Plumbing Contractors in California: market size and renewals
The CSLB register lists 18,173 plumbing contractors in California. The densest county is Los Angeles County with 4,815 of them, 26% of the state total. 1,487 come up for renewal within 90 days.
Where the competition is
Licence counts by county, densest first. Use it to see how contested a patch already is before you spend money marketing into it, or to find the countys where the register is thin.
| County | On record | Valid today | Not valid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles County | 4,815 | 4,604 | 211 |
| San Diego County | 1,699 | 1,623 | 76 |
| Orange County | 1,530 | 1,461 | 69 |
| Riverside County | 1,214 | 1,163 | 51 |
| San Bernardino County | 790 | 743 | 47 |
| Santa Clara County | 660 | 631 | 29 |
| Sacramento County | 593 | 569 | 24 |
| Alameda County | 535 | 508 | 27 |
| Ventura County | 519 | 497 | 22 |
| Contra Costa County | 514 | 499 | 15 |
| San Mateo County | 455 | 440 | 15 |
| San Francisco County | 450 | 431 | 19 |
| Sonoma County | 356 | 341 | 15 |
| Santa Barbara County | 283 | 278 | 5 |
| Placer County | 277 | 263 | 14 |
| Kern County | 261 | 250 | 11 |
| San Joaquin County | 237 | 226 | 11 |
| San Luis Obispo County | 225 | 216 | 9 |
| Fresno County | 217 | 210 | 7 |
| Monterey County | 200 | 194 | 6 |
| Stanislaus County | 199 | 187 | 12 |
| Marin County | 163 | 156 | 7 |
| Solano County | 156 | 151 | 5 |
| El Dorado County | 144 | 136 | 8 |
| Santa Cruz County | 140 | 134 | 6 |
Renewal pipeline
Licences with an expiry date inside each window, counted from the board file. A licence that has already lapsed or been suspended is excluded, so these are people who currently hold a valid licence and have a renewal coming.
New plumbing contractors per year
How many plumbing contractors currently on the register were first issued in each year. Older years thin out as licences lapse and drop off the file, so read this as the surviving cohort, not as the number issued at the time.
| Year | Plumbing Contractors issued | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 454 | |
| 2021 | 748 | |
| 2022 | 797 | |
| 2023 | 814 | |
| 2024 | 1,020 | |
| 2025 | 1,139 | |
| 2026 | 776 |
Counted from the California Contractors State License Board public licence file, reloaded August 18, 2026. Figures describe licences on record, not businesses: one company can hold several. Confirm anything that matters at CSLB.