California CSLB Contractor License Scraper

Scrape the California Contractors State License Board (CSLB) public database for full contractor license records. Search by license number, business name, personnel name, or ZIP code — get status, all classifications, bonds, workers' comp, disciplinary actions, personnel, and full contact details in structured JSON.

Use cases

• Contractor verification — confirm a contractor is licensed and in good standing before hiring
• Compliance monitoring — detect newly expired, suspended, or revoked licenses for vendor lists on recurring schedules
• Lead generation — build targeted lists of licensed contractors by ZIP code, city, classification, or active status
• Subcontractor sourcing — find qualified subcontractors by specialty classification and region
• Insurance underwriting — score contractors using disciplinary actions, bond cancellation history, and workers' comp status
• Due diligence — check complaint and legal action history before signing contracts
• Market research — analyze contractor density by county/classification, track new-license issuance trends

Input

The actor supports four search modes. Use any one or combine multiple:

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
licenseNumbers	array	no	[]	Direct license-number lookup (fastest). Example: ["1000001", "812345"]
businessName	string	no	""	Full or partial business name. Example: "Smith Construction"
personnelLastName	string	no	""	Last name of license-holding individual
personnelFirstName	string	no	""	Optional first name to narrow personnel search
zipCodes	array	no	[]	California ZIP codes for region-based search. Example: ["92101", "90012"]
city	string	no	""	Client-side filter on business address city
classification	string	no	""	Filter by CSLB classification code (e.g. "C-10", "B")
status	select	no	"any"	Filter by license status: any, active, expired, suspended, revoked, canceled, inactive
maxResults	integer	no	100	Hard cap on records returned
customProxyUrl	string	no	""	Premium residential proxy URL for maximum reliability
proxyConfiguration	object	no	residential	Apify proxy settings

At least one search mode is required.

Example inputs

License number lookup:

{
    "licenseNumbers": ["842951", "1000001"],
    "maxResults": 2
}

Business name search:

{
    "businessName": "Pacific Construction",
    "status": "active",
    "maxResults": 50
}

ZIP code lead generation:

{
    "zipCodes": ["92101", "92102"],
    "classification": "C-20",
    "status": "active",
    "maxResults": 200
}

Personnel name search:

{
    "personnelLastName": "Smith",
    "personnelFirstName": "John",
    "maxResults": 25
}

Output

Each record contains the full public record for one contractor license:

Field	Type	Description
license_number	string	CSLB license number
business_name	string	Legal business name
license_status	string	Active, Expired, Suspended, Revoked, Canceled, or Inactive
entity_type	string|null	CORPORATION, LLC, SOLE OWNER, etc.
issue_date	string|null	Original license issue date (ISO 8601)
expiration_date	string|null	License expiration date (ISO 8601)
business_address	string|null	Full street address
city	string|null	Business address city
county	string|null	California county (derived from ZIP)
zip_code	string|null	Business address ZIP
business_phone	string|null	Business phone number
classifications	array	All license classifications [{code, description}]
bonds	array	All bonds: contractor's bond, qualifier bond [{type, company, amount_usd, bond_number, effective_date, cancellation_date}]
workers_comp	object|null	Workers' comp carrier, policy, dates, or exempt status
qualifiers	array	Qualifying individuals [{name, association}]
personnel	array	All listed personnel [{name, classification, license_number, status}]
disciplinary_actions	array	Disciplinary actions [{date, type, summary}]
administrative_actions	array	Administrative actions [{date, type, summary}]
detail_url	string	Direct CSLB detail page link
scraped_at	string	ISO 8601 timestamp
source_url	string	Source page URL

Pricing

Event	Price
Actor Start	$0.00005
License Record	$0.025 per record

You only pay for records successfully scraped. Start with a small maxResults to test before scaling.

Technical notes

• Residential proxy required: CSLB's F5 BIG-IP WAF blocklists datacenter IPs. The actor uses Apify residential proxy by default. For production bulk runs, provide a premium residential proxy via customProxyUrl (Decodo/Bright Data/IPRoyal) for maximum reliability.
• Scheduled downtime: The CSLB database is unavailable Sundays 8 PM through Monday 6 AM Pacific Time. Avoid scheduling runs during this window.
• Search limits: Business name searches return up to 50 names per page (pagination handled automatically). Personnel name searches return up to 100 names per page.
• Classification codes: See the CSLB classification list for all 40+ specialty codes.

Integration

Export scraped data, run the scraper via API, schedule and monitor runs, or integrate with other tools. The output dataset is compatible with:

• CSV/JSON/Excel export from Apify Console
• Zapier and Make webhooks
• Direct API access via Apify REST API
• CRM import (HubSpot, Salesforce) with field mapping
• AI agent tool calls via Apify MCP server