors are licensed under Part II of chapter 489, where Florida Statute 489.521(7)(b) says the registration or certification number shall be stated in each offer of services, business proposal, or advertisement, regardless of medium.
Same idea, slightly different list, and Part II does not carry the vehicle paragraph that Part I does. If you run both sides of the house, and plenty of Treasure Coast companies do, meet the stricter requirement everywhere rather than track two standards.
Part II also has one real exception. For alarm system contracting, the requirement does not apply to newspaper, magazine, flyer, billboard, phone book, internet or broadcast advertisements if the contractor maintains a website that displays the registration or certification number and directs consumers to that website. Read plainly, the exception still assumes there is a website carrying the number, which puts you back at the footer.
Q.08
What should you fix this week?
Open the site, the profiles and the paperwork in one sitting and add the number everywhere it is missing. For most companies this is a half hour of work, and it closes a gap that only gets more expensive as you print, wrap and publish more.
Do it as an audit, not a memory exercise. Pull up the actual pages and the actual templates, because the number you are sure is on the estimate is often only on the version from two software migrations ago.
If you want a second set of eyes while you are in there, our free audit looks at your website, your Google profile and how your calls are handled together, and flags what a homeowner in your area actually sees. And if you are building out pages for each town you cover, our guide on whether you need a separate page for every city you serve is worth reading first, because every one of those pages needs the footer too.
- Check the footer renders on every template, including landing pages
- Check every lettered vehicle, trailer and magnet in the yard
- Check the estimate, proposal and contract templates your software generates
- Check the description field on Google, Facebook, Instagram and any directory listing
- Check your yard signs, flyers and any manufacturer dealer listing carrying your name
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