Texas Contractor & Trade License Lookup (TDLR)

Pain points

• Verifying a Texas electrician or HVAC license on the TDLR portal is one slow manual lookup at a time.
• The portal isn't structured for compliance workflows, subcontractor vetting, or CRM enrichment.
• Checking license type and expiration across many licensees by hand doesn't scale.

What we solve

• Verify any Texas TDLR licensee (electrician, HVAC/ACR and other trades) by license number, business name, or OWNER name - one search.
• Returns license type, expiration, county, owner name and - on company-held licences - street address, city, ZIP and phone.
• Enrich a license number or name into a full structured record; pay per match, empty searches free.

Summary

Look up and verify any Texas trade licensee from a single search - type a TDLR license number, a business name, or an owner's name and get back the license type, expiration date, county, owner name and, where TDLR publishes it, the street address, city, ZIP and phone, straight from the official Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation (TDLR) open-data registry. Business name and owner name are two separate indexes and both are searched: 19,774 of TDLR's 983,494 records name an owner who is not the business (checked 2026-09-06), so a business-name-only search misses those people entirely. Covers TDLR-regulated trades such as electricians and HVAC/AC contractors (Texas does not license general contractors statewide). Built for fast verification, compliance checks, subcontractor vetting, and enriching a license number or name into a structured record.

Who it's for

• GCs and hiring managers vetting Texas electrical/HVAC subcontractors
• Insurance underwriters and lenders running KYC on tradespeople
• Compliance teams and marketplaces verifying TDLR licenses
• RevOps and BD teams enriching contractor records

How to use

Set the input, run the actor, and collect results from the run's dataset (export to JSON/CSV/Excel, or pull via the Apify API). Example input:

{
  "queries": [
    "ELECTRIC"
  ],
  "maxResults": 25
}

See Inputs below for every available field.

What you get

One row per record:

Field	Description
state	Always 'TX' for this actor
license_number	TDLR license number
business_name	Licensed business or licensee name
person_name	Owner name
license_type	TDLR license type (e.g. A/C Technician, Master Electrician)
expiration_date	License expiration date
county	Business county
address	Business street address — published on company-held licences only (11.0% of TDLR rows, 2026-09-06); null on individually held trade licences
city	Business city (split out of TDLR's combined city/state/ZIP column) — same coverage as address
zip_code	Business ZIP, 5 or ZIP+4 — same coverage as address
phone	Business phone — published on company-held licences only (10.1% of TDLR rows, 2026-09-06); null on individually held trade licences
matched_by	Which search surfaced this match: 'license_number', 'business_name' or 'owner_name'
source_url	Link to the official TDLR license search

Sample:

{
  "state": "TX",
  "license_number": "592",
  "business_name": "ROUNTREE APPLIANCE INC",
  "person_name": "ROUNTREE APPLIANCE INC",
  "license_type": "Appliance Installation Contractor",
  "expiration_date": "05/25/2027",
  "county": "BOSQUE",
  "address": "815 N AVENUE G",
  "city": "CLIFTON",
  "zip_code": "76634-1011",
  "phone": "2546753515",
  "matched_by": "business_name",
  "source_url": "https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/LicenseSearch/"
}

Inputs

Field	Required	Type	Default	Description
query	no	string	"ELECTRIC"	A Texas TDLR license number, business name, or owner name. Searches all three: exact license number, business-name substring, and owner-name substring — results are unioned and deduped by license #. TDLR keeps owner and business as separate columns and they disagree on 19,774 of its 983,494 records, so an owner search finds people a business-name search cannot.
queries	no	array	["ELECTRIC"]	Look up many in ONE run instead of starting a run per lookup. Takes the same values as 'Search query'. Combined with 'Search query' if you fill both, and duplicates are removed. Billing is unchanged: you are charged per record returned, not per entry submitted.
maxResults	no	integer	50	Cap on the number of records returned PER ENTRY, not per run — so a batch cannot silently return only the first 50 rows overall and read as 'the rest don't exist'. This is now honoured end to end - the Socrata query is issued for this many rows.
proxyConfiguration	no	object	{"useApifyProxy": false}	Optional. The Texas TDLR open-data API is reachable directly; a proxy is not needed.

Pricing (Pay Per Event)

You pay per result (dataset-item) — no charge for empty runs. Example: 100 verified license records at $0.004/result ≈ $0.40.

Illustrative — the final per-result price is set at publish time. Apify platform usage (compute) is billed separately per your plan.

Use cases

• License verification — confirm a Texas trade license's type and expiration before hiring or onboarding.
• Record enrichment — turn a license number or name into a full structured record for a CRM, marketplace, or vetting workflow.
• Compliance checks — pull authoritative TDLR data on demand for audits and due diligence.
• Lender / insurer due diligence — verify a tradesperson's standing straight from the state registry.

Why this actor

• Straight from the official Texas TDLR open-data registry — authoritative, not a stale third-party copy.
• Search by license number (exact), business name, or owner name (substring) — three indexes, unioned and deduped by license #, so you find the person behind the company name too.
• Pay per match; searches with no results are free.

Limitations & updates

Covers Texas TDLR-regulated trade licenses (electricians, HVAC/ACR and similar) only — Texas does not license general contractors statewide, and plumbers (TSBPE) are not included in this version. Results reflect the published open-data snapshot. A name search matches the business-name AND owner-name indexes; runs are bounded (default 50 results per query) — refine a broad name to narrow it. Address, city, ZIP and phone are published by TDLR only for company-held licence types (11.0% / 10.1% of records, 2026-09-06) and are null elsewhere. Licence STATUS is not in this dataset at all — TDLR publishes no status column here — so that field is always null; use the expiration date to judge currency.

