After the license: the part nobody teaches
Passing the exam gets you a license number. Getting paid, staying out of trouble with the CSLB and keeping that number is a second education, and most new contractors get it the expensive way. We put it inside the course, at no extra cost, so you get it the cheap way.
Every lesson below is written from the statute or the code section, cites the .gov source, and shows the month it was last checked. You can read the summary of any lesson free. The full method, the worked cases and the templates are inside Lifetime Access.
Phase 0
From Pass Letter to License Number
7 lessons
- LessonThe pass letter is not a license: the issuance checklistPassing both exams earns you a letter, not a license number. CSLB will not issue the number until the initial license fee, the $25,000 contractor's bond, the qualifier bond if you owe one, and a workers' compensation certificate or exemption are all on file, and you have 90 days from the notice before the whole application goes void. This lesson is the checklist, in the order that avoids a second trip.Current as of September 2026
- LessonThe $25,000 contractor's bond, and the second bond most qualifiers do not know they oweEvery California contractor files a $25,000 contractor's bond. A qualifier who is not the sole owner or a general partner also files a second $25,000 bond of qualifying individual, unless they own 10% or more and certify it. The bond is not insurance for you: it pays homeowners, defrauded customers and unpaid employees, and then the surety collects from you. Here is what each bond does, who it protects, what it costs in practice, and the one word you may never put in an ad.Current as of September 2026
- LessonWorkers' compensation: the rule as it actually reads today, and the date it changesMost advice online says every California contractor needed workers' compensation by January 1, 2026, employees or not. The statute on the books today says something different: a C-10 with no employees may still file the exemption, and the exemption disappears for everyone on January 1, 2028 (SB 216 as amended by SB 1455). What is already true today is harsher than most people think: hire one person after filing an exemption and the license is suspended by operation of law, with a minimum $10,000 civil penalty for a sole owner and $20,000 for an entity.Current as of September 2026
- LessonSole owner, RMO, RME, partner: which qualifier you are, and what you just signed up forThe person who passed the exam is the license's qualifier, and the law gives that person a job: supervision and control of the company's construction operations. A sole owner qualifies for themselves. A corporation or LLC qualifies through a responsible managing officer or a responsible managing employee, and an RME must be a real, permanent employee working at least 32 hours a week or 80% of the hours the business runs. Here is what each path requires, how a qualifier can serve more than one company legally, and the 90-day clock that starts the day a qualifier leaves.Current as of September 2026
- Lesson"Just put your number on it": why renting your license is a crime, and how the offer arrivesWithin a year of getting your number, someone will offer you money to be the RMO of a company you do not run, or ask you to pull a permit on a job you have never seen. The law calls the qualifier's duty supervision and control, and skipping it is a misdemeanor for you, discipline for the license, and a personal liability for every job done under your number. This lesson shows how the offer is worded, what the statutes actually say, and how to say no without burning the relationship.Current as of September 2026
- LessonOne name, everywhere: the business name, the DBA and the CSLB recordYour business has exactly one legal name for contracting purposes: the one on the CSLB record. The bond, the workers' compensation certificate, the contracts, the permits, the truck and the ads all carry that name, spelled that way. A DBA is allowed only if CSLB has it on file, it fits your entity type and classification, and the county has the fictitious business name statement. Changing the name later is a 90-day reportable event, and a change that creates a new entity means a new license number.Current as of September 2026
- CaseCase: three applicants, three delaysThree people pass the C-10 exams in the same week. One is a sole owner with a business name CSLB will not accept. One is the RMO of a corporation who did not know about the second bond. One files a workers' compensation exemption on a Friday and puts a helper on a job the next Monday. Each of them costs themselves weeks or worse, and each delay traces back to one rule from this phase. The names and details are illustrative; the rules are real.Current as of September 2026
Phase 1
Setting Up the Business
9 lessons
- LessonThe entity is a one-way door: the license belongs to it, not to youCSLB does not license you. It licenses a business entity, and the number is not transferable to any other person or entity under any circumstances. Incorporate later and the corporation applies for its own license; take on a partner and the partnership license is canceled when that partner leaves. This lesson lays out what each entity costs at CSLB before you ever get to taxes, so you choose once.Current as of September 2026
- LessonSole proprietor, LLC or S corporation: the tax side, with California's numbersA sole proprietor pays income tax plus 15.3% self-employment tax on the profit and has no state entity fees. A California LLC pays an $800 annual tax from its first year plus a fee that starts at $900 once California income passes $250,000, and at CSLB it carries a $100,000 bond and a $1,000,000 policy. An S corporation pays California 1.5% of net income with an $800 minimum, waived in the first year, and lets you split pay between salary and distributions. Here is how the three compare for a one-to-three-person electrical contractor, with the state's own numbers.Current as of September 2026
