Delaware Business License Lookup & List - Contractors, Retail

Delaware Business License Lookup and List: contractors, retailers, restaurants, hotels and more

Every business currently licensed by the State of Delaware, from the Division of Revenue's open business license data, as a spreadsheet. About 53,000 licensed businesses, including 10,900 resident and non-resident contractors, retailers, restaurants, wholesalers, hotels and motels, commercial lessors, collection agencies and motor vehicle dealers. Each row has the business name, trade name, license number, license category, valid-from and valid-to dates, address, city, state and ZIP.

Sample output (real rows, a few of the columns):

businessName	licenseCategory	licenseNumber	licenseValidTo	city
BRENFORD ANIMAL HOSPITAL PA	General Services	2008205153	2027-12-31	Dover
TORTELLA ENTERPRISES INC	Retailer Restaurant	2012603832	2026-12-31	Millsboro
CARS FOR LESS DOLLARS LLC	General Services	2015102824	2026-12-31	Dover

Delaware does not publish one "contractor license" list: the state business license is issued by the Division of Revenue, and this Actor reads that official dataset. Use it three ways:

1. Full Delaware business list. Pick categories, cities or ZIP prefixes to export every licensed business in a territory (for example resident contractors in Wilmington, or restaurants in Sussex County towns).
2. Fresh and renewed license leads. Set licensedWithinDays (for example 90) to get businesses whose current license term started in that window. Delaware licenses run by calendar year, so most renewals start on January 1. The licenseNumberYear field shows the year encoded in the license number, which is usually the year the business was first licensed.
3. Bulk Delaware license lookup / verification. Paste license numbers into licenseNumbers to confirm a whole vendor or subcontractor list in one run. Numbers that are not currently licensed are listed in RUN_SUMMARY as not found.

Free to try: Apify's free plan ($5/month in credit, no card needed) covers about 1,600 records a month. Price: $3.00 per 1,000 results.

No browser, no proxies, no login, no API key. The Actor reads the State of Delaware open-data API, so a full export takes about 30 seconds.

Business categories (categories)

Code	What you get
contractors	Contractors and construction managers
general_services	General services businesses
retail	Retailers
restaurants_food_alcohol	Restaurants, food and alcohol
wholesale_manufacturing	Wholesalers and manufacturers
real_estate_leasing	Commercial lessors, real estate developers and leasing
finance_collections	Collection agencies and small-loan / finance companies
hospitality	Hotels, motels, short-term lodging and RV parks
transportation	Movers, taxi and bus operators, transportation agents
tobacco_vapor	Tobacco and vapor sellers
motor_vehicle_dealers	Motor vehicle dealers
utilities_telecom	Utilities and telecommunications providers
trade_name_registrants	Trade-name-only registrants
other_businesses	Other licensed businesses (junk dealers, showpersons and more)

What you get

• Business name and trade name (DBA)
• License number, license category and category group
• License valid-from and valid-to dates (the current term)
• Street address, city, state, ZIP and country, so out-of-state businesses licensed in Delaware are included (or skip them with delawareOnly)
• Source agency, dataset link and a link to the official Delaware license search

Input

Field	What it does
categories	Business groups to return. Empty = all
licensedWithinDays / licensedFrom / licensedTo	Filter by when the current license term started
licenseNumbers	Bulk lookup by license number (up to 5,000)
cities, zipCodes, keywords, delawareOnly	Territory and name filters
maxResults	Cap (and cost). Newest license start first

Example, resident and non-resident contractors in Wilmington (max cost about $0.30):

{ "categories": ["contractors"], "cities": ["WILMINGTON"], "maxResults": 100 }

Example, bulk lookup:

{ "licenseNumbers": ["2025950399", "2012102994"] }

Output example

{
  "businessName": "RA PAINTING LLC",
  "licenseNumber": "2025944171",
  "licenseNumberYear": 2025,
  "licenseCategory": "Resident Contractor",
  "categoryGroup": "contractors",
  "licenseValidFrom": "2027-01-01",
  "licenseValidTo": "2027-12-31",
  "status": "Currently licensed",
  "city": "Millsboro",
  "state": "DE",
  "zipCode": "19966-6588",
  "licensingState": "DE",
  "verifyUrl": "https://revenue.delaware.gov/business-license-search/"
}

Who uses this

• Sales teams selling insurance, payroll, equipment, software or financing to Delaware businesses
• General contractors and property managers vetting subcontractors and vendors
• Lenders, insurers and compliance teams checking that a counterparty holds a Delaware license
• Researchers and journalists mapping Delaware's business base

Privacy by design

Only businesses are returned. Licenses held by individual professionals (engineers, architects, real estate brokers, security guards, auctioneers, sales representatives, caregivers) are excluded by category, and rows whose business name reads like a person's own name (sole proprietors) are dropped. The data is public domain, published by the State of Delaware. No emails or phone numbers are collected.

Common questions

Does Delaware have a state contractor license? Delaware has no general contractor competency license. Contractors hold a Division of Revenue business license, either Resident Contractor or Non-Resident Contractor, and this Actor lists them. Counties and municipalities may require their own permits.

How fresh is the data? The Actor queries the live State of Delaware dataset on every run, which the Division of Revenue updates daily.

Does it include expired licenses? No. The state dataset lists currently licensed businesses only.

Is this official? It is the State of Delaware's open data. Check any license on the official Delaware business license search.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by the State of Delaware. Data from the Delaware Division of Revenue, Delaware Open Data portal (public domain).

More license tools from Loomwise

• Virginia contractor licenses
• Illinois IDFPR business licenses
• New York contractor registry
• US multi-state contractor licenses
• US new business filings