Quebec Contractor License Requirements: the RBQ Licence Explained

Short answer: In Quebec there is no dollar threshold for contractors. The Régie du bâtiment du Québec licenses anyone who carries out construction work for someone else, from the first dollar. The $20,000 figure people quote belongs to owner-builders working on their own property, not to contractors. And electrical and plumbing licenses are not issued by the RBQ at all — they come from the CMEQ and the CMMTQ.

What catches newcomers about Quebec is not its strictness but its shape: the license attaches to the work itself, not to taking a deposit. The authority is the Régie du bâtiment du Québec, acting under the Building Act (Loi sur le bâtiment), and it is blunt: anyone who carries out construction work, or has construction work done, must be licensed by the RBQ unless the law exempts them. Tax is a separate track — the Canada Revenue Agency federally, Revenu Québec provincially, covered in Quebec sales tax for contractors — and coverage sits in Quebec contractor insurance requirements. This page is only about the license.

Who needs an RBQ license in Quebec?

The Building Act catches three roles, and most people know only the first:

• Contractor — in the RBQ’s own words, you are “carrying out work or having work done for a third party, or who submits bids, seeks out clients or places advertisements”. Read that last clause twice: advertising or bidding for work you are not licensed for is itself the regulated act.
• Building promoter — you enter into a contract to sell a building or a road that you built or had built.
• Owner-builder — you own a building or installation subject to the Building Act and carry out construction work on it yourself, on your own account. An owner-builder license is mandatory too, subject to the exemption below.

If you work for paying clients, you are in the first category and no reading gets you out.

Is there a dollar threshold in Quebec?

Not for contractors. This is the most misquoted rule in Quebec construction, so it is worth stating twice: the $20,000 figure is an owner-builder exemption, not a contractor exemption.

Here is what the RBQ’s own owner-builder exemption page says:

The rule	The detail
Who it covers	Owner-builders working on their own property — not contractors working for clients
The threshold	Work estimated at less than $20,000
What kind of work	Renovation, repair, or maintenance only
What is excluded	Modification work — moving a wall, for example — is not covered
How the $20,000 is measured	It applies to each separate construction or building belonging to the owner-builder
Where it does not apply at all	Work on an electrical installation, an installation intended to distribute gas, or a petroleum equipment installation

Read the second-to-last row again. The threshold is per building, not per owner and not per year — an owner-builder with two structures gets the exemption on each. And read the last row before quoting the exemption to anyone: it drops out entirely for electrical, gas distribution, and petroleum equipment work, whatever the job is worth. None of that helps a contractor. If a client pays you $6,000 to renovate their kitchen, you need a license. If they pay you $600, you need a license.

Alberta contractor license requirements, by contrast, turn on whether you take money before the work is done and where the contract was signed — the same $6,000 kitchen may need no provincial license at all. Quebec does not work that way, and assuming it does is how out-of-province contractors get fined.

Which work does not require an RBQ license?

There is a defined list, and it is narrower than it sounds. The RBQ’s work not requiring a license covers activities adjacent to construction rather than construction itself: concrete pumping, delivery of construction materials, consultation by a professional, inspections of all types, de-icing and snow removal on roofs, bridges, roadways and sidewalks, felling of trees, mowing of grass, garbage removal along public roadways, quarry rock excavation and quarry management, installation of self-adhesive film, testing to measure air flow, lighting, combustion or pressure, temporary water supply, and work carried out at a mobile plant such as asphalt or concrete production.

One entry carries its own trap. Street cleaning is on the list — except when the cleaning is preliminary to construction work, in which case it is not. Notice, too, what is absent: anything a renovation contractor actually does. The RBQ also warns that falling outside the licensing requirement does not put you outside Quebec’s construction labour rules.

Which trades are not licensed by the RBQ at all?

Missing this one is expensive. For two trades you do not apply to the RBQ at all. Two professional corporations act as the RBQ’s mandataries: they assess professional qualifications, decide the application, and issue the license themselves. The RBQ’s own steps for obtaining a license send you to them directly:

Trade	License subclass	Who you apply to
Electrical contractor	Subclass 16	Corporation des maîtres électriciens du Québec (CMEQ)
Plumbing, heating, oil burners, natural gas burners	Subclasses 15.1 to 15.5, with 15.5 being plumbing	Corporation des maîtres mécaniciens en tuyauterie du Québec (CMMTQ)

The license is still an RBQ license under the Building Act — the corporation is the door you walk through, not a parallel regime. But the practical consequence is the same either way: a general contractor who holds an RBQ license and then wires a basement has not made a paperwork error, they are unlicensed for that work through a body they never applied to. Start with the RBQ’s plumbing licensing page if that is your trade.

What does the RBQ require before it issues the license?

The full application process has more moving parts than a typical North American contractor registration. Three deserve budgeting for in advance.

Getting qualified. You first choose the subclasses matching the work you intend to do. Someone in the business then has to demonstrate competency across the RBQ’s four fields of qualification: administration, construction site safety management, project and site management, and the carrying out of construction work. The RBQ offers more than one route to prove it — sitting its examinations is the common one, but not the only one. More subclasses means more to demonstrate.

