Licenses and permits in Massachusetts

Forming the company is not permission to do the work. Massachusetts does not issue one statewide license for every business. It does require a credential when the work is regulated, and the city or town may require its own permit.

What’s different in Massachusetts

• The business certificate is a name filing, not a license. It lives at the city or town clerk. Register your business has what the statute says about the clerk’s fee.
• Home-improvement registration and a construction supervisor license are different cards. Ordinary repairs can be the registration alone. A deck or an addition needs the supervisor license.
• Home food is a permit, not a sales-cap exemption. Retail goes to the local board of health. Wholesale goes to the Department of Public Health. The questions page does not print a dollar limit or a permit fee.
• Alcohol is forbidden unless chapter 138 authorizes the sale. The section that says so does not print a fee.
• A licensed trade answers to its own board. The sole-proprietor page sends a trade to its state regulating board.

Do this

1. Start with the work, not with a general license. A licensed trade checks with its state regulating board. Many boards are listed with the Division of Occupational Licensure, and healthcare boards are reached through the Department of Public Health². Start with the Division of Occupational Licensure. This guide does not list each board’s fee.* Use the board for the work you do. The Secretary of the Commonwealth filing is not that board’s license.
2. Ask the city or town what else the location needs. A business certificate is a name record, not a license. Zoning, a health permit, and a sign permit are separate. The statewide certificate page does not print those local fees.* Ask the clerk and the departments that permit the address.
3. If the work is on an existing owner-occupied home, read the home-improvement rules before you bid. Registration is required of contractors and subcontractors who solicit, bid, or do work on an existing owner-occupied home of one to four units⁴. You can register as an individual, a proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation. The registration fee is $150, plus a separate Guaranty Fund payment based on how many people you employ: 100 dollars for zero to three employees, 200 dollars for four to ten, 300 dollars for eleven to thirty, and 500 dollars for more than thirty. A registration that expires has to be filed again, with the 150 dollar fee and the fund payment. Renewal is every two years with a $100 renewal fee³. File online in the MA Contractor Hub. Paper applications are sent back. A trade name needs a copy of the business certificate.
4. A construction supervisor license is not the same card. An HIC registration alone covers ordinary repairs. A larger project, such as a deck or an addition, needs a construction supervisor license. Some jobs, such as a kitchen renovation, may need both, and not necessarily held by the same person. The contractor who signed with the homeowner still needs the home-improvement registration. The contractor and homeowner need a written contract, for work estimated at 1,000 dollars or more⁴.
5. Selling food from a home kitchen? Read the residential kitchen questions before you treat it as permission you already have. Direct sales, including a farmers market, a fair, or a sale by internet or mail, need a retail residential-kitchen permit from the local board of health, for cottage foods sold directly to the consumer. The permit covers foods that can be safely held at room temperature, such as baked goods, jams, and jellies, and not foods that need hot or cold holding for safety. Wholesale needs a Department of Public Health license if the food will be resold by a store or restaurant⁵. The questions page does not print a permit fee or a sales cap.* Use the fee the board or the Department of Public Health prints on the application. A bake sale for a charity has a separate, narrower exception on that page. A business outside the cottage-food list is not in the permit described here.
6. Selling alcohol? No one may sell alcoholic beverages except as chapter 138 authorizes⁶. The Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission and the city or town are where that authorization is issued. The section does not print a fee, and this guide does not list one for each license class.* Use the fee for the license you are applying for. A local license can sit on top of the state authorization. Ask the city or town.
7. Keep each expiration on its own line. A home-improvement registration renews every two years with a $100 renewal fee³. A business certificate lasts four years, and then it is renewed every four years⁷. Neither one shares a date with the Secretary of the Commonwealth annual report. That report is on Stay compliant.

What you get back

A business certificate only if the name requires one, a home-improvement registration if the work is on an existing owner-occupied home, a residential-kitchen permit if you sell those foods, and an alcohol authorization if you sell alcohol. Each one stands on its own. None of them is the LLC filing.