A.R.S. 32-1151.02: Arizona's Public List of Unlicensed Contractors

Arizona keeps a public record of people caught working as contractors without a license, and anyone can read it. A.R.S. 32-1151.02 orders the Registrar of Contractors to post that list on its website. It names people found guilty of unlicensed contracting and the business names they operated under. For a homeowner about to hand over a deposit, it is a free screening tool.

What the statute requires

The Registrar (the ROC) does not just track these cases internally. It has to publish them. The core command is short:

The registrar shall maintain a list of persons who have been convicted of contracting without a license ... The list shall be published on the registrar's website.

The list reaches beyond court convictions. It also captures people the ROC has cited through its own civil process for unlicensed work, and it includes any known related business names those people have used. That last detail matters, because a bad operator often works under a string of company names to shake off a bad reputation.

How a name gets on, and off, the list

A person lands on the list two ways: a criminal conviction for contracting without a license under A.R.S. 32-1151, or a civil citation from the ROC for the same conduct. The entry stays public until the person obtains a proper contractor's license and asks in writing to be removed. The statute gives the Registrar ten business days to process that request. So a name coming off the list usually means one thing: the person finally got a license.

Why it matters when you hire

For instance, before signing with a concrete crew for an Apache Junction driveway and RV slab, search their name and business on the list. A hit means the state already caught them contracting without a license. Hiring them anyway carries a second cost: if the job goes wrong, an unlicensed contractor is not covered by the residential recovery fund, and by A.R.S. 32-1153 they cannot even sue you for payment. The protections that come with a licensed builder simply are not there.

How this connects to the rest of the licensing rules

This list is the public output of two other rules: the ban on unlicensed contracting in A.R.S. 32-1151 and the ban on unlicensed advertising in A.R.S. 32-1165. To run a live check on a name, see how to verify an Arizona contractor license with the ROC, and learn the other warning signs in red flags a builder is not legitimate.

Where to read it

You can read the section, including the removal procedure, on the legislature's site: View A.R.S. 32-1151.02 on azleg.gov. Search the list by person and by business name both. The statute requires the ROC to publish the related business names an offender used, and one operator can sit behind several of them.

Treat a clean search as a starting point, not a clearance. The list only shows people already caught, so pair it with a live license lookup, which is exactly what this section is built to support.