Moving to Oregon as a residential contractor: every state's rule

Oregon licenses contractors statewide through the Construction Contractors Board, and under ORS 701.021 anyone who undertakes, offers to undertake or bids work as a contractor must hold a current CCB license and the endorsement that matches the work. The unusual part of Oregon's structure is that there is only one construction contractor license: what the applicant chooses is an endorsement, and the endorsement sets the bond and the insurance. The homes tier is the Residential General Contractor (RGC) endorsement, which allows an unlimited number of unrelated building trades on residential or small commercial structures and carries a $25,000 residential bond and general liability insurance of at least $500,000 per occurrence. Its narrower siblings are Residential Specialty ($20,000 bond, $300,000 insurance, one or two trades), Residential Limited ($15,000 and $100,000, for a business under $40,000 of gross sales a year and $5,000 a contract) and Residential Developer, and a license may carry one residential endorsement, one commercial endorsement, or one of each, in which case the contractor posts two bonds and carries one liability policy at the higher amount. The license is held by the business rather than by the person: a sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, corporation or trust applies, and it must at all times have at least one Responsible Managing Individual (RMI), an owner or employee who exercises management or supervisory authority over the construction activities and who has completed 16 hours of CCB-approved pre-license training and passed the Oregon contractor test. Oregon sets no net worth, working capital or financial statement test and no minimum trade experience for a residential endorsement, so a builder moving to Oregon applies as or for the business that will sign the contracts and names themselves as its RMI.