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

West Virginia licenses commercial building contractors statewide through the West Virginia Contractor Licensing Board, with administrative and enforcement support from the Division of Labor. A license is needed once the whole project, labor and materials together, reaches $25,000 for commercial work or $5,000 for residential work, judged on the entire project rather than on your own contract. A General Building Contractor is a contractor whose principal business is structures for the support, shelter and enclosure of persons, animals or property that need more than two contractor classifications, or who supervises the whole or any part of the construction; the Board treats it as the commercial, business and industrial tier, and it applies to commercial and private property alike. Its scope stops short of electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilating and cooling, piping and general engineering work, except on a residential structure, so those need their own classification or a properly licensed subcontractor. The license is held by the business and qualified by a named person who must be a member of responsible management, meaning an owner, partner, member or corporate officer, or a full-time employee working at least 30 hours a week; an entity may name several qualifiers. There is no experience, apprenticeship or net worth requirement anywhere in the Act or the Board's rule, and no municipality or county may require another occupational license on top of the state one.