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A Class B licensee may take contracts for structures and can self-perform two or more unrelated subcontractor trades. Installing only an electrical panel or replacing water mains would require C-specialty licenses, and grading/paving is Class A work.

All licensed contractors must maintain a $25,000 Contractor License Bond filed with the CSLB. This bond protects consumers from contractor misconduct.

An RME may qualify only one license at a time. This differs from a Responsible Managing Officer (RMO), who is an owner and may be associated with multiple licenses in some circumstances.

Contractors must notify CSLB within 90 days when the qualifier leaves, is replaced, or the business structure changes. Failure to notify can result in license suspension.

Trusts cannot hold CSLB licenses. Eligible entities include sole proprietorships, partnerships (general and limited), corporations, and limited liability companies (LLCs).

§7030.5 requires a licensee to include the licence number in all construction contracts, in subcontracts and calls for bid, and in all forms of advertising as the registrar prescribes. That squarely covers (c) and (d), and it covers (a) as well: a business card put into a customer's hand is a form of advertising, not private correspondence. What the section reaches is the material the public sees. Internal bookkeeping is published to no one, so no licence number is required on it, which makes (b) the exception the question asks for. The purpose is the one §7027.1(a) enforces from the other side — a consumer must be able to read the number off whatever brought the contractor to the door and check it against the board's record before signing anything.

Any fictitious business name used by a contractor must be registered with the CSLB and listed on the license. Operating under an unregistered DBA is a violation.

The disciplinary bond lives in B&P §7071.8, not §7071.17. After a formal disciplinary action against the license, the Registrar may require it as a condition of reissuance, reinstatement or continued licensure (d). Since SB 607 took effect on January 1, 2023 the amount is at least $25,000, capped at ten times the §7071.6 bond, and it sits on top of the standard $25,000 license bond; $15,000 is the pre-2023 figure. (a) is too narrow: an unpaid citation fine is one road to discipline, not the trigger itself. (b) is wrong because the bond is imposed by the Registrar, never applied for voluntarily. (c) confuses this with the §7071.9 bond of qualifying individual, which turns on how much of the entity the RMO or RME owns.

CSLB contractor licenses must be renewed every two years. Renewal notices are sent to the address on file, so contractors must keep contact information current.

Unlicensed contractors generally cannot enforce contracts or collect compensation in court. The minor-work exemption (§7048) applies to the total project cost, not just labor, and has strict conditions — the threshold was raised from $500 to $1,000 by AB 2622 (in effect for 2026).

§7141(a) sets the window: an expired licence may be renewed at any time within five years of expiration on the prescribed form, with the renewal fee and, past the grace period, a delinquency fee — and the record still shows a break in licensing for the gap. Once those five years have run there is nothing left to renew, so the contractor files as a new applicant under §7065 and meets the requirements in force now, which is why (a) and (d) both fail: no fee reopens a window that has closed. (c) is at most half of the answer. A new application does normally mean examination, but §7065.1 can waive it where the qualifying individual was on a licensee's record in the same classification for five of the seven preceding years, so retaking the trade exam is neither the whole requirement nor invariably required. §7141.5 is the section people confuse with this one: it grants retroactive renewal only if the application is delivered or postmarked within 90 days of expiration.

Class A contractors focus on fixed works requiring engineering skills: highways, airports, dams, sewers, and other infrastructure projects. Residential buildings are primarily Class B work.

The prime contractor is responsible for verifying subcontractor licensure. Using an unlicensed subcontractor can result in disciplinary action against the prime contractor's license.

Adding a partner changes the business entity, requiring a new license application. The new entity (partnership) must qualify separately. The old sole proprietor license does not transfer.

Abandonment of a contract without legal excuse is grounds for license suspension or revocation. CSLB has broad disciplinary authority to protect consumers from this type of misconduct.

Class C licenses cover specialty trades, each limited to a specific craft. Plumbing is the C-36 specialty classification under §7058, separate from the general engineering and general building classes.

Under §7068, an RMO who owns 10 percent or more of the voting stock is generally not required to file a separate bond of qualifying individual. An RMO owning less than 10 percent must file that bond.

Under §7027.1, it is unlawful for an unlicensed person to advertise for construction work requiring a license. The violation occurs upon advertising itself, regardless of whether any work is performed.