FAQ

Where does the data come from?

The official Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation (TDLR) open-data registry — public, authoritative license data.

Does Texas license general contractors?

No — Texas does not license general contractors statewide. TDLR licenses specific trades such as electricians and HVAC/AC contractors, which is what this actor verifies. (Plumbers are licensed by the separate TSBPE board and are not included here.)

What can I search by?

A TDLR license number (exact), a business name (substring), or an owner name (substring). All three indexes are searched and the results unioned and deduped by license number — which matters because TDLR's owner and business columns disagree on 19,774 of its 983,494 records (checked 2026-09-06): an owner such as 'PETERSON, LESLIE LYNN' trades as 'AIR TEMP HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING', and a business-name-only search would never find them.

Do I get an address and phone number?

On company-held licences, yes — street address, city, ZIP and phone. TDLR publishes contact details only for its establishment/company licence types, which is 11.0% of records for address and 10.1% for phone (counted against the live dataset 2026-09-06). Individually held trade licences — the bulk of the register — carry no address or phone at the source, and those columns come back null rather than guessed.

How am I charged?

Pay-per-result — per license match returned. No charge for searches with no results.

Is this personal data?

It's public professional-license data (business and license records as TDLR publishes them); we add no personal/PII enrichment.

How current is it?

It reflects the TDLR open-data registry. The state publishes no refresh schedule and the export is not daily — when checked on 2026-07-28 its last row update was 2026-07-16, so expect the snapshot to lag the board's live record.

Which actor to choose

Part of the contractor-license verification suite — pick the one that fits your goal:

• California Contractor License Lookup & Verify (CSLB) — You need a California contractor verified — by license number, business, or owner/personnel name (CSLB).
• Florida Contractor License Lookup & Verify (DBPR) — You're verifying a Florida contractor or tradesperson — type, status, expiration, county (DBPR).
• Louisiana Contractor License Lookup — You want the full Louisiana roster — 50,000+ commercial, residential & specialty licenses as data (LSLBC).
• Multi-State Contractor & Trade License Lookup — You don't know the state, or want the same contractor checked across WA, OR, TX & CT in one run.
• Nevada Contractor License Lookup & Verify (NSCB) — You need a Nevada contractor's status, trade classifications, bond & principals (NSCB).
• New Mexico Contractor License Lookup & Verify (NM CID) — You're verifying a New Mexico contractor — license #, status, city/ZIP, expiry (NM CID).
• North Carolina Contractor License Lookup & Verify (NCLBGC) — You're verifying a North Carolina general contractor — classification, status, expiration (NCLBGC).
• Oregon Contractor License Lookup & Verify (CCB) — You're verifying an Oregon contractor — status, bond, insurance & RMI (CCB).
• South Carolina Contractor License Lookup & Verify (SC LLR) — You're searching or verifying South Carolina contractors — by name, license, city, or classification (SC LLR).
• Tennessee Contractor License Lookup & Verify (TN DOCI) — You're verifying a Tennessee contractor or tradesperson — type, status, city & county (TN DOCI).
• Virginia Contractor License Lookup (DPOR Bulk) — You want the full Virginia roster — 50,000+ Class A/B/C and trade licenses as bulk data (DPOR).
• Washington Contractor License Lookup & Verify (L&I) — You're verifying a Washington contractor — type, status, expiration, principal (L&I).
• Alabama Contractor License Lookup & Verify (LBGC) — You're verifying an Alabama general contractor — classification, city, phone, expiration (LBGC).
• Arkansas Contractor License Lookup & Verify (ACLB) — You're verifying an Arkansas contractor — validity, type, expiration, city & county (ACLB).
• Michigan Contractor License Lookup & Verify (LARA) — You're verifying a Michigan builder or trade contractor — type, status, expiration (LARA).
• Minnesota Contractor License Lookup & Verify (DLI) — You're verifying a Minnesota residential contractor — subtype, status, expiration, enforcement flags (DLI).
• Massachusetts Construction License Lookup & Verify (CSL) — You're verifying a Massachusetts Construction Supervisor License — type, status, expiration (CSL).

Guides & use cases

Written up on scrapebench.dev — the bench that runs and verifies this actor against the live source every night:

• How-to: How to run Texas Contractor & Trade License Lookup (TDLR)
• Use case: Find Texas Electricians by Company Name

More actors, coverage and nightly verification results: scrapebench.dev

Works with n8n

Ready-made n8n templates that call this actor:

• Monitor contractor licences and alert 30 days before expiry — free template. Step-by-step guide
• Verify contractor licenses in your lead list — free template. Step-by-step guide
• Verify a subcontractor's licence when they submit your onboarding form — free template. Step-by-step guide

Works with AI assistants (MCP)

Callable as an MCP tool, so Claude, Cursor, VS Code Copilot and other MCP clients can run it directly. Grab the config from the MCP tab on this page — Apify hosts the server and keeps that snippet current, and OAuth signs you in on first connect, so no API token goes in your config file.

Then just ask:

"Look up Texas contractors matching 'ELECTRIC' — licence type, expiry and county."

Rows carry the licence, its type, the qualifying person and (on company-held licences only) address and phone; TDLR publishes no status column in this dataset, so judge currency from expiration_date. Runs started this way bill exactly like any other run.