Moving to Minnesota as a general contractor: every state's rule

Minnesota does not license general, commercial or unlimited building contractors at the state level. The Department of Labor and Industry's contractor licensing chapter reaches only residential contractors, remodelers, roofers and manufactured home installers, and the residential license stops at buildings built for one to four families. What a commercial builder needs instead is a Construction Contractor Registration: state law requires any business providing public or private commercial or residential building construction or improvement services in Minnesota to register with DLI first, and DLI's own guidance puts it simply, that commercial work falls under contractor registration if you do not hold a residential license. Registration is a filing rather than a qualification. There is no exam, no qualifying person and no experience or education test; the legislature created the program mainly to help DLI investigate worker misclassification. A business that already holds a DLI license or certificate, an employee of a registered contractor, an architect or professional engineer, a school district and a volunteer builder are all exempt. Trade work inside a commercial building is still licensed separately, so the electrical, plumbing, high-pressure piping, elevator and boiler scopes go to contractors holding those DLI licenses.