Missouri to Ohio: home inspector license reciprocity

1. 1Application fee. Pay the application fee ($235). Initial licensure fee, set by OAC 1301:17-1-03(A) and applied to out-of-state applications by OAC 1301:17-1-04(A)(4). Applications and payment go through the Division's eLicense LPI portal; the Division no longer takes paper forms where the portal covers the process. Renewal is the same $235 every three years, and a late renewal filed inside the three months after expiry costs a further $125..
2. 2Insurance. Carry the required insurance ($100,000). Commercial general liability or comprehensive general liability insurance with limits of at least $100,000 per occurrence and $300,000 in the aggregate, required by R.C. 4764.11(A) of every licensee and every applicant. R.C. 4796.08(C) preserves it for out-of-state applicants, so it is one requirement these routes do not waive. File a certificate of insurance with the application. The license term is three years, so a one-year policy has to be renewed and an updated certificate sent to the Division before the cover on file expires. If an employer's policy specifically names you as a covered person you need no individual policy while inspecting for that company, but you need your own the moment you leave..
3. 3Insurance. Carry the required insurance (if applicable). Errors and omissions insurance does not satisfy Ohio's requirement and is not required at all. The Division answers the question directly: E&O insurance does not meet the requirement, because Ohio law asks for proof of a commercial general or comprehensive general liability policy, and licensees are not required to carry E&O. Inspectors often still buy it separately, since a general liability policy answers for injury and property damage rather than for a claim about the inspection itself, but in Ohio that is a business decision and not a licensing condition..
4. 4Background check. Complete a background check. Two fingerprint-based criminal records checks, one through the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation and one through the FBI, required by R.C. 4764.07(B) and OAC 1301:17-1-04(A)(2) and expressly preserved for out-of-state applicants by R.C. 4796.08(B). The applicant pays the bureau's fee, which the Division does not publish on its home inspector pages; ask BCI or the Division before you file. Out-of-state applicants who cannot be printed in Ohio are pointed to BCI for the alternatives. Background checks are not required again at renewal..
5. 5Trade exam. Pass the destination's trade exam (if applicable). The National Home Inspector Examination is Ohio's only examination, and it is not required on any of the four out-of-state routes. It is required on the ordinary initial application, where R.C. 4764.07(D)(4) asks for a pass within the two years before the application and the Division books it through PSI. Ohio writes no state portion and no separate law-and-rules paper, so an applicant who has to fall back on the initial route sits the NHIE and nothing else; Ohio law and the Ohio standards of practice are covered inside the 80 hours of qualifying education instead..
6. 6Continuing education. Complete continuing education. Fourteen hours of approved continuing education each year, 42 hours across the three-year license term, required by R.C. 4764.08 and OAC 1301:17-1-10. Courses must be approved by the superintendent before you take them, examination preparation courses never count and neither do parallel inspections, no more than eight classroom hours count in one day unless the course is online, and hours above 42 do not carry into the next term. Up to half the requirement can be earned by teaching or developing home inspection courses. Certificates go to the Division only when the renewal application is filed..
7. 7Business license. Obtain a business license (if applicable). If you will inspect through a business entity, OAC 1301:17-1-04(B) requires that entity to be filed or registered with the Ohio Secretary of State. Whether anything is needed depends on how you are set up, and the Division sends applicants to the Secretary of State for the filing itself and for questions about it..
8. 8Other. A special assessment for the home inspection recovery fund may be added to the license fee. R.C. 4764.21 makes the Board impose one of not more than $5 for each year of the license period while the fund holds less than $250,000 on the preceding 1 July, allows one of not more than $3 a year while the fund is between $500,000 and $1,000,000, and forbids any assessment once the fund passes $1,000,000. Whether anything is charged therefore depends on the fund balance in the year you apply, and neither the Board's fee rule nor the Division's pages publish a current figure, so confirm the total with the Division before you pay..

Published fees on this path total $235, excluding exam-vendor fees, bonds, and insurance.