How to Check If Your Toronto Renovation Contractor Is Actually Licensed

• developer
• August 27, 2026
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How to Check If Your Toronto Renovation Contractor Is Actually Licensed

Most homeowners in North York ask one version of this question: “Are you licensed and insured?” The contractor says yes. Everybody moves on.

The problem is that “licensed and insured” means almost nothing on its own. There is no such thing as a provincial renovation contractor licence in Ontario. Someone can say it truthfully while holding no credentials at all.

The short answer: if a company renovates homes inside the City of Toronto, it needs a City of Toronto Building Renovator licence. You can verify it yourself in about two minutes on the City’s website, for free, without asking the contractor for anything. Then there are four more checks that take another ten minutes and cover the risks the licence doesn’t.

Here’s exactly how to do all of it.

The licence most homeowners have never heard of

Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 545 defines a building renovator as a person or business engaged in altering, repairing or renovating buildings — and it explicitly includes anyone who solicits that work, advertises it, or holds themselves out to the public as doing renovations.

Read that again. Advertising renovation services in Toronto triggers the licence requirement. A company running Facebook ads for basement finishing in North York needs this licence whether or not it has a single job on the books.

The City is clear about who it applies to: every business that provides services to repair or renovate buildings and structures, including any business that advertises renovation services.

The licence number starts with T85. It looks like T85-4304755.

There is one carve-out. The definition excludes a building contractor whose principal business is constructing new buildings — those companies fall under a different provincial regime, which we’ll get to.

What getting this licence actually requires

This is not a rubber stamp you buy online. To hold a Toronto Building Renovator licence, an applicant has to:

• Pass a written examination based largely on Part 9 of the Ontario Building Code
• Submit a Criminal Record and Judicial Matters Check
• File a health and safety declaration
• Maintain a regular place of business
• Provide corporate documents and government photo ID
• Renew annually, on the anniversary of the date the licence was first issued

The City also screens applicants. Five or more convictions under Chapter 545 or 546 in the previous three years, or unpaid by-law fines, can send an application to the Toronto Licensing Tribunal rather than through automatic approval.

The part nobody tells you: licences are endorsed for specific work

This is the detail that separates homeowners who actually understand what they’re looking at from ones who just want to see a piece of paper.

A Toronto Building Renovator licence is endorsed for particular types of work. The Municipal Code is direct about it: a licensed building renovator cannot perform work unless the licence is endorsed to show they have qualified to perform that type of work.

Pull up an actual licence certificate and you’ll see a Conditions field. It might read something like: drywall; tile setting; caulking; taping; finish flooring; all other work to be sub-contracted to licensed renovators.

That is a normal, legitimate licence. It’s how most general contracting businesses operate — they hold endorsements for the trades they self-perform and subcontract the rest to licensed renovators and certified tradespeople.

What matters is that you know which is which. So ask two questions:

1. Which trades are you endorsed for on your City licence?
2. For everything else on my project, who are you subcontracting to, and are they licensed?

A contractor who answers both clearly is running a real business. One who gets defensive about the second question is worth a second look.

Check the expiry date

Building Renovator licences expire annually, on the anniversary of the date the licence was first issued. The expiry date is printed on the certificate.

A lapsed licence is not a technicality. Under Chapter 545, failing to renew results in cancellation, and the City can require the licensee to sit the qualifying examination again.

So when someone shows you a photo of their licence, look at the date before you look at the number. A certificate from eighteen months ago proves what was true eighteen months ago. Search the lookup tool to confirm the status today.

What the licence does not prove

Be realistic about the ceiling here. The licence confirms a business is registered with the City, passed a Code exam, and has no disqualifying record. It does not measure craftsmanship, and it does not certify individual trades. Plenty of licensed renovators do mediocre work.

Think of it as the floor, not the ceiling. A contractor without it has skipped a legal requirement in the city they operate in — which tells you something about how they treat the rest of their obligations.

How to verify a Toronto contractor’s licence in two minutes

The City runs a free public Business Licence Lookup. You don’t need permission, an account, or the contractor’s cooperation.

1. Go to the City of Toronto Business Licence Lookup at secure.toronto.ca/LicenceStatus
2. Search by the company’s legal business name or by its licence number if they’ve published one
3. Check three things on the result: that the record exists, that the category is Building Renovator, and that the status is active
4. Confirm the legal name matches the name on your quote
5. Ask the contractor for a copy of the certificate itself, and read the Conditions field and the expiry date

That last step catches more problems than the others combined. A contractor operating as “Premium Home Reno” whose licence is held under a numbered corporation is fine — but the two names should connect, and the numbered company should be the one signing your contract.