Section §7048 exempts work where the aggregate contract price for labor and materials is less than $1,000 (raised from the old $500 by AB 2622, effective 2025, and re-enacted at $1,000 by AB 1170 for 2026). The threshold applies to the total job cost, not just the labor portion, and a larger job cannot be split to evade licensing.

Section §7030 requires a licensed contractor to include the license number in contracts, subcontracts, and bids. This allows consumers to verify the license status with the CSLB before agreeing to the work.

Under §7065, eligible entities include sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, and limited liability companies. Trusts and similar arrangements are not eligible to hold a contractor license.

§7124.6(e)(1)(A) fixes both ends of the window: a citation is disclosed from the date of issuance and for five years after the date of compliance — so the clock that decides when it comes down starts when the licensee has actually paid and corrected, not when the citation went out, which is the distinction (b) misses. The paragraph adds a condition worth carrying: if additional disciplinary action is filed during those five years, all of the actions stay posted for as long as the most recent one is disclosable, and §7124.6(e)(1)(B) carries the disclosure onto the record of any other licence that shares a qualifier listed among its personnel of record. (c) is wrong because the section ends disclosure at the close of the stated period, and (d) is wrong at the opposite extreme. The one-year figure in (b) is not invented from nothing: §7124.6(c)(2) discloses a letter of admonishment for either one year or two. An accusation that ended in suspension, stayed suspension or stayed revocation gets seven years after settlement under §7124.6(e)(2).

§7071.9(a)(1) requires the $25,000 qualifying individual's bond whenever the qualifier is neither the proprietor, a general partner, nor a joint licensee — which covers every responsible managing employee — and §7071.9(c) exempts a responsible managing officer only where he owns 10 percent or more of the corporation's voting stock and certifies that fact. So the trigger is who the qualifier is, not the events in the other three options: renewal in (a) does not create the bond; (c) points at the certificate of workers' compensation insurance under §7125, which turns on having employees (or on holding a C-8, C-20, C-22, C-39 or D-49 classification) and has nothing to do with this bond; and public works in (d) brings bid and payment bonds that have nothing to do with this one. This bond is in addition to the §7071.6 contractor's bond and may not be combined with it, and §7071.9(b) caps the surety's aggregate liability at $7,500 for claims other than those of the §7071.10(a)(1) beneficiaries.

Every contractor license must be continuously qualified by an individual who has met the experience and examination requirements under §7068. If the qualifier leaves, a qualified replacement must be associated with the license or it cannot remain active.

§7068.1(a) makes the qualifier responsible for exercising supervision and control of the employer's or principal's construction operations to secure compliance with the chapter, and the definitions do the real work. §7068.1(c)(3) defines supervision and control as direct supervision or control, or monitoring and being available to assist others to whom direct supervision and control has been delegated — so the duty can be met through a competent chain of command rather than in person everywhere. §7068.1(c)(4) then lists what counts as direct supervision or control: supervising construction operations, managing construction activities by making technical and administrative decisions, checking jobs for proper workmanship, and supervision on construction sites. That is why (a) demands too much and (d) far too little, and why (b) confuses a licensing duty with a business guarantee no statute imposes. §7068.1(d) makes the board collect detailed information on those duties, and §7068.1(e) makes a violation a misdemeanour with a fine of $3,000 to $5,000.

§7031(b) is a disgorgement remedy rather than a damages remedy: a person who used the services of an unlicensed contractor may bring an action to recover all compensation paid to that contractor for the performance of any act or contract requiring a licence. It never asks whether the work was any good, which is why the other three all measure the wrong thing — (b) treats completion as a defence, (c) turns the claim into an ordinary construction-defect claim, and (d) tries to leave the contractor its costs. §7031(a) is the same policy from the other side, barring the unlicensed contractor from suing for an unpaid balance regardless of the merits. §7031(e) leaves one narrow door, and only for someone who has at some point held a California licence: the court may find substantial compliance where the person had been duly licensed before performing, acted reasonably and in good faith to maintain proper licensure, and acted promptly and in good faith to remedy the failure on learning of it. Contracting without a licence is also a misdemeanour under §7028(a).

