Nevada Contractor License Classifications: A, B, AB and C
Nevada licenses contractors by branch, and two of the three branches are mutually exclusive. General engineering is classification A, general building is B, an applicant qualified in both may hold AB, and specialty work is licensed in the C series. Pick a classification below to read the statute’s own definition of it.
Classification and monetary limit: what each one covers
Two independent axes decide a Nevada license: the classification, which is the kind of work the license covers, and the monetary limit, which is the largest contract the license permits on a single construction site or subdivision site for a single client.
Enable JavaScript to read the rule text for a chosen classification.
The three branches
NRS 624.215(1) divides the contracting business into general engineering contracting, general building contracting and specialty contracting, and states that the first two “are mutually exclusive branches”. That single clause is why AB exists as a separate classification rather than as a pair of licenses.
General engineering is defined by the works it concerns — NRS 624.215(2) lists irrigation, drainage, water supply, water power, flood control, harbors, railroads, highways, tunnels, airports and airways, sewers and sewage disposal, bridges, inland waterways, pipelines, refineries, chemical and industrial plants “requiring a specialized engineering knowledge and skill”, power plants, piers and foundations.
General building turns on a test that is misread more often than any other part of the scheme. NRS 624.215(3) describes a contractor whose principal business is the construction or remodeling of “buildings or structures for the support, shelter and enclosure of persons, animals, chattels or movable property of any kind, requiring in their construction the use of more than two unrelated building trades or crafts, upon which he or she is a prime contractor and where the construction or remodeling of a building is the primary purpose.” More than two unrelated trades, and prime-contractor status, are both part of the definition.
Specialty is the residual branch: NRS 624.215(4) describes work “requiring special skill” whose principal business “involves the use of specialized building trades or crafts”. The Board issues these in the C series, and NAC 624.570 provides a C-40 unclassified license for “specialties which are not authorized by a license of any other classification or subclassification”.
AB — the classification that spans both branches
AB is not a fourth branch. It is the classification the Board grants to an applicant who qualifies in the two branches the statute calls mutually exclusive, and NAC 624.180 states both the grant and the condition on it:
The Board will grant a “classification AB” license in the branches of general building and general engineering to persons who are qualified to act as both general building (classification B) and general engineering (classification A) contractors. This classification is limited to those applicants or licensees who can show a sufficient degree of experience and financial responsibility to support an unlimited license in both the A and B classifications.
The second sentence is the part that decides who actually holds one: the experience and the financial responsibility have to support an unlimited license in each branch, not a limited one in either.
The exclusion that limits a general building license
Holding B does not let a contractor self-perform everything on their own project. NRS 624.215(3):
Except as otherwise provided in subsection 4 of NRS 624.220, a general building contractor shall not perform specialty contracting in plumbing, electrical, refrigeration and air-conditioning or fire protection without a license for the specialty.
Four named specialties, and the prohibition on self-performing them is not absolute — the subsection opens by pointing at an exception in NRS 624.220(4), so read that provision alongside this one rather than treating the four as a flat bar. The same subsection also restricts a general building contractor to performing specialty contracting only where they are the prime contractor, unless they hold the appropriate specialty license.
The monetary limit applies whichever you hold
The classification says what you may build. It says nothing about how large a single contract may be — that is the monetary limit, which the Board sets separately under NRS 624.220(2) and which caps the maximum contract on a single construction site or subdivision site for a single client. Readers regularly assume the classification carries a project ceiling. It does not.
Note also that a separate application is required for each classification, and the application fee is charged per application — the fee for each classification works that through.
The subclassifications, and what these lists do not tell you
A license is issued in a classification, and each of the three branches is divided again. These are the Board’s own labels, not definitions of what a licensee may build — the Board’s page gives a name per code and points at the regulation for the substance, so treat a name as a pointer to NAC 624 and not as a scope of work.
Classification A — General Engineering (A-1 to A-25)
| Code | What the Board calls it |
|---|---|
| A-1 | Airports |
| A-2 | Highways |
| A-3 | Dams and reservoirs |
| A-4 | Bridges |
| A-5 | Diamond and core drilling |
| A-6 | Drilling of oil, gas and exploratory wells |
| A-7 | Excavating and grading |
| A-8 | Sealing and striping of impermeable paving surfaces |
| A-9 | Piers and foundations |
| A-10 | Commercial and residential pools |
| A-11 | Recycling asphalt |
| A-12 | Excavating, grading, trenching and surfacing |
| A-13 | Wrecking buildings |
| A-14 | Steel erection and industrial machinery |
| A-15 | Sewers, drains and pipes |
| A-16 | Paving of streets, driveways and parking lots |
| A-17 | Lines to transmit electricity |
| A-18 | Farm irrigation |
| A-19 | Pipeline and conduits |
| A-20 | Industrial piping |
| A-21 | Fencing and guardrails |
| A-22 | Unclassified |
| A-23 | Removal of asbestos |
| A-24 | Fountains and other water features |
| A-25 | Telecommunication towers |
A-10 and A-19 are divided further still. The Board’s page marks both as carrying sub-subclassifications and does not list them, so neither is reproduced here.
Classification B — General Building (B-1 to B-7)
| Code | What the Board calls it |
|---|---|
| B-1 | Premanufactured housing |
| B-2 | Residential and small commercial |
| B-3 | Speculative building |
| B-4 | Service stations |
| B-5 | Prefabricated steel structures |
| B-6 | Commercial remodeling |
| B-7 | Residential remodeling |
The Board’s License Classifications page is the source for the A and B lists above. The C list below comes from the regulation instead, and the difference matters — see the count.
