Florida Seawall GuideDescribe My Seawall Problem

Check a Florida seawall contractor license before you sign

Florida runs a public license search and it costs nothing to use. This page is the route to it, the procedure, and an exact account of the four things a license does not tell you.

Our position, so you can price this page correctly: This site is an independent research resource. We are not a contractor, we do not perform work, and we do not employ crews. We hold no roster, we are paid no commission or placement fee by anyone, and nothing here routes you to a company. We have nothing to gain from which answer the search returns, which is the only reason a page like this can be written straight.

Seawall work is expensive enough that the licence question is worth five minutes rather than a shrug — published Florida figures for this work disagree by roughly eightfold, and the proposals you are comparing describe a structure that is mostly underwater. The state maintains a register of contractor licences, it is open to the public, and it is free. Most owners never open it, because the marketing that surrounds this trade is designed so that they do not need to.

What follows is the register, how to search it so the result means something, and — the part that is usually left off — what a clean result still does not establish.

The register, and the department’s other routes

All four are run by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. They open on the department’s own site, not on ours, and we receive nothing if you use them.

  • DBPR Online Services — Verify a License

    The live lookup. Search by license number if you have one, or by name — the department offers first name, last name and city as name search fields.

  • How to Verify a License

    The department's own instructions for the search above, including the Customer Contact Center number, 850.487.1395, for a status the extract may not have caught up with yet.

  • Construction Industry — Public Records

    The bulk download. License records as quote/comma-delimited text, free, refreshed weekly. Useful if you want the underlying data rather than one lookup at a time.

  • Report Unlicensed Activity

    What to do if the search comes back empty and the work was already offered to you. Hotline (866) 532-1440. The department states a citation can carry a fine of up to $2,500.

Searching it so the answer is worth having

  1. 01Get the licence number and the legal entity name in writing first

    Ask for both before you search, and ask for them on the proposal rather than over the phone. A company that supplies them without friction has just made the rest of this page take two minutes.

  2. 02Search the number, then search the names separately

    The number is the fastest route to the record. The names are how you find out whether the record actually belongs to the business that quoted you, because a licence is held by a person and businesses are qualified by that person.

  3. 03Read the licence type, not just the status

    Status tells you whether the licence is live. Type tells you what it covers and, for a registration rather than a certification, where it covers. Both matter and only one of them is usually quoted at you.

  4. 04Take the result to the office that will review the permit

    A state record does not tell you whether this company can pull a permit on your street. The building department that reviews shoreline work where you live does. Those offices are listed below, and which agencies review the work at all depends on your waterway as much as your city.

What a clean licence record still does not tell you

This is the half that gets dropped, and dropping it is how a licence number ends up doing work it was never able to do.

  • A license is not a recommendation, and it is not ours to give

    Nobody vetted the holder on your behalf — not the department, and certainly not this site. A record means a license of that type and status existed on the day you looked. Nothing about workmanship is in it.

  • A license record is not proof of insurance for your job

    Insurance is a separate document with a policy number, a coverage period and a limit, and it is issued to a named insured. Ask for a certificate naming the entity on your contract, and check the dates cover the dates you will be under construction.

  • The name on the license is often not the name on the truck

    A license is held by a person who qualifies a business. Search both: the individual named in the contract, and the company name you were quoted by. If the two do not connect to each other, that gap is the thing to ask about.

  • Status is a date, not a state

    Licenses lapse, get suspended and get reinstated. Note the date you searched, and search again before you sign rather than only before you shortlist.

Who reviews shoreline work where you are

A state licence is statewide or it is not, and the office below is where that question stops being abstract. These are the permitting bodies recorded for the places this site publishes local evidence for — the same body that would review your project is the body that can confirm whether a registration covers your address.

PlaceCountyReviews shoreline work
Fort LauderdaleMiami–Fort LauderdaleBroward CountyCity of Fort Lauderdale building department, within the Broward County standard
HollywoodMiami–Fort LauderdaleBroward CountyCity of Hollywood Building Division, via its published Seawall Submittal Checklist
Pompano BeachMiami–Fort LauderdaleBroward CountyCity of Pompano Beach, under Code § 151.05
Miami BeachMiami–Fort LauderdaleMiami-Dade CountyCity of Miami Beach, under its Seawall Ordinance as updated July 23, 2025
Cape CoralFort Myers–Cape CoralLee CountyCity of Cape Coral Public Works and Development Services, under the City Engineering Design Standards
Fort Myers BeachFort Myers–Cape CoralLee CountyTown of Fort Myers Beach and Lee County, with state and federal review by scope
Madeira BeachTampa BayPinellas CountyCity of Madeira Beach and Pinellas County, with state and federal review by scope
Treasure IslandTampa BayPinellas CountyCity of Treasure Island and Pinellas County, with state and federal review by scope

Somewhere else on the Florida coast? The register above is statewide; only this table is limited to the places where we found enough sourced local evidence to publish. See what we have by area.