§7057(a) defines the general building contractor by the structure and by the requirement that its construction use at least two unrelated building trades. §7057(b) supplies the rule this question turns on: a Class B may take a prime contract or a subcontract for framing or carpentry, but shall not take a prime contract for any project involving other trades unless the prime contract requires at least two unrelated trades other than framing and carpentry, or unless the Class B holds the appropriate licence classification itself or subcontracts with an appropriately licensed contractor. A single-trade job fails the two-trade test, which is why (b) is wrong. (c) misreads the ladder: Class A is general engineering under §7056, a separate classification with its own experience requirement, and holding it would not license the specialty trade either. (d) overshoots, because the contract is perfectly available by either route the statute names — and §7059(a) lets the licensee add the C classification without a further licence fee.

Under §7083, any fictitious business name or DBA a contractor uses must be reported to and registered with the CSLB so it appears on the license. Using an unregistered business name on contracts and advertising violates the law.

§7141(a) says two things, and the second is the one candidates miss: an expired licence may be renewed within five years, and the renewal is effective on the date an acceptable application is filed — the licensee is considered unlicensed, and there is a break in the licensing time between the expiration date and the date the renewal becomes effective. §7141(b) then explains what the 30-day grace period actually buys: it applies only to the delinquency fee, where a corrected application follows an incomplete one submitted by the expiration date. It authorises not a single day of contracting. So work done in that window is unlicensed work: a misdemeanour under §7028(a), and unrecoverable under §7031(a), which bars any action for compensation unless the contractor was duly licensed at all times during performance. (a) treats a fee concession as permission, (b) invents a carve-out for work in progress, and (c) borrows the double bond, which §7071.6(d) may impose at licensure on certain prior offenders and has nothing to do with renewal timing.

Under §7076, a contractor must notify the CSLB within 90 days of any change in personnel listed on the license, including the departure of a partner. The change in partnership membership affects the validity of the license.

§7068(b) lists who may appear to qualify a firm: a general partner, a responsible managing officer, a responsible managing manager or member, or a responsible managing employee. The RMO sits inside the business as an officer, manager or member. §7068(c)(1) defines the RME from the other direction, as an individual who is a bona fide employee of the applicant and actively engaged in the classification for which that person qualifies it, and §7068(c)(2) puts numbers on both halves: permanently employed, and working 32 hours a week or 80 percent of the hours the business operates, whichever is less. Both must show the same knowledge and experience and both sit the examinations, which is (b)'s error. (a) invents an ownership test for the RME; ownership matters in the other direction, since §7071.9(c) excuses an RMO from the qualifying individual's bond only where he owns 10 percent or more of the voting stock. (c) is wrong as well: §7068(e) bars a qualifier from holding another active licence except under §7068.1, which reaches related firms only and caps the whole arrangement at three in any one-year period.

Section §7030.5 requires the license number to appear in all forms of advertising, including websites and social media. Online advertising is treated the same as print and broadcast advertising for this requirement.

§7071.6(a) makes the $25,000 contractor's bond a condition precedent to issuing, reinstating, reactivating, renewing or maintaining a licence, and §7071.5 lists exactly who may claim on it: a homeowner damaged on home improvement to a personal family residence, the owner of a single-family dwelling not built for sale, any person damaged by a willful and deliberate violation of the licence law or by the licensee's fraud, an employee owed wages, and the funds owed employee fringe benefits. §7071.6(b) then reserves everything above $7,500 for the homeowners named in §7071.5(a). That list is why (b) is wrong: an unpaid subcontractor's remedies are the mechanics lien and the stop payment notice, and it reaches this bond only through the willful-violation or fraud door. (c) has the bond backwards — it protects others from the licensee, not the licensee's margin — and (d) confuses it with the coverage §7125 requires.

Under §7075, a contractor license is not transferable between entities. A corporation is a distinct legal entity from the sole proprietor, so the business must apply for a new license in the corporate name.

Under §7056, a Class A General Engineering Contractor handles fixed works requiring specialized engineering knowledge, such as highways, interchanges, and drainage systems. A highway interchange is classic Class A work.

Under §7068.1 and related law, the prime contractor must verify subcontractor licensure. Using an unlicensed subcontractor can expose the prime contractor to discipline against its own license, regardless of work quality.

§7141(a) is the window and it is five years: an expired licence may be renewed at any time within five years of expiration, on the prescribed form, with the renewal fee and — past the grace period — a delinquency fee, and the record still shows a break in licensing for the whole gap. Six years is outside it, so there is nothing left to renew and the contractor files as a new applicant under §7065, meeting the requirements in force now. That is why (a) and (b) both fail: no fee and no request reopens a closed window, and §7141.5 does not help either, because it grants retroactive renewal only where the application is delivered or postmarked within 90 days of expiration. (c) inverts the rule — waiting makes the position worse rather than better, and no ten-year period appears anywhere in the article. Examination is not automatic on the new application: §7065.1 can waive it where the qualifying individual was on a licensee's record in the same classification for five of the seven preceding years. The different animal here is the inactive licence, valid four years from its due date under §7076.5(c).

