Mold Licensing Requirements by State

Most homeowners assume that anyone advertising mold removal had to pass some kind of state test. In most of the country, that is not true. We checked the health department, licensing board, and statutes of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and the picture is lopsided: only four jurisdictions license both sides of a mold job, and 38 states do not license mold professionals at all.

That gap matters, because mold work is where the money and the incentive to exaggerate meet. In a state with no license, the person who "finds" your mold can be the same person who quotes thousands to remove it, with no government credential to check and no agency to complain to. Knowing where your state actually stands tells you how much of the vetting falls on you.

The short version

Across all 51 jurisdictions (50 states plus DC):

• 4 license both assessors and remediators — Florida, Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C. These are the strictest regimes.
• 1 licenses assessors only — New Hampshire (residential).
• 3 license remediators only — Louisiana, Oregon, and Tennessee.
• 2 require registration or certification instead of a license — Illinois (new in 2025) and Virginia.
• 3 set a statutory standard but issue no license — Kentucky, Maine, and Connecticut.
• 38 have no statewide mold-professional regulation — anyone can offer the service.

So ten jurisdictions require a license or registration to do the work legally, and the other 41 either set a thin standard or leave the field entirely unregulated.

Mold licensing by state (2026)

In the table, "license" means a credential the state issues and can revoke. "Registration" or "certification" means you must enrol or hold an outside credential, but the state does not issue an individual occupational license. "No statewide license" means there is no mold-specific requirement, though a general contractor license may still apply to the repair work.

† Marked entries are at medium confidence — the determination rests on the absence of a licensing program or on a statute whose enforceability is not fully settled. See the method note below.

The states that license mold work

Florida, Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C. are the only places that license both halves of the job. Florida and Texas are the deepest programs. Florida runs its Mold-Related Services program through the DBPR under Chapter 468, Part XVI, licensing assessors and remediators separately and forbidding one firm from doing both on the same property inside 12 months. As of the state's July 2026 registry extract, 8,067 mold licenses were on the books, most of them clustered in Southeast Florida. We cover Florida's mold assessor and remediator license requirements in detail — including how a professional actually earns one through the two-path education-and-experience route under §468.8413, and how those licenses renew on a two-year cycle that comes due July 31, 2026, so a badge confirmed last year may already be out of date — and you can verify any Florida assessor's or remediator's license against the live DBPR registry before you hire. Texas runs a parallel scheme through the TDLR mold program under Occupations Code Chapter 1958. New York licenses assessors, remediation contractors, and workers through the Department of Labor mold program, and the District of Columbia licenses both roles through the DOEE.

Three states license only the remediator. Louisiana requires a mold remediation license from the State Licensing Board for Contractors on jobs above a set dollar threshold. Oregon folds mold work into a restoration-contractor endorsement on top of a Construction Contractors Board license. Tennessee uses a mold-remediation classification within its contractor license, triggered on larger projects. New Hampshire is the lone state that licenses only the assessor side, requiring residential mold assessors to hold an accredited certification under RSA 310-A:189-b.

The states that require registration or certification

Two states sit between "licensed" and "unregulated," and both are recent.

Illinois is the one most reference pages have not caught up with. Its Mold Remediation Registration Act took effect on January 1, 2025, and now requires mold remediation firms to register with the Illinois Department of Public Health and carry a recognized third-party certification. It does not register assessors. Virginia added a 2024 requirement, enforced through its Consumer Protection Act, that residential mold remediators hold an IICRC certification, though it stops short of a state license.

The three "standard, no license" states

Kentucky, Maine, and Connecticut have a mold statute on the books but no licensing program. Kentucky sets enforceable minimum remediation standards, backed by the Attorney General under its consumer-protection law. Maine requires a conflict-of-interest disclosure when one party both assesses and remediates, but creates no license or board. Connecticut directs its health department to publish mold-abatement guidelines, though how strictly those are enforced is less settled.

The other 38 states: the vetting is on you

In most of the country, "licensed mold remediator" is a phrase a company can use without any state credential behind it. That is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to verify, because the state will not do it for you. When there is no license to check, lean on the signals that still mean something:

• An independent assessment. Use one company to test and scope the problem and a different one to do the removal, so the diagnosis is not written by the people who profit from the cure.
• A real industry certification. An IICRC AMRT credential or an ACAC council certification shows training to a recognized standard. Confirm it is current, not just claimed.
• Insurance and a written protocol. Liability and pollution coverage, plus a scope that follows the S520 remediation standard, separate professionals from operators.

Our guide to verifying a mold contractor walks through exactly what to ask and check, in a licensed state or an unregulated one.

How we built this, and what to double-check

Every entry was checked against the state's own health department, licensing board, or statute, not against contractor-directory pages, which frequently copy Florida or Texas language onto states that have no such law. We confirmed and rejected the common errors: Indiana's mold-related rules are an asbestos program, not a mold license; Iowa's 2025 mold-registry bill died in committee; and New Mexico does not run the "MRSA/MRSR" scheme that some aggregators attribute to it.

A handful of entries are marked at medium confidence (†). For Connecticut, the open question is whether its state guidelines are legally enforceable or merely advisory. For Oregon, whether mold remediation strictly requires the restoration endorsement or only a general contractor license. For North Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming, the "no license" finding rests on the absence of any mold program rather than a single page that says so outright. None of these change the headline numbers.

Finally, this is a moving target. South Carolina has a bill (H.5109) that would create assessor and remediator certifications, Colorado's failed 2025 registry could return, and New Hampshire has a pending repeal of its assessor requirement. We date this guide and update it as laws change. If your state's status affects a decision you are about to make, confirm it against the official source linked above before you act.