Florida: what a contractor's website and ads must show

Florida’s contractor advertising rules put your license number on almost everything you hand a customer, and that includes the website. The statute is §489.119(5)(b), and the phrase that decides the argument is “regardless of medium”. A Construction Industry Licensing Board rule then spells out that the medium includes Internet sites. This post walks the text, then shows where the number goes.

The rule in one sentence

Reviewed on 2026-09-18 against the statute and rule text as published on that date.

Florida Statutes §489.119(5)(b): “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.”

Read the last five words, because most articles drop them. The statute does not define the medium. It hands that job to the board, so you cannot answer the website question from the statute alone.

Two neighboring paragraphs finish the picture. Paragraph (5)(a) requires the number on each building permit application and on each permit issued. Paragraph (5)© covers vehicles: if a vehicle bears your name, “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”.

What Florida counts as an advertisement

Florida Administrative Code 61G4-12.011 is titled “Definitions”, which is why people searching for an advertising rule never find it. Subsection (3) is the one that matters, and its media list is long on purpose:

The terms “advertise” and “advertises” “shall apply to business cards, business proposals, contracts, construction site signs, all newspapers, airwave transmission (other than internal company communications), any electronic media including Internet sites, phone directory, and other media including handbills, billboards, flyers, shopping and service guides (coupon offerings), magazines (including trade associations publications), classified advertisements, manufacturer’s ‘authorized dealer’ listings, and signs on vehicles.”

“Any electronic media including Internet sites” is the sentence that puts your homepage inside the rule.

The same subsection carves things out. The terms “shall not apply to balloons, pencils, pens, hats, articles of clothing, shirts, or other promotional novelties”, nor to a plain free phone directory listing of one, two or three lines “without further textual or pictorial elaboration or touting”. Statute §489.119(5)(d) says the same about novelties and adds business stationery.

So the giveaway koozie is fine. The plain one-line directory entry is fine. Anything you design, write or pay for is not.

Where the text is simply silent

The rule names Internet sites and a phone directory. It does not name a Google Business Profile, a Facebook page, an email campaign or a paid search ad. What closes the gap is the statute’s own “regardless of medium”: a profile you claim, write and edit is an offer of services in an electronic medium. Put the number in the profile description and the ad copy and stop thinking about it.

Where the number has to appear

One footer handles the first row forever. That is the argument for putting it there rather than on a “License” page nobody visits: a site grows pages, and a footer grows with it. The same logic applies to the service pages you add over time, planned in how many service pages your website needs.

Certified or registered, and what your service area may claim

Florida issues two different things, and the difference changes what your site can honestly say about where you work.

A certified contractor, under §489.105(8), “possesses a certificate of competency issued by the department and … shall be allowed to contract in any jurisdiction in the state”. A registered contractor, under §489.105(10), “has registered with the department pursuant to fulfilling the competency requirements in the jurisdiction for which the registration is issued”, and registered contractors “may contract only in such jurisdictions”.

If you are registered rather than certified, a location page for a county you are not registered in is not a marketing stretch. It is an offer of services somewhere you may not contract.

The categories come from §489.105(3): Division I is general, building and residential; Division II covers roofing, plumbing, the air-conditioning and mechanical classes, pool, solar, underground utility and specialty work. Your number’s exact format is whatever DBPR’s record prints. Copy it from the record, not from memory or an old business card.

The DBPR page your customers actually open

Florida autocomplete says what homeowners do with the number once you publish it. Type “florida contractor license” into Google and the suggestions are about looking one up: “florida contractor license lookup online”, “florida contractor license search by name”, “how do i check a contractor’s license in florida” (checked 2026-09-18).

They land on DBPR’s Licensing Portal License Search, which lets anyone search by name, license number, city or county, or license type. Your competitor uses the same page. That is why “present” is not the standard. The number has to resolve, on that page, to an active license held by the entity whose name is on the site.

The local license that expired in 2025

Florida Statutes §163.211 preempts the licensing of occupations to the state. Subsection (2) supersedes local licensing with two exceptions: a local government that imposed licenses on occupations before January 1, 2021, “however, any such local government licensing of occupations expires on July 1, 2025”, and licensing “authorized by general law”. Subsection (4) adds that local licensing not authorized under the section “does not apply and may not be enforced”.

That date is in the past. Sites all over Florida still carry lines like “county licensed handyman” or “city licensed and insured” that were written before it.

The section is narrower than the headlines suggested, so check before you delete the line. It covers the licensing of occupations, defined in (1)(a) as training, education, a test, certification, registration or a license required to perform an occupation. It does not touch permits, inspections, local business tax receipts, or licensing a general law authorizes. If your local credential is an occupational license of the preempted kind, advertising it now claims a credential the state has ended.