If nothing comes up: ask directly for the licence number and search again. Business names get entered with abbreviations and inconsistent spacing. If they still can’t produce a number, you have your answer.

Four checks the licence doesn’t cover

The City licence handles the business. These four handle the risk.

1. WSIB clearance certificate

This is the check most homeowners skip and the one with the largest financial exposure.

If a worker is injured on your property and their employer has no active WSIB coverage, you can be treated as the principal under Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Act. That means medical costs and lost wages can land on you personally. For a serious injury, that number is not small.

A WSIB Clearance Certificate confirms the contractor’s account is in good standing. You can generate one yourself for free at wsib.ca using the contractor’s legal business name or WSIB account number. It takes about two minutes.

Some sole proprietors are legitimately exempt from mandatory coverage. If that’s the case, ask for written confirmation of their exempt status rather than accepting a shrug.

2. General liability insurance

Ask for a Certificate of Insurance, not a verbal assurance. For residential renovation work in the GTA, $2 million in commercial general liability is the practical minimum most homeowners and insurers expect.

Two things to do with that certificate: check the policy period covers your project dates, and call the broker listed on it to confirm the policy is current. Certificates are trivially easy to fake and almost never checked.

3. ESA licence for electrical work

Electrical is where the “licensed” claim gets slipperiest, because there are two separate credentials and contractors often blur them.

• The business doing electrical work must hold an ECRA/ESA licence from the Electrical Safety Authority
• The individual doing the work needs a 309A Certificate of Qualification from Skilled Trades Ontario, or be a registered apprentice under supervision

Verify the business licence on the ESA’s contractor search at esasafe.com. The record will show whether the licence is active and who the designated master electrician is.

Separately, most electrical work requires an ESA notification and inspection. If your contractor tells you a panel upgrade or new circuits don’t need one, that is either ignorance or a shortcut. Neither is acceptable, and a missing ESA certificate can hold up a home sale years later.

4. TSSA for anything involving gas

Moving a gas line for a range or relocating a furnace requires a TSSA-licensed fuels contractor and a technician holding at least a G2 certification for residential work. This comes up constantly in kitchen renovations and gets overlooked constantly.

What about HCRA and Tarion?

This trips up a lot of homeowners, so here’s the clean version.

The Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA) licenses builders and vendors of new homes under the New Home Construction Licensing Act, 2017. Tarion provides the statutory warranty that goes with them.

A renovation contractor working on an existing, previously occupied home is not required to hold an HCRA licence, and Tarion does not cover renovation work.

Where it does matter:

If your project falls into the bottom half of that table, verify the builder on the Ontario Builder Directory at hcraontario.ca/find-a-licensed-builder.

A renovation contractor who advertises “HCRA licensed” for a bathroom job is either confused or padding. It isn’t a mark against them — it just isn’t the credential that applies.

The written contract rule almost nobody mentions

Chapter 545 doesn’t stop at licensing. It also contains provisions governing building renovators and written contracts, and the Municipal Code includes a prescribed Contract Form for Building Renovators — Appendix I — with a field for the renovator’s Toronto Licence Number printed right on it.

So when a Toronto contractor says “we don’t really do contracts for a job this size,” they aren’t being relaxed. They’re brushing past a City requirement.

A proper renovation contract should set out:

• Full scope of work, room by room
• Total price, with HST shown separately
• A payment schedule tied to completed milestones, not calendar dates
• Start and substantial completion dates
• Who pulls the building permit and whether the fee is included
• Which trades are subcontracted
• Workmanship warranty terms
• How change orders get priced and approved

Chapter 545 also regulates how building renovators identify their vehicles and how they advertise. A licensed renovator is expected to be traceable in public.

Red flags worth walking away from

“We can do it cheaper for cash.” This is an offer to evade HST. It also means no written contract, no permit, and no recourse. If anything goes wrong, you have no contractor and no paperwork proving you paid anyone. It can also disqualify you from renovation rebate programs that require invoices from a registered business showing an HST number.

No HST on the invoice. A contractor doing more than $30,000 in revenue over any rolling twelve months is required to register for HST. A renovation quote with no HST line means the company is very small, unregistered, or off-book.

