How to check a Virginia HVAC contractor's license (DPOR lookup, classes A, B and C, and the HVA specialty)

By William Lowery · Published 2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z · Updated 2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z

The company that quotes your new heat pump will almost certainly tell you it is licensed and insured. In Virginia that sentence has a specific meaning, and it takes about two minutes to confirm it from your kitchen table. This page explains what a heating and cooling contractor is required to hold in the Commonwealth, how to read the license number on an estimate, where to look it up, and what the law says the contract has to contain. It is written from the Code of Virginia, the Board for Contractors’ own regulations and the Board’s consumer statement, and every section links to the page it came from.

Two licenses, not one

Virginia regulates HVAC work at two levels, and a careful homeowner checks both.

The first is the contractor license, held by the business. Under Code of Virginia § 54.1-1103, no person may engage in or offer to engage in contracting work in the Commonwealth without one. “Contracting” in § 54.1-1100 covers construction, removal, repair or improvement of a building for a fixed price or fee, which is what an HVAC installation or a major repair is. The Board for Contractors issues the license in three classes, set by the size of the job:

Those thresholds come straight from § 54.1-1100 and are repeated in DPOR’s consumer statement, revised in 2025. A typical residential system replacement sits comfortably inside Class C or B; a company doing a lot of them in a year may need A. The class tells you how large a job the company may take on. It does not tell you what kind of work it may do. That is the job of the specialty.

The specialty for this trade is HVA. The Board’s regulation at 18VAC50-22-20 defines HVAC contractors as those “whose contracts include the installation, alteration, repair, or maintenance of heating systems, ventilating systems, cooling systems, steam and hot water heaters, heating systems, boilers, process piping, and mechanical refrigeration systems.” The same definition says the classification does not cover gas piping, fire suppression or sprinkler systems, so a company replacing a gas furnace and running a new gas line needs the gas-fitting qualification on top of HVA. A contractor license is always a class plus one or more specialties, and the lookup shows both.

The second license is the tradesman license, held by the individual doing the work. Under § 54.1-1128 and § 54.1-1129, anyone who works as an HVAC tradesman for the public must be licensed, with one exception: an unlicensed person may work under the supervision of a tradesman who is licensed in that specialty. The tradesman regulations at 18VAC50-30-10 separate a journeyman, who installs, repairs and maintains equipment to plans and to the Uniform Statewide Building Code, from a master, who plans the installation and supervises the work. The exemption in § 54.1-1131 is narrow: work on a single-family residence worth less than $250 by someone who does not hold himself out as a tradesman. A technician replacing a compressor in your attic is nowhere near that floor.

There is a third credential that is federal rather than state. Anyone who services equipment that could release refrigerant must hold an EPA Section 608 certification. The EPA’s page lists four types, and the Universal type covers all equipment. The credential does not expire. A contractor who says its technicians are EPA certified is making a checkable claim; the company’s own site is the usual place to find it, and the EPA does not run a public lookup.

What the license number tells you

DPOR’s consumer statement says every licensed contractor is assigned a license number, and that the number should appear in the contract. Under 18VAC50-22-260, a written residential contract must include the contractor’s name, address, license number, class of license and specialty classifications. So the first place to look for the number is the estimate itself. If it is not there, ask for it before anything else is discussed.

With the number in hand, or just the company name, go to the DPOR License Lookup at dporweb.dpor.virginia.gov. The search page accepts a name, a license number, an address or a license type. The result shows the class, the specialties and the status. Three things matter on that result:

  1. The name on the license matches the name on the estimate. A license issued to a different company, or to an individual rather than the business, is a question to ask before you sign.
  2. The specialty list includes HVA. A Class A license with only a building specialty is a general contractor, not an HVAC contractor.
  3. The status is active. The lookup also offers a Disciplinary Action Search, which returns actions taken on or after April 1, 2002. Running the company through it takes thirty seconds.

The lookup page carries DPOR’s own caution that the online data are not the agency’s official public records and may contain errors. Treat a clean result as strong evidence, not a guarantee, and treat a missing result as a reason to call DPOR before proceeding.

