Lee County Contractor License: The County Stopped Issuing Them

Lee County has no construction licensing board. It repealed the ordinance that created one on 2 May 2023 and replaced it with a scheme that issues nothing new: some local license categories stopped requiring a license at all, the rest were grandfathered to whoever already held one, and those renew annually until they lapse.

The ordinance that ended it

Ordinance No. 23-09 states its own effect in its title:

“AN ORDINANCE OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF LEE COUNTY, FLORIDA REPEALING LEE COUNTY ORDINANCE 00-26 THE LEE COUNTY CONSTRUCTION LICENSING BOARD ORDINANCE; ESTABLISHING THE LEE COUNTY CONSTRUCTION LICENSE ORDINANCE; PROVIDING FOR LOCAL LICENSE CATEGORIES NO LONGER REQUIRING A LICENSE; PROVIDING FOR GRANDFATHERED LOCAL LICENSES”

Section One is one sentence:

“Lee County Ordinance 00-26 is hereby repealed and is of no further force and effect.”

The short title is the Lee County Construction License Ordinance, and Section Three sets its reach:

“This Ordinance applies to contractors performing work or contracting to perform work within unincorporated Lee County. The provisions of this Ordinance constitute a supplement to the state regulations regarding the construction industry.”

Unincorporated Lee County. Municipalities inside the county are not covered by it.

Why 2023, and not 2025

The ordinance’s recitals name the statute that prompted it:

“House Bill 735 preempted occupational licensing to the state and provided a sunset date for existing local government licensing of occupations of July 1, 2023”

That matters because other Florida counties acted later, on different bills and different dates. Lee moved on the 2023 sunset and has not amended the ordinance since. No Lee County document refers to the 2025 preemption round that reshaped licensing elsewhere in the state.

Two lists, and they do different things

Section Five — categories that no longer require a license at all:

“As of the effective date of this Ordinance, a license is no longer required to perform the scope of work under the following Lee County local license categories. These local licenses will not be grandfathered or renewed as these licenses are no longer required to perform that job scope.”

Among them: awning, fence erection, masonry, paving and sealing, plastering and stucco, tile and marble. These did not move to the state; the work simply needs no local license.

Section Six — categories grandfathered to existing holders:

“As of the effective date of this Ordinance, any individual holding a Lee County local license for the following local license categories is vested with respect to the scope of work allowed under the license category. The scopes of work are defined in Lee County Administrative Code AC-12-6. However, in order to maintain the grandfathered license, the contractor must annually renew the license”

This list includes tiers the state does not issue at all — Journeymen Electrician and Journeymen Mechanical among them — which is why a lapse here cannot be repaired by applying to the state instead.

A license is vested in the person, not the business. The same section records that a grandfathered license is not transferable.

The renewal window, and the date that ends it

“Grandfathered local licenses are valid for a period of one year running from July 1 through June 30.”

And the deadline is hard, with one narrow discretion:

“The deadline to renew a grandfathered local license is June 30 of each year. The Director or designee may approve a late renewal submitted no later than 30 days past the deadline for good cause shown.”

Thirty days, for good cause, at the Director’s discretion. Because the county issues nothing new, a grandfathered license that lapses is not reapplied for — the category is closed.

What this means in practice

A contractor who does not already hold a Lee County license cannot obtain one. Work requiring state licensure needs a state credential, and Section Three says so directly: where the Florida Building Code governs a scope of work and state law requires a license for it, a state construction license is required.

The state credential is the one that still opens — the certified and registered distinction sets out the two forms it takes, and what a certificate of competency is covers the instrument itself.

Where to go next: how local licensing works in Florida covers the county layer generally, and the Florida general contractor license guide covers the state framework Lee now defers to.