Every Louisiana contractor license, whether commercial, residential, home improvement or mold remediation, needs a qualifying party who has completed the Business and Law requirement. Unlike the trade exams, it is not given at PSI: the qualifying party takes a short online course in the LSLBC Contractor Portal and then a 50-question exam in the same portal. This guide explains who takes it, how it runs and what the material is, using the Board's own pages and the blue book it publishes: the Contractors Licensing Law and the Board's rules.
The Board's FAQ calls the online Business and Law course “required for all license applicants”, and the Contractors Licensing Law makes the applicant designate a qualifying party for the Louisiana business and law requirement as well as for each classification (La. R.S. 37:2156.1(D)). That includes applicants who need no trade exam at all, such as a labor-only subcontractor, and applicants whose trade exam is credited through reciprocity. The requirement attaches to the person: the Board sends no new approval notice to a qualifier who has already completed Louisiana Business and Law and met the testing requirements. When a company adds a qualifying party, its form says Business and Law is not required of the new person if the license already has an active qualifying party for it, although a qualifier who wants to hold it for the company still pays the course fee.
After the application is processed and the qualifying party completes the online verification, the Board emails an Examination Approval Notice. The qualifying party then logs into the LSLBC Contractor Portal and completes the Business and Law course, which the Board's form describes as an online one-hour course with an exam on its contents at the end, taken on the qualifier's home or office computer. The Board's “What happens after I apply” page gives the numbers: 50 questions, about 30 to 45 minutes to complete, and a score of 70 or above to pass. Trade exams are a separate track that moved to PSI on August 5, 2025; Business and Law stayed in the Board's portal.
Some things the Board does not publish: whether the Business and Law exam may be taken with notes or the course material open, and a separate retake rule for it. The Board's general rule says a candidate who fails an examination waits 30 days before retaking (LAC 46:XXIX §111); ask the Board how it applies to the online exam before you plan around it. On the fee, the Board's current form for adding a classification lists $150 for Business and Law.
The Board publishes the law and its rules together in one PDF, the “blue book”; the current edition is dated August 1, 2025. It prints the Contractors Licensing Law (La. R.S. 37:2150 through 37:2165) and the Board's rules in LAC 46:XXIX. Read it in this order.
Section 37:2150.1 carries most of the numbers: project value includes labor, materials, rentals and all direct and indirect costs; commercial work and new residential structures need a license at $50,000 or more; home improvement and mold remediation at $7,500 or more; electrical, mechanical and plumbing work at $10,000 or more; hazardous materials at one dollar. A home improvement contractor works on projects from $7,500 up to less than $50,000 and may not do structural work such as footings, foundations, load-bearing walls or roofing systems. The residential contractor definition covers structures not more than three floors in height.
Sections 37:2156 and 37:2156.1 set the process: the financial statement current within twelve months, net worth of $50,000 for commercial and residential licenses and $25,000 for home improvement, mold remediation and labor-only, the background investigation, and the qualifying party. They also cover the license term (one, two or three years, expiring on the anniversary of issue), the 15-day grace period after expiration, and the rule that a license not renewed within a year cannot be renewed. Licenses are not transferable.
Section 37:2159 lists what every contract for licensed work must contain: the complete agreement, the contractor's name, address and license number, a description of the work, the total price (or an estimate under cost-plus or time-and-materials), everyone's signature and, where insurance is required, current insurance certificates. Every party gets a signed copy, and no work begins before everyone signs. A contractor who needed a license and did not have one cannot file a claim or lien for the money. Under section 37:2160 a local building department may not issue a permit to anyone without an active license in the right classification. Section 37:2156.2 requires records to be kept for five years and produced within five business days of a Board request, and changes to be reported within thirty days.
Section 37:2158 lists the grounds for discipline, among them working without the proper license or classification, contracting with an unlicensed contractor, letting someone else use your license, working without a required permit or inspection, not having a written contract signed and dated by all parties, and not working in the name on the license. A revoked licensee or qualifying party waits three years to apply again. Contracting without a license is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 per day of violation, three months in prison, or both; if an unlicensed person causes harm over $300, the range becomes $500 to $5,000 and six months to five years (section 37:2163). Separately, the Board can fine up to ten percent of the total contract or the value of the work (section 37:2164).
Most questions on a law exam turn on a definition or a number, so build your own list as you read: every dollar threshold, every deadline in days, every net-worth figure, every penalty range. Read the definitions section twice; then read the discipline list in section 37:2158 and ask, for each item, what a contractor would have to do to break it. Because the exam gives you about 30 to 45 minutes for 50 questions, recognition matters more than recall: you want to have seen each rule phrased as a question before test day. LICENA's Louisiana Business and Law bank follows the blue book block by block, with a written explanation on every answer.
Practice Louisiana Business and Law LICENA's Louisiana Business and Law bank is written from the Board's blue book, with a written explanation on every answer in English, Spanish and Russian. The sample is free, no sign-up.
Try the free practice test → How to get a Louisiana contractor license