- LessonEIN, bank account, books: the plumbing under the businessBefore the first invoice: a free EIN from the IRS in minutes (never pay a website for one), a business bank account in the exact CSLB name, a card that touches nothing personal, and a bookkeeping habit that tracks every dollar to a job. The books are what turn an estimate into a price you can trust, what the CDTFA and FTB will ask for, and what makes the quarterly estimate a number instead of a guess.Current as of September 2026
- LessonThe city wants its own license: business tax certificates, and how Los Angeles taxes contractorsYour CSLB license lets you contract anywhere in California. It does not excuse you from the business license or business tax of the city you are based in, and often of the cities you work in. Los Angeles is the clearest example: a Business Tax Registration Certificate is mandatory, contractors pay $153 on the first $60,000 of gross receipts plus $1.01 per $1,000 above that, and a small business under $100,000 owes nothing only if it files the renewal on time. Here is how the city layer works and how to keep it from becoming a back-tax bill.Current as of September 2026
- LessonThe insurance stack: what the law requires, what the customer requires, and what actually protects youCalifornia requires two things of a sole-owner or corporate C-10: the $25,000 bond and workers' compensation (or a valid exemption). It requires general liability only of LLCs. Everything else, general liability, commercial auto above the state minimum, tools and equipment, umbrella, is demanded by the people who hire you, and by the arithmetic of one bad day. This lesson sets out each layer, who asks for it, and how to read the certificate a general contractor will demand before you set foot on the job.Current as of September 2026
- LessonSales tax for an electrical contractor: you are the consumer of wire and the retailer of light fixturesCalifornia treats you two ways at once. For wire, conduit, boxes and devices that disappear into the building you are the consumer: you pay sales tax to the supply house on your cost and charge the customer nothing labeled tax. For light fixtures, alarm fixtures, standby generators and switchgear that keep their identity, you are the retailer: you owe tax on the selling price and need a seller's permit. Getting this wrong in either direction is an audit finding; getting it right is a bookkeeping habit.Current as of September 2026
- LessonQuarterly estimates, self-employment tax, deductions and the mileage logNobody withholds tax from a contractor's checks, so the tax arrives four times a year and the government charges a penalty if you are late even when you end up owing nothing extra. A sole proprietor owes 15.3% self-employment tax on top of income tax, federal estimates are due in four equal installments, and California's are front-loaded 30/40/0/30. The 2026 business mileage rate is 72.5 cents per mile, but only with a log. Here is the set-aside percentage, the calendar, and the deductions an electrician actually has.Current as of September 2026
- TemplateTemplate: business setup checklist, from pass letter to first invoiceOne page, in the order the dependencies run: entity, name, CSLB issuance package, tax registrations, bank and books, insurance, city, first-job readiness. Each line carries the deadline that governs it and the lesson that explains it. Print it, tape it above the desk, and cross off in ink. The worked example beside it is a sole owner in Los Angeles going from pass letter to first invoice in five weeks.Current as of September 2026
- TemplateTemplate: insurance requirements matrix, one row per customer typeA single grid that answers the broker's first question and the general contractor's first demand: for each kind of customer you plan to serve, what coverage do they require, at what limits, with which endorsements, and what does the law require regardless. Fill the blank grid once, hand it to the broker, and price the whole stack in one quote. The worked example is a sole owner serving homeowners, two property managers and one general contractor.Current as of September 2026
Phase 2
Getting Work
10 lessons
- LessonWhere the first ten jobs come from, and what each channel needs from youThe first ten jobs do not come from a website. They come from six channels that already exist around a working electrician: the general contractors and property managers who know your work, the supply-house counter, home-warranty and solar companies that need a licensed sub in your area, realtors with inspection reports, and the neighbors of the first job. Each channel asks for a different thing before it will hand you work. Here is what each one wants, in the order you should knock.Current as of September 2026
- LessonThe supply house: pricing tiers, a trade account, and the preliminary notice your supplier will send your customerThe supply house is a bank, a sales office and a school. A trade account with net terms floats the materials on every job until the customer pays; the counter knows which general contractors are short an electrician; and the outside sales rep prices your big jobs. The part nobody explains: when you buy on credit for a job, your supplier may serve a preliminary notice on your customer, and the homeowner reads that a lien may be placed on their home even though they paid you. Set expectations before the letter lands.Current as of September 2026
