How to Register a Contracting Company in North Dakota

Form the entity first, then licence it as a contractor

The Secretary of State sets out four steps to register a business in North Dakota: determine your business structure, choose a name for your business, select a registered agent, and file in FirstStop, the state’s online business services system. Business Services can also be reached by phone for filings that do not fit the online path.

The order matters because the contractor licence application in N.D.C.C. 43-07-04(1) is filed under oath by an applicant and specifies a class, and N.D.C.C. 43-07-04(3) then ties the licence to the continuing good standing of the entity registration. Registering the entity after the licence means the licence is immediately dependent on a record that does not yet exist.

Fees at the Secretary of State are published per entity type. Registration of a domestic or foreign LLC is $135, an amendment is $50, and termination or withdrawal is $20. A trade name registration is $25. An LLC name must contain "limited liability company" or the abbreviation LLC or L.L.C.

Official sources: North Dakota Secretary of State: Register a Business; North Dakota Secretary of State: Limited Liability Company (LLC); N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-07 (Contractors), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch

The entity, the trade name, and the way they can cost you the licence

North Dakota business registration runs through FirstStop, the Secretary of State’s online system, and the Secretary of State sets out four steps: determine your business structure, choose a name, select a registered agent, and file in FirstStop. Registration of a domestic or foreign LLC is $135, an amendment is $50, and termination or withdrawal is $20. A trade name registration is $25.

The recurring filing is annual and its date depends on what kind of entity you are. The Secretary of State states an annual report deadline of November 15 for a Business LLC or PLLC and April 15 for a Farm/Ranch LLC or ALF LLC, with the annual report fee at $50 for domestic and foreign LLCs. A professional LLC must file a Certificate of Professional License with its articles of organization, and from January 1, 2027 must include it annually with the report.

Here is where entity housekeeping stops being housekeeping. N.D.C.C. 43-07-04(3) lets the registrar classify a contractor licence as not in good standing where the contractor fails to maintain active corporation or limited liability company status or foreign registration, to file or renew a trade name registration under chapter 47-25, to file or renew a fictitious name certificate under chapter 45-11, or to maintain an LLP or limited partnership registration. Subsection (4) then requires the contractor to "cease soliciting or entering new contract projects," and directs the registrar to revoke the licence if the defect is not cured within thirty days of the notice or if the contractor takes new work while not in good standing.

A missed $50 annual report is therefore not a $50 problem in North Dakota. It is a route to a licence that is not in good standing, and a licence that is not in good standing is a step away from being deemed unlicensed under a chapter whose licence requirement is welded to the right to sue.

Official sources: North Dakota Secretary of State: Register a Business; North Dakota Secretary of State: Limited Liability Company (LLC); N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-07 (Contractors), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch

The contractor licence layer, and what it adds on top of the entity

Registering a company does not let it contract. N.D.C.C. 43-07-02(1) bars acting in the capacity of a contractor where "the cost, value, or price per job exceeds the sum of four thousand dollars" without a licence under chapter 43-07, and the Secretary of State applies that to subcontractors, general contractors, public contractors and nonresident contractors alike.

The licence application under N.D.C.C. 43-07-04(1) requires a statement of experience and qualifications under oath, a copy of a certificate of liability insurance, which the Secretary of State requires to name the Secretary of State as certificate holder, and a statement from North Dakota workforce safety and insurance that coverage satisfactory to it has been secured. The registrar has fifteen days under N.D.C.C. 43-07-09 to investigate and determine eligibility, and no licence issues until all documentation and the fee are received.

A nonresident company picks up one more obligation on filing. N.D.C.C. 43-07-19 provides that every applicant who is not a North Dakota resident, "by signing and filing the application, appoints the registrar as the applicant’s true and lawful agent upon whom may be served all lawful process in any action or proceeding against such nonresident contractor," with service on the registrar carrying the same legal force as personal service.

The company name is not free to change. N.D.C.C. 43-07-09.1 requires notice to the registrar within ten days of a contractor name change on the registrar’s form, with a ten dollar fee, and provides that "A licensee may not change the name of the licensee if the change is associated with a change in the legal status other than a change in marital status." Corporations, LLCs, LLPs and limited partnerships registered with the registrar are outside that section.

Official sources: N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-07 (Contractors), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch; North Dakota Secretary of State: Contractors licensing

Sales and use tax: you are the consumer, and you cannot show it as tax

North Dakota takes the opposite approach from a state that makes contractors collect tax from owners. The Office of State Tax Commissioner treats a contractor who incorporates tangible personal property into real property as the final user and consumer of that property, which makes the contractor liable for sales or use tax on the purchase price rather than the homeowner.

The billing consequence catches people who came from a retail background. The tax the contractor paid "can be passed to the customer as a materials cost. It cannot be itemized as a sales tax charge on the customer’s invoice." Putting a sales tax line on a construction invoice is therefore wrong in North Dakota even where the amount is right.

Two situations change the arithmetic. Where a contractor also runs a retail operation and pulls materials from stock bought for resale, the Tax Commissioner requires use tax on the contractor’s cost of those materials. Where materials were bought outside North Dakota, tax paid to the other state is credited: nothing further is due if the other state’s tax equalled or exceeded North Dakota’s, and the difference is due if it was less.

