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Last checked: 2026-08-25
The Department of Buildings publishes a licence and registration lookup that anyone can use. You do not need an account and you do not have to log in. The whole thing takes about a minute, which is a minute well spent before someone opens your panel.
Go to the DOB NOW public portal and choose the Licensee search. You can search by licence number, last name, or business name, and partial words work, so an approximate business name is usually enough to find the record.
If the person is licensed with the department, you get their name, their business information, and their insurance information.
The older Buildings Information System search still runs alongside it and covers the same skilled trades. Either will do.
The search is much easier with a licence number than without one, and asking for it is normal. Any licensed electrician will have it to hand, and it should appear on their paperwork.
Then check that the number belongs to the name and business you were given. A number that comes back attached to a different company is worth a conversation before anything else happens.
The name and the business. These should match the person quoting you. New York City requires the registered firm name to contain Electric or Electrical, so a business name containing neither word deserves a question.
The insurance. The department requires general liability, workers' compensation and disability cover from every electrician business, and the portal shows insurance information. If someone is going to be working in your house, current cover is not a detail.
Here is the part almost nobody tells homeowners, and it is the reason this site does not print a licence status next to any firm.
The city's licensee data carries a status field, and it lags. It is entirely possible for a firm that is trading normally, filing permits, and covered by current insurance to show a status that reads as though it has lapsed. Renewals, insurance updates and database records do not all move at the same speed.
So a status string is one input, not a verdict. Treat "shows as expired" as a question to ask rather than an answer you have found. Reading it as proof of a problem is unfair to electricians who have done nothing wrong, and it is exactly the mistake the raw data invites.
What tells you more is recency of activity. An electrician filing permits in the last few months is demonstrably working, whatever a status column says.
The stronger check is not about the licence at all. It is whether the job gets filed.
Almost all electrical work in New York City requires a permit, and only a licensed master electrician can pull one. That means the filing is itself proof of a live licence, because the city will not issue a permit to someone who does not hold one.
Ask who is pulling the permit and ask to see the job number once it is filed. An electrician who files the work is licensed, by definition. One who talks you out of a permit has told you something more useful than any database field.
The lookup confirms that someone holds a licence and carries insurance. It tells you nothing about whether they are any good or whether they turn up when they said they would.
It also does not mean an electrician without a Master licence is unlicensed or doing anything wrong. Most people doing electrical work in the city are legitimately working under someone else's licence. The licensee is the person who is accountable for the filing, not necessarily the person holding the screwdriver.
For the rest, the ordinary questions still apply. A written scope, a clear statement of who is filing, and a price you understood before work started.
Ask for the licence number. Search it in the DOB portal. Confirm the name and business match the person quoting you, and that the insurance is current.
Then ask who is pulling the permit. The database tells you someone held a licence. A filed permit tells you they are using it.
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