Trade guide, national
Flooring contractors in the United States
This site publishes 57,471 flooring contractor records across all fifty states and the District of Columbia, or 1.72 per 10,000 residents. 1 of them publishes a business-level licence source for flooring that a listing can be matched against.
This page is the one place on this site that explains what flooring work involves, what its credentials are and where to check one. The counts for a particular metro area are on that metro’s own page, and what a licence class means in a particular state is on that state’s page.
The national facts
- Flooring contractor records
- 57,471Foursquare Open Source Places, release August 11, 2026
- Per 10,000 residents
- 1.72 per 10,000Population 334,914,895, Census Bureau Vintage 2023 population estimates, as of July 1, 2023
- States publishing a licence source for this trade
- 1 of 51State license files, as of September 2, 2026California.
- Licensed share where a source exists
- 7.9%State license files, as of September 2, 2026Counted only inside the states that publish a source, and never across a state line. It measures how often a published listing and a published licence could be matched to each other, which is not the same question as whether a business holds one.
- Active licences with no public listing
- 5,423State license files, as of September 2, 2026Active licences covering this trade with no matching record in open place data, summed over the states that publish a source. This is the home-based tail.
- Most records per resident
- New Hampshire, 2.59 per 10,000Population 1,402,054, Census Bureau Vintage 2023 population estimates, as of July 1, 2023The fewest is Nebraska, at 0.44 per 10,000. Both ends describe where businesses are recorded, not where work is done.
- Employment and pay for this trade
- Not published for this tradeBLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 OEWS, published May 15, 2026No single BLS occupation maps to this trade cleanly enough to print, so no employment or wage figure is shown rather than one built from an occupation that means something else.
- Independent, franchise, corporate
- 54,836 independent, 2,037 franchise brand, 287 corporate owned, 311 awaiting chain reviewFoursquare Open Source Places, release August 11, 2026
What each row counts, and the universe it counts it in, is set out on the methodology page.
What is particular about flooring work
Flooring failures are almost always subfloor failures, the composite wood in the product is governed by a federal emissions standard, and the tile already on the floor of an older house is its own question.
Moisture in the slab or the subfloor decides the outcome
Most flooring that fails did not fail as flooring. Wood cups, laminate swells at the joints, vinyl plank telegraphs the boards underneath and adhesive releases, and behind nearly all of it is moisture arriving from below or a subfloor that is not flat within the manufacturer's tolerance.
That is why an installer who tests is worth more than one who schedules faster. On concrete, relative humidity probes set into the slab are the accepted method; on wood, a moisture meter reading on both the subfloor and the material after it has acclimatised in the room is the equivalent. Manufacturers state the limits, and a warranty claim is normally decided on whether the test was done and recorded.
Acclimatisation is not a delay the installer invented. Material delivered from a cold van into a heated house changes dimension for days.
Formaldehyde limits on composite wood
Engineered wood flooring, laminate and the plywood or particleboard underneath them are composite wood products, and the formaldehyde they may emit is capped by a federal standard under Title VI of the Toxic Substances Control Act, which the EPA administers and which aligns with the earlier Californian limits. Compliant product carries a label naming the standard.
The label is worth reading on imported and unbranded material, and it is a fair thing to ask a supplier for. This is a product question rather than an installer question, but the installer is the person who chooses the underlayment.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, formaldehyde emission standards for composite wood products
Old resilient tile and the adhesive under it
Nine-inch and twelve-inch resilient floor tile and the black cutback adhesive under it, common in houses and schools built before the early nineteen-eighties, can contain asbestos. Intact and covered, it is generally not a hazard; the risk comes from sanding, grinding, dry-scraping or breaking it up, which is exactly what a floor removal does.
The usual answers are to test before disturbing it, to install over it where the build height allows, or to have it removed by someone working under the applicable rules. An installer who proposes to grind it off without a word about what it is has answered the wrong question.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asbestos in the home
Flooring is licensed in fewer states than the mechanical trades
Several states license flooring as its own contracting classification and many do not, so the licensed share on a flooring hub is published for fewer states than on an electrical or plumbing hub. Where it is shown as not published, that is a fact about the state's licence file rather than about any business in the list below.
Every rule stated above links the public page that states it: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, formaldehyde emission standards for composite wood products; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asbestos in the home.
Flooring state by state
Each state page carries its own licence classes, its number formats and what its rules do to this trade in particular. The record counts below are that state’s whole flooring universe, the same figure its own page prints.
| State | Records | Per 10,000 | Licensed share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 554 | 1.08 | Not published |
| Alaska | 158 | 2.15 | Not published |
| Arizona | 1,387 | 1.87 | Not published |
| Arkansas | 391 | 1.27 | Not published |
| California | 7,626 | 1.96 | 7.9% |
| Colorado | 1,322 | 2.25 | Not published |
| Connecticut | 802 | 2.22 | Not published |
| Delaware | 175 | 1.70 | Not published |
| District of Columbia | 56 | 0.82 | Not published |
| Florida | 4,307 | 1.90 | Not published |
| Georgia | 2,352 | 2.13 | Not published |
| Hawaii | 210 | 1.46 | Not published |
| Idaho | 392 | 2.00 | Not published |
| Illinois | 2,388 | 1.90 | Not published |
| Indiana | 1,094 | 1.59 | Not published |
| Iowa | 455 | 1.42 | Not published |
| Kansas | 479 | 1.63 | Not published |
| Kentucky | 692 | 1.53 | Not published |
| Louisiana | 532 | 1.16 | Not published |
| Maine | 252 | 1.81 | Not published |
| Maryland | 1,029 | 1.66 | Not published |
| Massachusetts | 1,412 | 2.02 | Not published |
| Michigan | 1,960 | 1.95 | Not published |
| Minnesota | 1,293 | 2.25 | Not published |
| Mississippi | 380 | 1.29 | Not published |
| Missouri | 1,010 | 1.63 | Not published |
| Montana | 260 | 2.30 | Not published |
| Nebraska | 88 | 0.44 | Not published |
| Nevada | 459 | 1.44 | Not published |
| New Hampshire | 363 | 2.59 | Not published |
| New Jersey | 1,323 | 1.42 | Not published |
| New Mexico | 340 | 1.61 | Not published |
| New York | 2,197 | 1.12 | Not published |
| North Carolina | 2,133 | 1.97 | Not published |
| North Dakota | 172 | 2.19 | Not published |
| Ohio | 2,194 | 1.86 | Not published |
| Oklahoma | 523 | 1.29 | Not published |
| Oregon | 944 | 2.23 | Not published |
| Pennsylvania | 2,220 | 1.71 | Not published |
| Rhode Island | 189 | 1.72 | Not published |
| South Carolina | 862 | 1.60 | Not published |
| South Dakota | 137 | 1.49 | Not published |
| Tennessee | 1,226 | 1.72 | Not published |
| Texas | 3,788 | 1.24 | Not published |
| Utah | 468 | 1.37 | Not published |
| Vermont | 142 | 2.19 | Not published |
| Virginia | 1,407 | 1.61 | Not published |
| Washington | 1,672 | 2.14 | Not published |
| West Virginia | 198 | 1.12 | Not published |
| Wisconsin | 1,332 | 2.25 | Not published |
| Wyoming | 126 | 2.16 | Not published |
Nothing on this page is a rating, an endorsement, or a recommendation, and no figure here describes any individual business. Ordering never depends on payment, claim status, license status, or any commercial relationship, on this page or any other.