Public work adds a document. The Tax Commissioner requires a Contractor’s Clearance letter when bidding on state or local government contracts and states that these letters "automatically renew in November, unless the contractor has tax debt." That is separate from, and additional to, the tax-clearance condition in N.D.C.C. 43-07-11.1, which makes a contractor ineligible to enter a public contract until a satisfactory showing that all delinquent income, sales or use taxes have been paid, with a certificate from the tax commissioner satisfying the requirement.

Official sources: North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner: Tax Responsibilities for Contractors; North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner: Sales and Use Tax; North Dakota Office of State Tax Commissioner: Contractors; N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-07 (Contractors), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch

Verifying the other companies you work with

North Dakota keeps the record public and requires it to be. N.D.C.C. 43-07-13 requires the registrar to maintain in the registrar’s office, "open to public inspection during office hours, a complete indexed record of all applications, licenses, certificates for the current contractor year, revocations, expirations, and other information maintained on contractors," and allows disposal of an inactive contractor file only after two years with no application or renewal attempt. The Secretary of State runs a contractor search through FirstStop.

What you are checking for is not only existence but class and standing. A contractor may hold a valid class D licence and still be barred from a $200,000 project by N.D.C.C. 43-07-07(1)(d), and a contractor may appear on the register while being not in good standing under N.D.C.C. 43-07-04(3), in which case subsection (4) requires them to "cease soliciting or entering new contract projects."

One ground for complaint is specifically about your supply chain. N.D.C.C. 43-07-14(1)(e) makes "Engaging in work without any trade or professional license as required for the work pursuant to local, state, or federal law" a matter any person may file a verified complaint about. A licensed contractor putting unlicensed electricians or plumbers on a job is exposed under the contractor chapter as well as under the trade chapters.

Official sources: N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-07 (Contractors), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch; North Dakota FirstStop: contractor search; North Dakota Secretary of State: Contractors licensing

Electrical and plumbing are licensed separately, by their own boards

A contractor licence under chapter 43-07 is about the value of your contracts, not about your trade. The trades are licensed under their own chapters, and one of the grounds for discipline in N.D.C.C. 43-07-14(1)(e) is "Engaging in work without any trade or professional license as required for the work pursuant to local, state, or federal law." The contractor licence does not cover the trade licence, and holding one while lacking the other is itself a complaint ground.

Electrical work sits under N.D.C.C. chapter 43-09. Section 43-09-09(1) provides that "A person may not undertake or plan to undertake with another person to plan, lay out, supervise, install, make additions, make alterations, or make repairs, in the installation of wiring, apparatus, or equipment for electric light, heat, or power or for a power limited system, unless licensed by the board." Section 43-09-10 names the classes: master electrician, journeyman electrician, class B electrician and power limited electrician. Section 43-09-11 sets the ladder, including eight thousand hours for a journeyman "which experience may not be obtained in less than three years," one year as a licensed journeyman before master, and eighteen months in farmstead or residential wiring for class B.

Chapter 43-09 also carries a rule that catches contractors who intend to sub the work out. Section 43-09-09.2(1) provides that where a licence is required, "a person may not advertise to contract for electrical services without being licensed as or being associated with a class B electrician, master electrician, or power limited electrician, unless that person intends to contract the electrical services with a licensed electrical contractor." Section 43-09-16 lists who is outside the chapter entirely, including utility employees up to the first point of service attachment, telecommunications and cable staff, appliance dealers connecting appliances to an existing receptacle, and an individual installing a nonelectrical system.

Plumbing sits under N.D.C.C. chapter 43-18, and its trigger is geographic. Section 43-18-11 provides that no person, firm, corporation or limited liability company "shall engage in the business of a master plumber, journeyman plumber, or plumber’s apprentice in any location of this state having a public system of waterworks or sewerage unless registered and licensed to do so by the board." Section 43-18-10 requires a firm installing plumbing in such a location to have a licensed master plumber in charge at all times, and adds that "In cities of less than one thousand population and in all rural areas, a licensed journeyman plumber may engage in the business of installing plumbing." Section 43-18-09 gives the state plumbing code "the force and effect of law."

We publish no electrical or plumbing board fee for North Dakota. N.D.C.C. 43-09-13 and 43-18-13 leave the amounts to the boards, and those boards publish their schedules on hosts that are not official government sites, so we do not carry the figures. Get them from the board itself.

Official sources: N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-09 (Electricians), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch; N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-18 (Plumbing), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch; N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-07 (Contractors), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch

Check the official page yourself before you file or sign

North Dakota is unusually well documented compared with most states in this library: the contractor licence classes, the fees, the thresholds and the penalties are all in the statute itself rather than in an agency fee schedule, and chapter 43-07 can be read end to end in one sitting. That is a good reason to read it rather than to trust a summary, including this one.

Three limits on what you just read. We publish no bond figure, because N.D.C.C. 43-07-11 was repealed in 1995 and no bond requirement survives in the chapter. We publish no electrical or plumbing board fee, because the statutes leave those to the boards and the boards publish on hosts that are not official government sites. And we publish no unemployment insurance date or figure, and no municipal fee, bond, threshold or renewal cycle for any North Dakota city or county, because we could not source the first on an official host and our own rules bar the second while no local jurisdiction has cleared publication review.

Official sources: N.D.C.C. Chapter 43-07 (Contractors), published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch; North Dakota Secretary of State: Contractors licensing