Electricians are a different chapter

Electrical and alarm system contracting sit in Part II of chapter 489, under the Electrical Contractors’ Licensing Board, not the CILB. The parallel requirement is §489.521(7)(b): “The registration or certification number of a contractor shall be stated in each offer of services, business proposal, or advertisement, regardless of medium.”

Three differences. That list stops at “advertisement” rather than repeating “bid, contract”. Enforcement under (7)© includes a fine of at least $100 or a citation for leaving the number out. And Part II carries an exception the construction side does not: for alarm system contracting, a newspaper, magazine, flyer, billboard, phone book, Internet or broadcast advertisement may omit the number where the contractor maintains a website displaying it and directs consumers there.

If you hold both a CILB license and an electrical one, the stricter §489.119(5)(b) governs the shared footer. Print both numbers.

Roofing, storm season and the 12-point disclaimer

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, and NOAA’s National Hurricane Center puts the statistical peak at September 10, “with most activity occurring between mid-August and mid-October”. Two Florida rules turn that calendar into an advertising problem.

First, §489.147, “Prohibited property insurance practices”. Subsection (1)(a) defines a prohibited advertisement as a written or electronic communication that encourages, instructs or induces a consumer to contact a contractor or public adjuster for the purpose of making a roof damage insurance claim and that omits, in at least 12-point font and at least half the size of the largest font used, three statements: that the consumer is responsible for paying any insurance deductible; that it is insurance fraud punishable as a felony of the third degree for a contractor to knowingly or willfully pay, waive or rebate all or part of a deductible with intent to injure, defraud or deceive; and that it is insurance fraud punishable as a felony of the third degree to intentionally file a claim containing false, incomplete or misleading information. The definition names door hangers, business cards, magnets, flyers, pamphlets and emails. Subsection (2)(a) bars soliciting a residential property owner with one, and (3) allows a fine of up to $10,000 per violation.

Subsection (2) also bars offering a rebate, gift card, cash, coupon, a waived deductible or anything of value in exchange for a roof inspection or a claim. The section was created in 2021 and amended in 2022, 2024 and 2025, per its history note, so read the current text each spring rather than reusing last year’s artwork. The 2025 change is not an advertising rule but it lands on the same desk: under subsection (7), every contract to repair or replace a residential roof must carry, “in bold type of not less than 14 points on the page reserved for the signature of the residential property owner”, a notice telling the owner to check coverage with their insurer before signing. If your site hands out a contract for download or e-signature, the notice belongs in that file.

Second, §489.127. Paragraph (1)(f) makes it a violation to “advertise himself or herself or a business organization as available to engage in the business or act in the capacity of a contractor without being duly registered or certified”. Paragraph (2)©: an unlicensed person who violates subsection (1) “during the existence of a state of emergency declared by executive order of the Governor commits a felony of the third degree”. Separately, §489.13(3) lets the department fine an unlicensed person up to $10,000 for unlicensed contracting.

An expired license plus a live website is exactly the fact pattern (1)(f) describes.

A compliant footer, written out

Here is what a Florida footer needs, with a deliberately fictional company and a fictional number in the format DBPR prints.

The mistakes that cost people the check are all boring:

• The qualifier changed. The number belongs to the individual who qualifies the business organization. If that person left, it may no longer qualify your company. §489.119 is the qualifying-agent statute for a reason.
• The DBPR name and the brand name differ. Your site says “Coastline Roofing”; the record says “Coastline Building Co., LLC”. Print the licensed name with the number, then use the brand elsewhere.
• A subcontractor’s number. A number that is not yours cures nothing, and §489.127(1)(a) and (1)© both speak to holding out or presenting another’s credential.
• The number lives on one page. An “About” page mention does not put it in “each offer of services”. A footer does.
• Stale local claims, or a live site behind an expired license. Fix the text, renew, or take the offers down.

A 10-minute self-audit

1. Look yourself up in DBPR’s License Search by license number. Note the exact entity name and the status.
2. Compare that name, character for character, with the name in your website footer.
3. Confirm the number renders in the footer on the homepage, one service page and the contact page.
4. Check your bid, proposal and contract templates. §489.119(5)(b) names all three.
5. Walk to the trucks. Name or artwork present means number present, “conspicuously and legibly”.
6. Check the number is in your Google Business Profile description. Profile and site do different jobs, as website vs. Google Business Profile works through.
7. Pull your three newest paid ads and your last month of social posts.
8. Search your own site for “county licensed”, “locally licensed” and “city licensed”, then test those claims against §163.211.
9. Roofing only: check every storm-season asset carries the §489.147 statements at 12-point and at least half the largest font.
10. Diary the list for the first week of May, before hurricane season opens.

For the wider playbook above this post, the complete guide to local SEO for plumbers covers profiles, pages and reviews for one licensed trade, and pricing shows what a generated site costs to run.