Washington Electrical Contractor Licenses Scraper

Search Washington electrical contractor licenses for recurring vendor verification. Retrieve official Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) license identity, status, expiration, UBI and mailing location in a structured dataset.

This Actor reads L&I's official public export on data.wa.gov, not the interactive Verify website. The export can lag changes in Verify. For consequential decisions, independently confirm the result with L&I.

Who is this for?

• Procurement teams checking electrical subcontractors before onboarding.
• Property managers reconciling a vendor's license number with its business identity.
• Compliance analysts comparing repeat snapshots by license number.

This is a contractor-business lookup, not a lookup of individual electrician certificates or trainees.

Why use this Actor?

A small input produces spreadsheet-ready license records without manually transcribing regulator pages. Output preserves the official license status instead of guessing validity from the expiration date. Electrical contractor scope is enforced on every request and record.

No source login, paid source API key, browser, or proxy is required. The Actor does not use AI to infer or enrich license information.

Washington electrical contractor licenses: source and scope

Source: L&I Contractor License Data - General, attributed to Labor & Industries, resource m8qx-ubtq.

Only source type EC (ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR) is returned. Construction, elevator, plumbing and individual tradesperson credentials are excluded even if their name or number matches.

Records are a current export snapshot, not a license-history service. Mailing addresses may be outside Washington. No statewide record-count guarantee is made.

Getting started

1. Open Input and enter a business name substring, such as Electric.
2. Alternatively clear the name and enter an exact electrical contractor license number.
3. Set maxItems and run the Actor.
4. Open the Dataset tab and export JSON, CSV, Excel or another format supported by Apify.
5. Review licenseStatus, expirationDate and the source link. Confirm important decisions in L&I Verify.

Example name search:

{"businessName":"Electric","maxItems":10}

Example exact number search:

{"licenseNumber":"16DLLL*882JT","maxItems":1}

Inputs and matching

Field	Behavior
businessName	Case-insensitive literal substring in business name; surrounding input whitespace removed.
licenseNumber	Exact full license number ignoring case and surrounding whitespace; * is literal.
maxItems	Maximum unique license records across the entire run; default 10, range 1–10000.

Provide exactly one of businessName or licenseNumber. Neither and both are errors. Blank searches, unknown fields and invalid limits fail closed. There is no unlimited/zero limit.

Names are not tokenized: electric can match electrical. Multiple name terms are one literal substring, not ANY/ALL keyword lists. Search does not include address, phone or principal name.

Results use stable license-number ordering, deduplicate by license number, and stop on the global limit, source exhaustion or billing budget. A name can legitimately match nothing; that is a successful empty dataset, not a fabricated placeholder row.

Extracted data

Field	Meaning
businessName	Registered business identity.
licenseNumber	Official L&I electrical contractor license identifier.
licenseType	Always ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR.
licenseStatus, statusCode	Official export status and abbreviation, not calculated validity.
effectiveDate, expirationDate	Source dates as YYYY-MM-DD.
ubi	Unified Business Identifier preserved as text.
address1, address2, city, state, zip	Public mailing address; not a service-area claim.
phone	Public business phone as displayed.
businessType, specialty	Legal business structure and primary specialty.
sourceUrl	Official export URL filtered to this electrical license.
verifyUrl	Verify homepage; not a record-specific deep link.
scrapedAt	UTC retrieval time, not regulator update time.

Missing optional source values are null. Identifiers and phone numbers remain strings. No bonds, insurance, violations, principal details or qualification decisions are included.

Output example

A real exact-number lookup returned these fields (contact fields omitted here):

{
  "businessName":"16D LLC",
  "licenseNumber":"16DLLL*882JT",
  "licenseType":"ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR",
  "licenseStatus":"ACTIVE",
  "statusCode":"A",
  "expirationDate":"2028-05-15",
  "effectiveDate":"2012-04-30",
  "ubi":"603092523",
  "city":"VASHON",
  "state":"WA",
  "zip":"98070",
  "verifyUrl":"https://secure.lni.wa.gov/verify/"
}

The actual dataset also includes address, phone, specialty, business type, source URL and retrieval timestamp. The example is a snapshot; dates and status can change.

How much does it cost to verify Washington electrical contractor licenses?

Pay-per-event pricing charges a one-time $0.005 start fee and one item event for each delivered unique electrical license record. No item charge is made for empty results, rejected rows or duplicate licenses. The start fee still applies to a valid empty search.

Store spend tier	Price per license
FREE	$0.0046
BRONZE	$0.004
SILVER	$0.00312
GOLD	$0.0024
PLATINUM	$0.0024
DIAMOND	$0.0024

Estimated BRONZE totals: 1 record $0.009; 10 records $0.045; 100 records $0.405. FREE: 10 records approximately $0.051. These are Actor-event estimates, not guaranteed invoices; consult the current Pricing panel and Apify billing rules. Spend tiers depend on qualifying aggregate monthly Store spend, not this Actor's record volume.

The company covers its runtime dependencies; no off-platform source fee or surprise proxy charge is required. A run that fails after delivering rows may contain partial output and corresponding charges. Set a maximum charge budget appropriate to the requested limit.

Limits, retries and troubleshooting

The Actor requests sequential pages of at most 100 source rows and holds only a page plus the deduplication set in memory. No proxy or alternate paid fallback is enabled.