Listings on this directory mark whether a company states a Virginia license on its own website. That mark is the company’s claim as the company wrote it. The directory does not verify licenses, and every listing links to the lookup so that you can.

What the contract has to say

The Board’s regulation at 18VAC50-22-260 lists what a residential contract must contain, and the list is worth reading before you sign one for a new system. Among the required items: when work is to begin and the estimated completion date; the total cost of the project, or the terms if the job is cost-plus or time-and-materials; the amounts and schedule of progress payments, with a specific statement of the down payment; a listing of the specified materials and the work to be performed; a statement that the contractor will comply with all local requirements for building permits, inspections and zoning; disclosure of both parties’ cancellation rights; and the contractor’s name, address, license number, class and specialties.

On the down payment, the Board’s consumer statement makes a recommendation rather than setting a cap: about 10 percent of the total contract, or about 30 percent when the job requires custom-made items. A request for half the price up front on a standard heat pump replacement is not illegal, but it is well outside what the Board suggests, and it is a fair thing to push back on.

The permit line matters more than it looks. The contract must state that the contractor will comply with local permit and inspection requirements. Under the Uniform Statewide Building Code, mechanical work generally requires a permit from the local building official, with an exemption for certain like-for-like replacements of appliances that are not fueled by gas or oil in houses. Whether your particular replacement needs one is a question for your city or county building department, and a contractor who tells you flatly that no permit is ever needed is skipping a step the contract obliges it to take.

Who may legally work without a contractor license

The contractor license classes start at projects over $1,000, and § 54.1-1101 exempts a few situations: a homeowner working on no more than one primary residence of his own in any 24-month period, workers supervised by a licensed contractor, and work of $25,000 or less per project performed on behalf of a properly licensed contractor. None of those exemptions covers a company that advertises HVAC service to the public. And because the tradesman license has its own $250 floor, “under $1,000” does not mean unregulated.

How to become one, for the curious

The Board requires a tradesman to qualify for an examination before taking it. For a journeyman HVAC license, 18VAC50-30-39 lists paths that trade formal training against years of experience: an engineering degree related to the trade plus one year of practical experience at one end, eight years of practical experience with no formal training at the other, with 240, 160, 80 and 40 hours of vocational training paired with four, five, six and seven years in between. A master license takes three years holding a residential HVAC or plumber tradesman license, one year holding a journeyman license in the trade, or nine years of practical experience. PSI administers the exams at sites including Richmond, Virginia Beach, Roanoke, Charlottesville and Vienna, with fees of $100 for the journeyman and $125 for the master exam as listed on DPOR’s tradesmen page.

When a job goes wrong

Two routes exist, and both run through DPOR.

The first is a complaint. DPOR’s complaint form goes to its Compliance and Investigations Division in Richmond, and a report must be received within three years of the act in question, or two years after discovery where misrepresentation or concealment is involved. DPOR can discipline a licensee. It cannot order a refund, require the contractor to fix the work or provide any other personal remedy, and its page says so plainly.

The second is the Virginia Contractor Transaction Recovery Fund, which can pay a homeowner who has lost money through the improper or dishonest conduct of a licensed residential contractor. The conditions are strict: the contractor must have been licensed at the time, the work must have been on the consumer’s Virginia residence, the homeowner needs a court judgment first, and the claim must be filed within twelve months of the judgment becoming final. The limits in § 54.1-1123 are $30,000 per claimant per transaction, including anything paid from the contractor’s surety bond, and $100,000 per licensee in a two-year period.

That last condition is the whole argument for checking the license before the job starts. The Fund covers licensed contractors only. Hire an unlicensed one and the Commonwealth’s safety net is not there.

The two-minute version

Ask for the license number on the estimate. Look it up at dporweb.dpor.virginia.gov and confirm the name matches, the specialty list includes HVA and the status is active. Run the disciplinary search. Read the contract against the required list above, and compare the down payment to the Board’s 10 percent recommendation. Then ask your local building department whether the job needs a permit. Every heating and cooling contractor on this directory links to the lookup from its listing, so the check is one click from the page you are already on.

Sources