The rules where you work $17
A first 30 days checklist, everyday forms, licenses, workers’ comp and taxes for Oregon, with a yearly calendar. Instant PDF download.
Buy the packet: $17Digital product, all sales final. Informational only, not legal, financial, tax or business advice.
What Oregon expects from a new trade business
Oregon runs one of the tightest contractor systems in the country, and it reaches almost every paying job. You need a Construction Contractors Board license nearly any time you take money for work, and without it you can't lien or sue. In exchange, there's no sales tax to deal with.
Almost every job needs a CCB license
You need a license and the right endorsement from the Construction Contractors Board to do, offer or bid work as a contractor. It's $400 for two years, with 16 hours of pre-license training and an exam, then 8 hours of continuing education each term for residential licensees. The handyman exemption is tiny: all your contracts on a structure have to total under $1,000 and the work has to be casual or minor. Advertising yourself as a contractor kills the exemption, even a card or a sign.
Each license has a bond and liability insurance behind it. Residential general: $25,000 bond and $500,000 insurance. Residential specialty: $20,000 bond and $300,000. A residential limited license caps you at $5,000 a contract and $40,000 a year, with a $15,000 bond.
Without a valid, properly endorsed license at bid and throughout the job, you generally can't file a lien or sue for your money. On pre-1978 homes, you can't bid or do renovation without the CCB's lead-based paint renovation license. Electrical and plumbing contractors have their own license laws.
Home jobs over $2,000 need a written contract, with your license number, and the CCB's consumer notices. A homeowner can cancel an initial contract until midnight of the next business day, unless you've substantially begun. If you solicit the sale and it's signed away from your main place of business, it's a home solicitation sale with a 3-business-day cancel right and required notice. A construction attorney can help you pick the endorsement and set up the contract.
Source: ORS Chapter 701 (701.010, 701.021, 701.038, 701.081, 701.122, 701.131) · ORS Chapter 479 (electrical) · ORS Chapter 693 (plumbing) · Oregon CCB, How to get a license · Oregon CCB, Contractor tools and forms · Oregon CCB, Specialty licenses and lead · ORS Chapter 83 (home solicitation sales)
Who to call: an attorney near you
Your license class is tied to comp
Oregon ties comp to the license. When you apply to the CCB, you pick a class. Exempt means no employees. Nonexempt means one or more employees or leased workers. If you're licensed exempt and hire even one person, you face penalties for improper licensing.
Owners: a sole proprietor with a CCB license is conclusively presumed an independent contractor, so you aren't covered unless you apply to an insurer to cover yourself. Here's the trap: members of an LLC with more than one member are subject workers while doing construction work, so the two of you may need coverage. Partners and corporate officers have their own limits based on family ties and headcount.
If you award work that's a normal part of your trade, you're responsible for coverage of those workers unless the person you hired provides it before labor starts. For the penalty for going without coverage, ask the Workers' Compensation Division. An insurance agent who writes contractors can help you match class and policy.
Source: ORS 701.035 · ORS Chapter 656 (656.027, 656.029, 656.052, 656.128)
Who to call: an insurance agent near you
Getting paid: 75 days to file, 120 to sue
Oregon's lien calendar is short:
- Notice of right to a lien: if the owner didn't hire you and it's a home the owner lives in, four units or fewer, give it to the owner. It only protects work back 8 days before delivery or mailing, weekends and holidays not counted. So send it right away. Everything else counts as a commercial improvement, where labor, labor and material, and equipment rental need no notice. Material alone isn't on that list, so ask before you skip it.
- File the claim of lien with the county recording officer within 75 days after you stop work or 75 days after completion, whichever comes first. Architects, engineers, surveyors and similar claimants get 75 days after completion only.
- Completion means substantially complete, a posted and recorded completion notice, or abandonment on the 75th day after work stops.
- Mail notice of filing to the owner and mortgagee within 20 days of filing.
- Notice of intent to foreclose: at least 10 days before suit.
- Sue within 120 days after filing, or the lien stops binding the property.
Homes have more steps. On residential contracts over $2,000 you need a written contract and must give the owner the Information Notice to Owner at signing. Skip either and you can't claim a lien on that job. On an owner-occupied remodel or repair, a sub or supplier generally can't lien if the contractor who hired them was unlicensed. A construction attorney can set up the forms once.
Source: ORS Chapter 87 (87.021, 87.035, 87.036, 87.037, 87.039, 87.045, 87.055, 87.057, 87.093) · ORS 701.131, 701.305
Who to call: an attorney near you
No sales tax. Watch the activity tax instead
Oregon doesn't have a general sales or use tax. You don't collect it on jobs and you don't pay it on materials bought here. Buying in another state is a separate matter. That state's tax can apply, and Oregon won't reduce your Oregon taxes because you paid it.
What Oregon has instead is the Corporate Activity Tax, on commercial activity. Despite the name it's about business activity, not just corporations:
- $750,000 or less of Oregon activity: outside all CAT requirements.
- Over $750,000: you have to register.
- Over $1 million: you file and pay $250 plus 0.57% of the excess, with a 35% subtraction for certain business expenses.
Part-timers won't be near it at first. A CPA who works with contractors can tell you when it's getting close.
Source: Oregon DOR, Sales Tax in Oregon · Oregon DOR, Corporate Activity Tax
Who to call: a CPA or tax pro near you
Forming an LLC, and how the state taxes the income
Forming an LLC with the Secretary of State costs $100 and online filing is immediate. The annual report is another $100 on your anniversary date. There's no flat late fee, but the state can dissolve the LLC 45 days after you miss it. And remember: a multi-member LLC doing construction has that comp wrinkle.
Oregon's personal income tax is one of the steeper ones, and pass-through profit lands on your return. Brackets start at 4.75% and climb from there. S-corp timing is a numbers question for a CPA who works with contractors. Bring what your business clears after your floor rate.
Source: ORS 316.037 (rates) · Oregon Secretary of State, Business
Who to call: a CPA or tax pro near you
Education, not legal or tax advice. Rules change. Confirm anything here with a licensed pro in Oregon before you rely on it. Last updated November 2026.