How to Check That a Delaware Plumber Is Actually Licensed

The short answer

Delaware licenses plumbers through the Division of Professional Regulation’s Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners. You can check any license for free in DELPROS, the state’s online license lookup, by name or license number. A current master plumber license shows the state has examined that person and that they may legally provide plumbing services here.

The check takes about two minutes and works the same on a stranger from a search result as it does on us. If you live in one of the towns Spangler serves, run it on Spangler too. Below is what to type, what the result tells you, and what it leaves out.

What a Delaware plumbing license actually covers

Plumbing licensing is set by Title 24, Chapter 18 of the Delaware Code and administered by the Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners (Division of Professional Regulation). Under that chapter, a person may not provide plumbing services in Delaware, or hold themselves out as a licensed master plumber, without a license (24 Del. C. § 1807).

Master plumber, journeyperson, and apprentice in Delaware

The board issues three categories of license: master plumber, master HVACR, and master restricted HVACR, with restricted licenses limited to a specialty such as air conditioning (Division of Professional Regulation). There is no separate state license for a journeyperson or an apprentice plumber.

Instead, the statute lets an apprentice, journeyman, mechanic, or other person provide plumbing services without a license of their own as long as they work under the supervision of a master plumber (24 Del. C. § 1807). The master license itself requires years of supervised experience and a passing score on the board’s written examination (24 Del. C. § 1808). So the person at your door may not be the license holder. What you are confirming is that a master plumber stands behind the work and supervises it.

What a license does not tell you

A license means the state confirmed the holder’s experience and exam results. It does not tell you whether the company carries liability insurance, whether it is pulling permits for your job, or whether the work will be any good. Those are separate checks, covered below.

Looking up a license, step by step

The lookup lives in DELPROS, the Delaware Professional Regulation Online Service (Division of Professional Regulation). The public search needs no account.

1. Open the lookup at delpros.delaware.gov/OH_VerifyLicense. The board’s page links to the same address (Division of Professional Regulation).
2. Choose Individual. The page asks you to pick Individual or Facility, and a master plumber license is issued to a person.
3. Enter as little as you can. The form offers name, city, state, profession, type, and license number fields, and warns that entries must match exactly how they are stored. If you have a license number from a quote or a truck door, enter only that.
4. If you search by name, use the license holder’s personal name, not the company name.
5. Read the result row: name, profession, license number, type, status, discipline, and the city and state on file.

Ask for the name on the license and the number before you search; a shop that is proud of its credential hands both over without hesitation. Spangler’s Delaware master plumber license is #UT1488, and Spangler’s own credentials are on the site, but run the search anyway. The point is that it works on anyone.

Reading what the result actually says

Two columns matter: Status and Discipline.

Status tells you whether the license is current. Master plumber licenses renew every two years (24 Del. C. § 1812). The Division’s guidance is blunt: once a license has expired, it is not legal to continue practicing (Division of Professional Regulation FAQ), and the statute says the same for suspended or revoked licenses (24 Del. C. § 1820). A licensee may also go inactive for up to five years (24 Del. C. § 1812); inactive is not active.

Discipline tells you whether the board has taken formal action, with sanctions that run from a letter of reprimand through probation, suspension, and revocation (24 Del. C. § 1815). An entry here does not always mean the license is gone, but it means you should ask.

One more thing: the lookup page notes that numbers beginning with L2K or APP are not fully approved licenses, so an application number is not a license.

Insurance is a separate question

Nothing in the plumbing chapter of the Delaware Code makes liability insurance a condition of the state license, so DELPROS will not tell you anything about coverage. You have to ask.

Ask for a certificate of insurance: a one-page summary from the contractor’s insurance agent naming the insurer, the policy type, the coverage period, and the limits. New Castle County requires a current certificate of liability insurance from every contractor applying for its permit-endorsed contractor license (New Castle County 2026 Utility Contractor Requirements). You can ask for the same thing issued to you, for your address, dated within the job.