- LessonAdvertising law: the license number on every ad, every contract and the side of the van, and the review habit that actually brings workCalifornia treats your advertising as part of the license record. The license number goes on every contract, bid and ad, and on the van in type at least three-quarters of an inch high. You may only advertise work in classifications you hold, so 'electrical and solar' is a misdemeanor for a C-10 alone. And the word 'bonded' is a ground for suspension. Get those four rules onto the van, the estimate and the Google Business Profile once, then spend the marketing energy where it pays: a review request at the end of every job.Current as of September 2026
- LessonPricing models: hourly, flat-rate price book, the service fee, and good / better / bestHow you price is a business model, not a habit. Hourly is honest and unprofitable on small jobs. A flat-rate price book gives the customer a number before you start, pays you for speed instead of punishing it, and produces the 'agreed contract amount in dollars and cents' that a home improvement contract must state. A service fee gets you paid for the diagnosis. Good / better / best lets the customer choose the level instead of arguing the price. Here is each model, its arithmetic, and where California's contract rules push you.Current as of September 2026
- LessonEstimating as a method: takeoff, labor units, materials, overhead recovery, markup versus margin, contingencyAn estimate is not a guess with a margin on top. It is six steps in a fixed order: take off the quantities, apply labor units to get hours, price the materials with tax and waste, recover overhead per billable hour, add profit as a margin on the selling price (not a markup on cost), and add a contingency sized to what you cannot see. Skip the overhead step and the job looks profitable until the truck payment. Confuse markup with margin and a 20% target quietly becomes 16.7%. Here is the method, with the arithmetic.Current as of September 2026
- LessonEstimate, quote or bid: what each word commits you to, and how the paper becomes a contractAn estimate is an approximation, a quote is a firm price for a defined scope for a stated time, and a bid is an offer that becomes a contract when accepted. Customers use the words interchangeably; the law does not. Under B&P 7151.2 a home improvement contract can be oral or spread across several documents, so the estimate you texted may already be part of the deal. Write every piece of paper as if it will be read in a dispute, because it will.Current as of September 2026
- LessonPublic works: DIR registration before you bid, prevailing wage over $1,000, and certified payroll every weekA school lighting retrofit, a city hall panel, an EV charger in a public parking lot: if public money pays for any part of it, it is public work. You cannot bid on it or perform it unless you are registered with the Department of Industrial Relations ($400 a year), you must pay the state prevailing wage on any project over $1,000, and you must keep certified payroll records under penalty of perjury. The small-project exception ($25,000 for construction, $15,000 for maintenance) lifts the registration requirement, not the prevailing wage. Here is the whole frame before you price your first public job at private rates.Current as of September 2026
- TemplateTemplate: estimate worksheet, six steps to a contract amountThe estimating method on one page: takeoff, labor units, materials with tax and waste, overhead per billable hour, margin by division, and a stated contingency, ending in the dollars-and-cents contract amount a home improvement contract requires and the maximum lawful down payment. The worked example prices a 200-amp like-for-like panel change in an occupied stucco home.Current as of September 2026
- TemplateTemplate: price-book starter, twenty tasks with the formula built inA price book is the estimating method pre-computed for the jobs you do every week: for each task, the labor unit, the material cost, the overhead and margin already applied, and the resulting flat price the customer hears before you start. The blank starter has the twenty most common C-10 residential tasks and the formula columns; the worked example fills in the numbers for a solo contractor and flags which lines are fixtures for the sales-tax line.Current as of September 2026
- TemplateTemplate: first-90-days marketing plan, names not categoriesNinety days, six channels, one page. The plan is a list of real names with a date beside each, a compliance row that gets the license number onto everything before the first message goes out, and a weekly scorecard that measures conversations and jobs, not clicks. The worked example is a solo contractor's actual first quarter: fourteen jobs from four channels, zero from ads.Current as of September 2026
Does this teach me how to run the business, or just pass the exam?
Both. The exam-prep modules get you the license. The After the License track covers what happens next, in phases, and every phase listed on this page is live now: what CSLB needs before the number issues, the two bonds, the workers compensation rule as the statute actually reads today, what the qualifier is legally responsible for, why renting a license is a crime, the entity decision and its California tax numbers, the EIN and the books, city business tax, the insurance stack a general contractor will demand, sales tax on materials versus fixtures, quarterly estimates, where the first ten jobs come from, the license number on every ad and the van, a flat-rate price book, estimating as a six-step method, and public works with DIR registration and prevailing wage, plus printable templates for the setup checklist, insurance matrix, estimate worksheet, price book and 90-day marketing plan. New phases are added to Lifetime Access as they are finished, at no extra charge. Every lesson cites its .gov source and shows the month it was last checked.
This is included, not an upsell.
Lifetime Access already covers both exams and every lesson in this track, with future updates included. One payment.