Network failures, HTTP 429 and temporary 5xx responses get up to three attempts with bounded backoff and a 30-second timeout per request. Permanent HTTP failures, non-JSON responses and malformed source rows fail rather than masquerading as empty results.

If a run fails, inspect its log and partial dataset before rerunning. Broad searches may exhaust the configured timeout or charge budget before reaching the requested record limit. A source update during pagination may change coverage; use an exact license-number lookup for a critical individual check.

Integrations and recurring verification

• Export the dataset to a spreadsheet and join on licenseNumber or ubi.
• Schedule an Apify Task with an unchanged input and compare status/expiration snapshots in your own workflow.
• Trigger a downstream integration when the run finishes; treat a failed run's output as partial.
• Send the dataset to your CRM or procurement system while retaining the official provenance link.

Scheduling, comparisons and notifications are configured separately in Apify or downstream tools. This Actor itself does not retain prior snapshots, detect changes or send alerts.

API usage

Keep your Apify token private. Start this Actor once and retain the returned run/storage IDs.

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~washington-electrical-registry/runs' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"businessName":"Electric","maxItems":10}'

JavaScript with apify-client:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/washington-electrical-registry')
  .call({ licenseNumber: '16DLLL*882JT', maxItems: 1 });
if (run.status !== 'SUCCEEDED') throw new Error(run.status);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems({ limit: 10 });

Python with apify-client:

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('automation-lab/washington-electrical-registry').call(
    run_input={'businessName': 'Electric', 'maxItems': 10})
if run['status'] != 'SUCCEEDED':
    raise RuntimeError(run['status'])
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items(limit=10).items

MCP: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code

Claude Code setup:

claude mcp add --transport http apify \
  "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/washington-electrical-registry"

Claude Desktop / Cursor / VS Code MCP configuration (adapt the enclosing key to your client):

{"mcpServers":{"apify":{"url":"https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/washington-electrical-registry"}}}

Authenticate through your client's supported Apify method; do not paste tokens into prompts. Use scoped tools/list to discover actual names and schemas. Actor selection also adds run/storage/abort tools; it does not expose exactly one tool. Read-only discovery does not authorize execution.

Example prompts

• “Run Washington Electrical Contractor Licenses Scraper for exact license 16DLLL*882JT, maximum one record. Show the official status, expiration and source link.”
• “Search business names containing Electric, return at most ten electrical contractor licenses, and summarize their official statuses.”

Start once, keep the run ID, and follow that same run. call-actor waits at most waitSecs (0–45 seconds, default 30); a tool wait may end before the run finishes. Configure the client's request timeout to exceed the chosen waitSecs plus a transport margin while staying within the total deadline. Poll that same run with get-actor-run, bounded backoff (2, 4, 8 seconds, capped at 10) and a total deadline such as 120 seconds; on a client timeout recover the known run, never blindly start another. If the run ID is unknown, report uncertainty instead of restarting. At the deadline report pending with the run ID; failed runs are not complete successes and any available rows are partial.

After success, use get-dataset-items with the returned defaultDatasetId and explicit arguments matching its discovered schema: limit: 20, offset: 0, and fields selecting businessName, licenseNumber, licenseStatus, expirationDate, and sourceUrl. Prefer untransformed JSON and advance offset using source-row pagination metadata. Read bounded dataset pages: no more than 100 rows or 64 KiB of serialized UTF-8 content admitted to model context across all pages, whichever comes first. Enforce byte limits host-side; if your client cannot intercept oversized responses, do not promise a hard byte guarantee. Track source offsets, report truncation/continuation, and keep full exports outside model context. Tool metadata and dataset IDs are not result rows. Client caching does not guarantee universal token savings.

Legality, responsible use, privacy and retention

This independent Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Washington L&I. It uses Apify's standard terms. Use public records responsibly and comply with applicable law and source conditions. Records are evidence for review, not legal advice or a guarantee that a contractor may perform a specific job.

Inputs contain a business query; results contain public business identity/contact data that can identify sole proprietors. Principal/owner fields are deliberately omitted. Logs contain operational counts/errors, not successful record bodies. No AI provider receives runtime input or output.

Run inputs, results and logs are stored in your Apify account under its retention settings; delete run storage through Apify when no longer needed. The Actor creates no cross-run business cache or persistent session.

Failed operations send sanitized diagnostic input, exceptions and actor/build/run IDs to our private GlitchTip service for repair. Secret fields and URL queries are removed; diagnostic reports are retained for 30 days. Do not put unnecessary confidential information in search fields.

FAQ and support

Why did my license search return no record? Confirm the exact number and punctuation. Construction registrations and individual electrician credentials are outside electrical contractor scope.

Does ACTIVE guarantee suitability? No. It is the source-published status. Independently check scope, dates and regulator records; this Actor does not evaluate insurance or eligibility.

Is this real-time Verify data? No. It is the official public export. scrapedAt means retrieval time and does not certify when L&I last refreshed a record.

Can I search multiple businesses? Each run accepts one name or license number. Create separate Tasks or orchestrate calls if needed; each run has its own start fee and dataset.

For incorrect output or a source change, open an issue on this Actor with the input, run link and expected behavior, avoiding confidential details.

Related Actors

For another jurisdiction's electrical license records, see North Carolina Electrical License Search. It uses NCBEEC, not Washington L&I. This Actor remains a standalone Washington electrical-contractor verification workflow.