Workers’ compensation is the other half. Any employer with one or more employees working in Delaware must carry it, and coverage must be active before work begins (Delaware Division of Industrial Affairs). A two-person crew triggers that rule. Read the dates on any certificate; one that expired last month is a piece of paper.

Five things worth asking before you sign anything

1. Whose name is on the master plumber license, and what is the number? Then look it up.
2. Will the license holder be on site, or supervising the people who are?
3. Can you send a certificate of insurance naming me as the certificate holder, with dates that cover the job?
4. Does this job need a permit, and who is applying for it? The answer should be specific, not “we handle all that.”
5. Is any of this work going in the ground? If so, who is calling for utility locates?

None of these questions are hostile. You can ask us for the paperwork and put Spangler through the same five.

When work needs a permit as well as a licensed plumber

A state license and a county permit are two different systems. The license belongs to the person; the permit belongs to the job.

In unincorporated New Castle County, the building code requires a permit before anyone installs, alters, repairs, removes, or replaces a gas, mechanical, or plumbing system regulated by the chapter (New Castle County Code, Sec. 06.03.012). Pulling those permits takes the county’s permit-endorsed contractor license (New Castle County Department of Land Use), and for plumbing and HVACR contractors the county’s application requirements state that they require a State of Delaware Division of Professional Regulation license for their trades (New Castle County 2026 Utility Contractor Requirements).

The county code also carries an owner-occupier exception: a homeowner doing plumbing work other than gas piping in their own home, not for sale or rent, is not required to be licensed as a contractor for that permit (New Castle County Code, Sec. 06.03.012), and state law has a matching homeowner exemption (24 Del. C. § 1807). That is what a homebuyer often inherits: work that was legal for the previous owner to do but was never permitted or inspected. Whether a given repair needs a permit is a question for the Department of Land Use or your town’s own permit office.

If the job involves digging, such as a sewer lateral or a water service line, there is a third check. Delaware’s underground utility damage prevention law requires an excavator to notify the approved notification center, run by the Utilities Service Protection Center of Delmarva, not less than three business days and not more than 12 business days before work begins (26 Del. C. §§ 806, 807). Ask who is placing that request.

Questions homeowners ask

Is there a journeyman plumber license in Delaware?

No. The board issues master plumber, master HVACR, and master restricted HVACR licenses (Division of Professional Regulation). Journeymen and apprentices work under a master plumber’s supervision, which the statute expressly permits (24 Del. C. § 1807). If someone shows you a Delaware “journeyman license,” ask to see the master license it sits under.

The license is in a different name than the company. Is that a problem?

Not necessarily. The license is issued to an individual, and a company may work under one person’s license while that person supervises. A company that loses its only license holder must notify the board within seven days and cannot keep providing plumbing services without one (24 Del. C. § 1831).

What does an expired status mean?

The license was not renewed by its expiration date, and the Division of Professional Regulation states that it is not legal to continue practicing on an expired license (Division of Professional Regulation FAQ). Ask the plumber to renew and show you an active result before work starts.

Does a state license mean the plumber is insured?

No. The DELPROS result does not display insurance. Ask for a certificate of insurance and check the coverage dates. Employers with one or more employees in Delaware must also carry workers’ compensation (Division of Industrial Affairs).

Can I do my own plumbing without a license?

Under state law, a homeowner may perform plumbing services other than gas piping in their own home without a license (24 Del. C. § 1807), and New Castle County’s code has a matching owner-occupier permit exception (New Castle County Code, Sec. 06.03.012). The permit itself may still be required, and gas piping is excluded from both.

Before you sign

Run the DELPROS search, read the status and discipline columns, ask for a dated certificate of insurance, and get a straight answer on permits. That is the whole check. If you are in one of the towns Spangler serves and want to see our paperwork before deciding, ask us for it and we will send it over.