The short version
Registering a company is the easy part. To sell garage door installation in Florida you need the Garage Door Installation Specialty Contractor license, which means passing the Trade Knowledge exam and the separate Business and Finance exam, plus meeting experience, financial, insurance, and background requirements.
Two different things called a license
This trips up almost everyone starting out.
- A business license or local business tax receipt registers your company to operate. It says nothing about what work you are qualified to sell.
- A contractor license — here, the Garage Door Installation Specialty Contractor license — is what permits you to perform and contract for the work.
Having the first without the second is the single most common way new operators end up doing unlicensed contracting without intending to. A registered company doing spring replacements is still doing licensed work without a license.
The sequence that works
- Get your field experience in order. The state sets an experience requirement for the category, and it is worth knowing exactly what counts before you plan around it — note that certification is not the same as a license.
- Pass the Trade Knowledge exam. 55 scored questions, 2.5 hours, 70% to pass, open book, at a Pearson VUE center. This is the trade half.
- Pass the Business and Finance exam. A one-time exam every Florida contractor takes, covering the running-a-business half.
- Clear the financial, insurance, and background requirements and apply to the DBPR.
- Then build the business around it — entity, insurance, vehicles, supplier accounts, and the local registrations wherever you intend to pull permits.
People routinely do step 5 first because it feels like progress. It is not wrong, but it is not the constraint. The exams are the constraint.
What you can sell before you are licensed
Light, like-for-like service that does not touch the structure, the anchoring, or the counterbalance: lubrication, adjustment, remotes and sensors. That is a legitimate way to build a customer base and learn the trade while you prepare.
What you cannot sell: springs, cables and drums, re-anchoring, section replacement on rated doors, and door installation — which is most of the money. See what a repair-only business may legally do.
Plan for this deliberately rather than discovering it mid-job. A service-only phase is a reasonable start; an unlicensed phase where you take spring calls anyway is how businesses collect citations before they have collected customers.
The operator boundary
One scope rule to build into your quoting from day one: the 120-volt circuit feeding a powered operator must be subcontracted to a licensed electrical contractor. The specialty license covers the door and the operator itself, not the branch circuit. Find your electrician before you need one on a Friday afternoon.
What actually makes the money
Worth knowing before you plan the business:
- Door replacement is the highest-ticket routine job, and it is permitted work.
- Spring replacement is the highest-volume emergency call, and it is licensed work.
- Storm work concentrates both, and unlicensed penalties escalate after a declared state of emergency.
- Rated-door work in windborne-debris regions carries a documentation burden that filters out casual competitors — which is exactly why it pays.
Read that list again and notice that every profitable line on it sits on the licensed side.
Pulling your own permits
Being able to pull permits in your own name is the practical difference between running a company and subcontracting under someone else's license. It also means you control the schedule, since you are not waiting on another licensee to pull paperwork for your job. See when a garage door job needs a permit.
Licensing, registration, and permitting requirements vary by city and county, are set by the board, and change over time. Verify current requirements with the DBPR and your local building department before applying or beginning work.
The exam is the constraint — start there
FLGaragePrep preps the Trade Knowledge exam: 136 practice questions across all 7 official DBPR content areas, every answer explained, with a timed 55-question simulation that matches the real format. First questions free.