License security. Quebec requires a cautionnement de licence, a surety posted with the RBQ before your file moves forward. It is not liability insurance, and the two are routinely confused. It covers client deposits, work you failed to complete, and defects appearing after the job. The amount is tiered, and which tier you land in depends on the schedule your subclasses fall under: general contractors, whose subclasses sit in Schedule I, post a materially higher security than specialized contractors in Schedules II and III. The RBQ has also consulted on raising the security and lengthening the period it covers defects. Because that change was still moving through as of 2026, this page does not print a figure: take the current amount from the RBQ fee and security pages on the day you apply, not from a forum post and not from an article.

Whatever the number turns out to be, do not confuse it with the $20,000 above. One is a security you post in order to hold a license; the other is a ceiling under which an owner-builder does not need one. If someone quotes you a figure in Quebec contracting, ask which of the two they mean.

Fees, then fees again. There is an initial license fee and a separate annual maintenance fee to keep the license alive, indexed each January 1. Budget for the recurring cost, not just the entry cost. Mandatory continuing education is attached to your subclasses too, and the training must be recognized by the RBQ, the CMEQ, or the CMMTQ.

Two further bodies sit alongside the RBQ and do not substitute for it. Workers on sites covered by Quebec’s construction labour regime — the Act respecting labour relations, vocational training and workforce management in the construction industry, which the RBQ flags as applying even to work outside its own licensing requirement — need a competency certificate from the Commission de la construction du Québec. That regime also governs when a licensed contractor may engage a one-person self-employed subcontractor, and the rules there are not intuitive. Put the question to the CCQ before you build a crew that way. Health, safety, and workers’ compensation run through the CNESST; Quebec has no provincial workers’ compensation board of the kind the other provinces use.

What happens if you work without an RBQ license?

Working without a license is an offence under the Building Act. The RBQ says an unlicensed contractor is at continuous risk of a fine; amounts vary with the offence and are published on the RBQ fines page. Municipalities feed work declarations to the RBQ specifically to catch unlicensed work, so enforcement is not theoretical.

The commercial consequence is arguably worse. The RBQ tells consumers that hiring a licensed contractor gives them a financial guarantee if the job goes wrong — so an unlicensed quote reads, to an informed Quebec homeowner, as a quote with no recourse attached.

How does a client check your RBQ license?

Through the Registre des détenteurs de licence, the Licence Holders’ Registry. The RBQ’s check a contractor’s licence tool lets anyone confirm a license number, and the RBQ campaigns publicly to get homeowners to use it before signing.

One detail the RBQ stresses is easy to fall foul of honestly: the name on the contract must match the name of the business holding the license. If you trade under a different name, a client checking the registry will not find you — which looks identical to being unlicensed. Put the license number and the exact registered name on every estimate and invoice; what to include on an invoice covers the rest of the fields.

What do you have to keep once the license is in your name?

The license is the entry ticket; the ongoing burden is documentary. You have to show what each job was contracted for, what you charged, GST and QST handled separately, and which subclass the work fell under. When a security claim, an RBQ inspection, or a Revenu Québec review lands two years later, that record is your whole position.

That is a record-keeping problem, not a licensing one. Keel is an iOS app that keeps those records entirely on the device — no account, no bank connection, no cloud sync, and an App Store privacy label that reads Data Not Collected. It produces invoice PDFs with your own numbering, your logo, and a payment-link QR code; captures receipts read on-device with Apple Intelligence; logs mileage; and writes everything into an append-only, hash-chained ledger you can export as one file per year or as an Accountant Pack. The free tier is $0 with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage; Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase.

Keel does not apply for your RBQ license, file your QST, or post your security. It keeps the paper trail those things depend on.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a $20,000 threshold for contractors in Quebec?

No, and this is the most common mistake made about Quebec licensing. The $20,000 figure is an exemption for owner-builders working on their own property, covering renovation, repair, or maintenance only. Contractors working for paying clients need an RBQ license regardless of the contract value. A $600 job and a $60,000 job carry the same requirement.

Does the $20,000 owner-builder exemption apply per year or per building?

Per building. The RBQ states that the $20,000 applies to each separate construction or building belonging to the owner-builder. It also covers only renovation, repair, and maintenance — modification work such as moving a wall falls outside it. And it does not apply at all to work on an electrical installation, an installation intended to distribute gas, or a petroleum equipment installation, whatever the value.

Who issues electrical and plumbing contractor licenses in Quebec?

Not the RBQ directly. Electrical contractors apply to the Corporation des maîtres électriciens du Québec (CMEQ) for a license containing subclass 16. Plumbing, heating and burner contractors apply to the Corporation des maîtres mécaniciens en tuyauterie du Québec (CMMTQ), covering subclasses 15.1 to 15.5, where 15.5 is plumbing. Both act as mandataries of the RBQ, and a general RBQ license authorizes neither trade.

Is the RBQ license the only credential I need in Quebec?

No. The RBQ license authorizes the business. Workers on sites covered by Quebec’s construction labour regime also need a competency certificate from the Commission de la construction du Québec, and health, safety, and workers’ compensation run through the CNESST. Trade-specific licensing may come from the CMEQ or CMMTQ instead of the RBQ.

How does a Quebec homeowner verify my license?

Through the Licence Holders’ Registry on the RBQ website, using your license number. The RBQ actively encourages consumers to check before signing. Make sure the business name on your contract matches the registered name exactly — if it does not, the client’s search returns nothing, which reads the same as having no license.

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This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change — confirm with the authority named above.