§7124.6 is the section that decides what the registrar publishes. §7124.6(d) makes the date, nature and disposition of all legal actions public, and §7124.6(e)(1)(A) fixes the window for citations: disclosed from the date of issuance and for five years after the date of compliance, provided no further disciplinary action was filed against the licensee in that period — and if one was, everything stays posted as long as the most recent action is disclosable. §7124.6(e)(2) gives accusations that ended in suspension, stayed suspension or stayed revocation a seven-year window after settlement. §7124.6(a) also opens up complaints referred for accusation, or referred for investigation after enforcement staff found a probable violation serious enough for suspension, revocation or prosecution, with the disclaimer §7124.6(b) requires to make clear that a complaint is only an allegation, while §7124.6(c)(1) keeps complaints resolved in the contractor's favour off the record. None of that reaches the private financial material in (a), (b) and (c), which the board does not collect in the first place.

§7027.2 is the section that lets an unlicensed person advertise at all, and it imposes two conditions at once: the aggregate contract price for labour, material and all other items on the project must be less than $1,000, and the advertisement must state that the person is not licensed under this chapter. Miss either and §7027.1(a) applies in full — a misdemeanour for advertising for covered work without a licence in the classification advertised, with a fine of $700 to $1,000 under §7027.1(c). That $1,000 tracks the minor-work exemption in §7048(a), which also requires that the work need no building permit, and §7048(c) withdraws the exemption entirely from anyone who advertises as a contractor or employs another person to do the work. So 'home repairs of any size' is unlawful on its face. (a) confuses honesty about price with the price limit itself, (b) invents a media exemption, and (d) treats a licence he might get later as though it worked backwards.

The list is regulatory, not statutory: 16 CCR §832 runs from C-2, insulation and acoustical, through C-61, limited specialty, and more than forty C classifications are issued, each tied to a separate craft — C-10 electrical, C-36 plumbing, C-39 roofing, C-27 landscaping, C-33 painting and so on. §7058(a) supplies the definition those classifications implement, and §7059(a) is what keeps a licensee inside the one it holds. (a) and (c) simply undercount; (b) undercounts and also misdescribes the scheme, because the classifications are organised by craft and not by the type of structure; and the rough figure matters less than knowing that each classification is its own licence with its own experience and examination.

A licence belongs to an entity, and a partnership is defined by who is in it. §7065(b)(1)(B) requires every member of a partnership seeking licensure to be listed on the application as a member of the personnel of record, and §7065(c)(2) lets the partnership qualify by the appearance of a general partner or of a responsible managing employee. Change the partners and the licensed entity is no longer quite the one on the record, which is why §7083(a) requires written notice to the registrar within 90 days of any change to recorded information, personnel expressly included, why §7083(b) makes a late notice effective only when it reaches the board's headquarters, and why §7083(c) makes the failure a ground for discipline. §7075.1(a) blocks the obvious shortcut by making a licence untransferable, although §7075.1(b)(2) allows the number to be reissued to a partnership on application where there is no change in the partners or the partnership structure. Nothing in the article limits a licence by county as (a) supposes, to a year as (c) supposes, or to residential work as (d) supposes.

§7068(c)(1) defines a responsible managing employee as an individual who is a bona fide employee of the applicant and is actively engaged in the classification of work for which that person is the qualifying individual, and §7068(c)(2) puts numbers on both halves: a bona fide employee is one permanently employed by the applicant, and actively engaged means working 32 hours per week, or 80 percent of the total hours per week the business is in operation, whichever is less. On top of that §7068.1(a) makes the qualifier responsible for exercising supervision and control of the construction operations. A name on the record with no hours behind it satisfies neither test, so the fee in (b) buys nothing, the insurance in (c) answers an entirely different requirement, and the annual site visit in (d) is nowhere near the 32-hour floor. §7068(f) makes the current qualifying individual file a statement verifying that capacity at every renewal, and §7068.1(e) makes the violation a misdemeanour with a fine of $3,000 to $5,000 for the qualifier personally.