The evidence behind this page

OFFICIAL ROUTELIC-01

Florida runs a free public licence search. Anyone can look up a contractor licence themselves, without paying and without going through an intermediary.

  • The Department of Business and Professional Regulation publishes a licence verification service on its own portal, searchable by licence number or by name — first name, last name or city.
  • The department also publishes licence records for free download as quote/comma-delimited text files, and states the data is refreshed weekly.
  • The department gives 850.487.1395 as the Customer Contact Center number for up-to-the-minute verification, on the basis that the downloadable extract lags the live record.

Read carefully: Established from the department's own indexed pages rather than read directly — see the retrieval note above. And the important limit is what a record means, not how it was found: a licence record establishes that a licence of a stated type and status exists on a stated date. It is not a statement that the holder is insured, available, solvent, competent for your particular wall, or endorsed by anyone. Status changes, so the date you checked is part of the answer.

Source
GENERAL RANGELIC-02

Seawall and bulkhead work sits inside a marine contracting scope defined in Florida's construction contracting statute.

  • Independent sources that prepare and process these licence applications consistently describe a marine specialty contractor scope covering construction, repair, alteration, extension and excavation for seawalls, bulkheads, piers, docks and other marine structures.
  • The same sources describe narrower marine categories alongside it, including marine seawall work and marine bulkhead work.
  • The section those sources cite for the definitions is s. 489.105, Florida Statutes, in Chapter 489 Part I (Construction Contracting).

Read carefully: Reported consistently, but the statute text itself was not opened in this build, so this is not published as VERIFIED. Read s. 489.105, Florida Statutes, before relying on the scope wording. The practical point survives the caveat: seawall work is a licensed activity in Florida, so there is a record to look for.

Source
  • Consensus across independent licensing and exam-preparation sources — Reported scope of the Florida marine contracting licence categories
GENERAL RANGELIC-03

A certified licence and a registered licence are not the same thing, and the difference is geographic.

  • Secondary sources describing Chapter 489 state that a certified contractor holds a certificate of competency issued by the department and may contract anywhere in the state without separately meeting a local jurisdiction's competency requirement.
  • The same sources state that a registered contractor registered with the department on the basis of a local competency card, and may contract only in the jurisdiction that registration covers.
  • On a licence record this appears as the licence type. It is not a separate field labelled with a service area.

Read carefully: Not read against statute text in this build. If the record you find is a registration rather than a certification, the question is which jurisdiction it covers and whether that includes your property — and the body to ask is the building department that reviews shoreline work where you are, not the contractor.

Source
  • Consensus across independent legal and licensing sources — Reported distinction between certified and registered contractors under Chapter 489
OFFICIAL ROUTELIC-04

The department runs a route for reporting suspected unlicensed activity, and states a penalty for it.

  • The department publishes an Unlicensed Activity Hotline, (866) 532-1440, alongside online and postal reporting routes.
  • The department states a citation may be issued for engaging in, offering to, or advertising unlicensed activity, carrying a fine of up to $2,500.
  • The department states a tipster may remain anonymous, and warns that under Florida law an email address is itself a public record.

Read carefully: Established from the department's own indexed pages rather than read directly — see the retrieval note above. This route exists for suspected unlicensed work. It is not a dispute service, it will not finish a job, and it will not return a payment.

Source

Questions we can answer from sources

Does a seawall contractor in Florida need a license?
Seawall work is a licensed activity. Independent licensing and exam-preparation sources consistently describe a marine specialty contractor scope that names seawalls and bulkheads directly, and cite s. 489.105, Florida Statutes, for the definitions. We could not open the statute text from the build that wrote this page, so we publish that scope as reported rather than as read — but the consequence does not depend on the wording. There is a state register, it is free, and you can search it yourself before you sign anything.
What is the difference between a certified and a registered contractor?
It is geographic. Secondary sources describing Chapter 489 state that a certified contractor holds a certificate of competency from the department and may contract anywhere in the state, while a registered contractor registered on the basis of a local competency card and may contract only in the jurisdiction that registration covers. If the record you find is a registration, the question is whether the jurisdiction it covers includes your property — and the building department that reviews shoreline work where you are is the body that can answer it.
The search returned nothing for the company that quoted me. What does that mean?
It can mean the license is held under an individual's name rather than the trading name, that you have a spelling variant, or that there is no license. Search the individual named on the contract before concluding anything. If the work was offered to you and no license exists, the department publishes a route for reporting that, with a hotline number, and states that a tipster may remain anonymous.
Do you check licenses for people, or hold a list of approved companies?
No, and that is deliberate. We hold no roster, we take no commission, we accept no placement fee and we send no one to anybody. That is why this page hands you the state's own search rather than a shortlist: a list we curated would be worth exactly as much as our incentive not to curate it badly, and the register does not have that problem.

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