“You don’t need a permit for that.” Sometimes true for cosmetic work. Frequently false for anything structural, plumbing relocation, new electrical circuits, or a secondary suite. Unpermitted work can void insurance claims, trigger orders to open up finished walls, and surface as a problem during a future sale.

A deposit above roughly 10–15%. Large upfront deposits transfer your risk to the contractor’s cash flow.

Refusal to name subtrades. You are entitled to know who is doing your electrical and plumbing, and to verify their credentials.

A licence number that doesn’t check out. Search it yourself. Don’t take a screenshot as proof — and check the expiry date on any certificate you’re shown.

Vagueness about endorsement scope. If a contractor won’t tell you which trades their licence is endorsed for, or claims a Toronto licence lets them do everything, they either don’t understand their own licence or are hoping you don’t.

Your ten-minute verification checklist

Ten minutes. Compared to a five-figure renovation, it’s the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.

Frequently asked questions

Do renovation contractors need a licence in Ontario? There is no province-wide general contractor licence for renovation work in Ontario. Licensing happens at two other levels: municipalities license renovation businesses — Toronto requires a Building Renovator licence — and specific trades like electrical and gas are regulated provincially by the ESA and TSSA.

How do I check if a contractor is licensed in Toronto? Search the company’s legal business name on the City of Toronto Business Licence Lookup at secure.toronto.ca/LicenceStatus. Confirm the record exists, the category reads Building Renovator, and the status is active.

What is a T85 licence number? T85 is the prefix the City of Toronto uses for Building Renovator licences. A licensed Toronto renovation company should be able to give you its number on request, and many publish it on their website and vehicles.

Does a Toronto Building Renovator licence cover every kind of renovation work? No. Toronto licences are endorsed for specific types of work, and a licensed renovator cannot perform work their licence isn’t endorsed for. Anything outside those endorsements must be subcontracted to licensed renovators and certified trades. Ask which trades a contractor is endorsed for and who they subcontract the rest to.

How long is a Toronto Building Renovator licence valid? One year. It expires on the anniversary of the date it was first issued, and the expiry date is printed on the certificate. If a licensee fails to renew, the licence is cancelled and the City can require them to sit the qualifying exam again.

Is a City of Toronto licence the same as being insured? No. They are separate. Verify liability insurance through a Certificate of Insurance, and verify workplace coverage through a WSIB clearance certificate. A contractor can hold a valid City licence and still have lapsed insurance.

Does a renovation contractor need to be HCRA licensed? Not for renovations to an existing home. HCRA licensing applies to builders and vendors of new homes, and generally to substantial additions, laneway suites and garden suites. Tarion warranty coverage does not apply to renovation work.

Am I responsible if a worker is hurt in my home? Potentially, yes. If the contractor lacks active WSIB coverage, you can be treated as the principal under Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Act and become responsible for medical costs and lost wages. A free clearance certificate check removes that exposure.

Do I need a written contract for a renovation in Toronto? Yes. Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 545 includes written contract provisions for licensed building renovators, and the Code contains a prescribed contract form that includes the renovator’s Toronto licence number.

Where Concord Reno stands

We’re a licensed renovation company based in North York, working across Toronto and the GTA since 2023, and a back-to-back HomeStars Best of Award winner.

• City of Toronto Building Renovator Licence: T85-5506392 (Trade No. B27956), issued to Concord Reno Inc.
• Endorsed trades: drywall, taping, tile setting, caulking and finish flooring, with A. Zaki Alokozai as the qualified licence holder
• All other trades: subcontracted to licensed renovators and certified tradespeople, named for you before work starts
• General liability: [COVERAGE AMOUNT]
• WSIB: clearance certificate provided on request, before work starts
• Written contract: on every project, with scope, milestone-based payment schedule, and permit responsibility set out in writing

We’re telling you about the endorsement scope because that’s the standard this article argues for. Ask every contractor you’re considering for the same breakdown.

Verify any of it before you sign anything — with us or with anyone else.

Planning a basement, kitchen or bathroom project in North York? Book a free estimate and we’ll bring the paperwork to the first meeting.

This article is general information for Ontario homeowners, not legal advice. Licensing requirements, fees and program rules change. Confirm current requirements with the City of Toronto, WSIB, ESA, TSSA and HCRA directly before making decisions.