Classification C — Specialty contracting
Each C classification has its own section of NAC 624, from NAC 624.190 to NAC 624.574. These are the section headings, which are the regulation’s own names for the codes:
| Code | NAC section heading |
|---|---|
| C-1 | Plumbing and heating contracting |
| C-2 | Electrical contracting |
| C-3 | Carpentry, maintenance and minor repairs |
| C-4 | Painting and decorating |
| C-5 | Concrete contracting |
| C-6 | Erecting signs |
| C-7 | Elevation and conveyance |
| C-8 | Glass and glazing contracting |
| C-9 | Movement of buildings |
| C-10 | Landscape contracting |
| C-11 | Spraying mixtures containing cement |
| C-13 | Using sheet metal |
| C-14 | Steel reinforcing and erection |
| C-15 | Roofing and siding |
| C-16 | Finishing floors |
| C-17 | Lathing and plastering |
| C-18 | Masonry |
| C-19 | Installing terrazzo and marble |
| C-20 | Tiling |
| C-21 | Refrigeration and air-conditioning |
| C-23 | Drilling wells and installing pumps, pressure tanks and storage tanks |
| C-24 | Erecting scaffolds and bleachers |
| C-25 | Fencing and equipping playgrounds |
| C-26 | Institutional contracting |
| C-27 | Individual sewerage |
| C-28 | Fabricating tanks |
| C-30 | Installing equipment to treat water |
| C-33 | Installing industrial machinery |
| C-36 | Installing and applying polyurethane or other similar products and coatings |
| C-37 | Solar contracting |
| C-38 | Installing equipment used with liquefied petroleum and natural gas |
| C-39 | Installing heaters |
| C-40 | Specialties not authorized by other classifications |
| C-41 | Fire protection contracting |
| C-42 | Constructing, altering or improving video service networks |
The numbers run to C-42, but there are 35 of them. Seven numbers — C-12, C-22, C-29, C-31, C-32, C-34 and C-35 — have no section in the administrative code as it currently reads. The Board’s own page says there are “42 subcategories”, and that figure is the Board’s; counting the sections in NAC 624 gives 35. Both are stated here because they are what the two sources say, and this site does not reconcile them by guessing which is out of date.
Eighteen of these carry subclassifications of their own — the regulation’s headings say so for C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-6, C-7, C-14, C-15, C-16, C-17, C-19, C-20, C-21, C-26, C-28, C-37, C-38 and C-41. Those finer codes are not reproduced here.
What two of these codes actually cover
A code’s name tells you roughly what it is about. It does not tell you whether the work you have in mind falls inside it — that is settled by the section, in the regulation’s own words. Two are reproduced here in full.
C-2, electrical contracting (NAC 624.200). The section grants the license and then says what the holder may do:
A person who has a license designated classification C-2 may: (a) Install any electrical wires, fixtures, appliances, apparatuses, raceways and conduits; (b) Install, modify and maintain systems that convert wind energy into electricity if such work is for residential and commercial installations and not scaled or intended solely for the commercial production and sale of electricity; and (c) Perform any other work authorized for the subclassifications of a license designated classification C-2.
Seven subclassifications sit under it, each with its own authorized work — C-2a electrical wiring, C-2b integrated ceilings, C-2c fire detection, C-2d low voltage systems, C-2e lines to transmit electricity, C-2f residential wiring, and C-2g photovoltaics. Two carry limits worth reading before assuming a job is covered: low voltage is defined as fiber optics or “do not exceed 91 volts”, and residential wiring is capped at current that “does not exceed 600 volts on new or existing structures which do not exceed more than three stories above the ground”.
C-10, landscape contracting (NAC 624.280). This one has no subclassifications, and the whole authorization is two subsections:
A person who holds a classification C-10 license may grade and prepare plots of land for architectural horticulture, decoratively treat, arrange, plant and maintain gardens, lawns, shrubs, vines, bushes, trees and other vegetation, construct systems of drainage and landscape irrigation, install rocks, sand, gravel and other landscape materials that use xeriscape principles, hydroseed by spraying mulch, seeds and nutrients under pressure, control soil erosion and install nonengineered decorative landscape ponds or nonengineered prefabricated trellises and arbors.
In conjunction with the work specified in subsection 2, a person who holds a classification C-10 license may install nonload-bearing walkways using brick or stone not exceeding 200 square feet in area, patio areas using brick or stone not exceeding 400 square feet in area, landscape retaining walls to a height not exceeding 3 feet and landscape lighting not exceeding 24 volts.
Those numbers in the second subsection are the part to notice. A C-10 licensee may build a patio or a retaining wall, but only up to a stated size and height, and only in conjunction with the landscaping work in the subsection before it. Past 400 square feet of patio, or three feet of wall, the work is no longer inside the classification.
The other 33 scopes are not reproduced here, and the reason is arithmetic. The C scope bodies run to about 12,600 words — roughly six times the length of this entire page — so publishing them all would bury it. Cutting each to its opening authorization does not help either: for 18 of the 35 codes that clause says only that the holder may do the work authorized for its subclassifications, which tells a reader nothing without the sub-list underneath it. These two were chosen because both can be quoted completely — a scope quoted in part is worse than a pointer to it — and because they are the two the search results actually ask about. For any other code, read its own section of NAC 624.
Next
What an applicant has to satisfy covers experience, financial responsibility, the qualifying party, the bond and the insurance proof. Applying in a classification sets out the sequence. For the overview, see how Nevada licensing fits together.
This page is not legal advice: what the rules say, not what to do about your own license, bid or dispute — ask someone qualified for that. This site is not affiliated with the Nevada State Contractors Board. Rules and fees move; last checked 2026-09-14.