§7030.5 is the licence-number section and it names three places: all construction contracts, subcontracts and calls for bid, and all forms of advertising as the registrar prescribes. (b), (c) and (d) are all on that list — a subcontract is there expressly, and a bid is what a call for bid produces. An ordinary purchase invoice to a materials supplier is none of them, which makes (a) the exception the question wants: it is a buying document rather than an offer of contracting services, and the supplier is not the person the disclosure exists to protect. Do not confuse §7030.5 with §7030(a), which requires something different in the same contracts — the CSLB notice, in at least 10-point type, telling the consumer that a complaint about a patent act or omission must be filed within four years of the alleged violation and one about a latent structural defect within ten. §7027.1(a) polices the advertising side of the same idea.

Under §7107, the willful departure from or abandonment of a construction project without legal excuse, and without the consent of the owner, is a cause for disciplinary action against the contractor's license.

B&P §7071.8, as amended by SB 607, requires a disciplinary bond of not less than $25,000 and not more than ten times the §7071.6 license bond, so the statute sets a floor the Registrar fills in case by case (d), not one fixed sum. (a) $15,000 is the pre-2023 figure and is the most common stale answer. (b) invents a 'half the license bond' rule that appears nowhere in the section; $12,500 is simply the old bond of qualifying individual amount. (c) describes a different bond entirely: §7071.17 covers an outstanding, unsatisfied final judgment and is written in the amount of that judgment.

§7048(a) exempts a work or operation on one undertaking or project, by one or more contracts, only where the aggregate contract price for labour, materials and all other items is less than $1,000 and the work does not require a building permit. The word doing the work is aggregate: $600 plus $500 plus $400 on the same job is $1,500, which is over the line before anyone even reaches the evasion rule. §7048(b) then closes the door in terms, saying the section does not apply where a division of the operation is made into contracts of amounts less than $1,000 for the purpose of evasion or otherwise — so (b) describes precisely the manoeuvre the statute names and forbids. (c) mistakes the label for the test: 'minor' in §7048 is the conclusion the dollar figure and the permit question produce, not a judgment about how small the jobs feel. (d) forgets whom the licence law protects, since the homeowner cannot consent on behalf of the public and §7031(b) lets that same homeowner sue later to recover everything paid. §7048(c) withdraws the exemption altogether from anyone who advertises as a contractor or employs another person to do the work, and unlicensed contracting is a misdemeanour under §7028(a).

Under the experience requirements tied to §7068, an applicant's qualifier must generally show at least four years of journey-level, foreman, supervising, or contractor experience in the trade within the prior ten years.

§7068(e) sets the default: a person qualifying on behalf of a firm may not hold any other active contractor's licence while acting as its qualifying individual, except in accordance with §7068.1. §7068.1(a) lists the three relationships that open the door — common ownership of at least 20 percent of the equity of each firm, the additional firm being a subsidiary of or a joint venture with the first, or the same majority of the partners, officers or managers — and §7068.1(b) caps the whole arrangement at three firms in any one-year period. §7083(a) is where the board comes in: the exemption to qualify multiple licences under §7068.1 is information recorded on the licence, and any change to it must be reported in writing within 90 days. So (a) is too absolute, (b) ignores both the relationship test and the cap, and (c) invents a residential condition. Violating the section is a misdemeanour under §7068.1(e), with a fine of $3,000 to $5,000.

§7029.6 requires every licensed contractor, except those named in §7029.5, to display the business name and the contractor's licence number in or on each motor vehicle used in the construction business for which a commercial vehicle registration fee has been paid — in a clearly visible location, in print of at least 72-point font or three-quarters of an inch in height and width. Two items, not three: the address in (a) is not one of them, and the officers in (b) belong on the licence record rather than on a truck. (c) keeps the type size and throws away the information, which defeats the purpose — a passer-by is meant to be able to read the number and check it against the board's record. The real trap is §7029.5, which is stricter for three classifications only: a C-36 plumbing, C-45 sign or C-57 well-drilling contractor must show the name, the permanent business address and the licence number on each side of the vehicle in letters at least one and a half inches high, and the same goes for a water-well drill rig.

CSLB enforcement ranges from least to most severe: an advisory or warning notice, then a citation with a penalty, then suspension, then revocation. An advisory notice addresses minor issues without a formal penalty or public discipline.