California CSLB Scraper — Contractor Licenses

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, or personnel name — get status, all classifications, bonds, workers' comp, disciplinary actions, personnel, and full contact details in structured JSON. The default input looks up license 1000001 and returns one record.

Current status (2026-10-27): license-number, business-name and personnel-name searches work. CSLB's ZIP-code search page currently redirects to its license check page, so zipCodes searches return no records; a ZIP-only run ends with a failed status and no charges. Runs during CSLB's weekly database maintenance (Sunday 8 p.m. to Monday 6 a.m. Pacific) also end with a failed status and no charges.

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 from business-name or personnel searches, filtered by 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 three working search modes (ZIP search is currently unavailable). 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. Currently unavailable: CSLB's ZIP search page redirects, so no records are returned.
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 (about 250 records fit in the default 1-hour timeout; the run stops cleanly before it)

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
}

Active HVAC contractors from a business-name search:

{
    "businessName": "Air",
    "classification": "C-20",
    "status": "active",
    "maxResults": 20
}

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

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. Apify platform usage is included; no separate platform-usage fee is passed to users. Only license records saved to the dataset are charged. Licenses that do not exist, records removed by your filters, and failed or unavailable lookups are not charged.

Apify tier	Per license record (USD)	Per 100 records (USD)	Start fee per started GB of memory (USD)
FREE	$0.025001	$2.5001	$0.006251
BRONZE	$0.024375	$2.4375	$0.006094
SILVER	$0.02375	$2.375	$0.005938
GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND	$0.02	$2.00	$0.005

The default run uses 1 GB of memory, so it pays the start fee once. At FREE-tier prices, the default one-license lookup costs about $0.031, and 20 records cost about $0.506. The authoritative prices are shown in the Actor's Apify pricing settings.

Technical notes

• Access route: requests go to CSLB directly from the Apify cloud with no proxy (measured working 2026-10-27). Proxy settings are managed by the Actor owner and are not part of the input.
• Scheduled downtime: The CSLB database is unavailable Sundays 8 PM through Monday 6 AM Pacific Time. Runs in this window end with a failed status and no record charges; avoid scheduling runs then.
• Run status: every run ends with a status message giving delivered records, charged events, and the stop reason. The OUTPUT record repeats these counts.
• 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

FAQ

Is the data official?

Yes. Every record is read from the CSLB public license lookup at cslb.ca.gov at run time.

How long does a lookup take?

About 10-15 seconds per license, because each license is opened through CSLB's own lookup form.

What happens if a license number does not exist?

It is skipped and counted in OUTPUT.licensesNotFound. You are not charged for it.

Can I search by ZIP code?

Not at the moment. CSLB's ZIP-code search page redirects to the license check page, so use business-name or personnel-name searches with the city filter instead.

Why did my run fail on a Sunday night?

CSLB takes its database offline from Sunday 8 p.m. to Monday 6 a.m. Pacific time. Runs in that window end with a failed status and no record charges.

Last verified: 2026-10-27