Alabama licenses a residential home builder once a job passes $10,000, but a roofer once it passes $2,500. The smaller job is the tighter rule. The Homeowners' Recovery Fund pays up to $30,000 on one transaction and $90,000 against any one licensee, and only after a court judgment. A license limited to roofing does not qualify, so the trade with the lowest threshold is the one the fund does not reach.
| Service | Typical |
|---|---|
| Auto repair shop labor rateAlabama average | $124 per hour |
| Attorney hourly rateAlabama average | $208 per hour |
Ranges last checked September 2026. They come down automatically when they are due to be rechecked.
Every figure above comes from a named source we can link to, with the date we last checked it. We publish ranges rather than single prices because a range is what a provider will actually give you: the same job moves with what is being worked on, the materials, how hard it is to get at and how busy the trade is locally. Treat these as the order of magnitude to expect before you call, not as a quote.
Where a source publishes figures state by state, this page shows the figure for this state rather than a national average. Where no state-level source exists, it shows the national range and the local factors that move a job within it. We do not scale a national number by a multiplier of our own invention.
Every range carries a review date. When that date passes the number comes down until it is rechecked, rather than sitting here undated.
The Home Builders Licensure Board licenses a residential home builder once the cost of the undertaking exceeds ten thousand dollars. For a residential roofer the figure is two thousand five hundred. Ala. Code section 34-14A-2(12) carries both.
Read together they say something a single threshold cannot. The state treats roofing as the work most likely to go wrong at a small size, and regulates it four times earlier than everything else.
The exemption a homeowner claims does not travel down the chain. The Board states that subcontractors hired by a homeowner claiming the homeowner exemption must themselves be licensed where the cost of the portion they are hired to do exceeds ten thousand dollars.
Alabama runs a Homeowners' Recovery Fund under Ala. Code section 34-14A-15, with the amounts set by Board rule rather than by the statute itself. Ala. Admin. Code r. 465-X-7 caps payment at thirty thousand dollars on a single transaction and ninety thousand in the aggregate for the acts of any one licensee. Interest and court costs are not recoverable.
Three conditions decide whether it reaches you. There must be a valid judgment, and the rule excludes a consent judgment. The complaint must reach the Board within six years of substantial completion, or of the date the original homeowner took possession. And the builder must have held a license without limitation, or with limitation, but a license whose limitation is limited to roofing is expressly excluded.
So the trade the state regulates earliest is the trade whose customers the fund does not cover. A roofer working at three thousand dollars needs a license. The homeowner who loses that money has the courts and the roofer's own assets, not the fund.
The table above carries Alabama figures for the two services with a per-state source that span every trade the directory lists: shop labor for auto repair, and attorney time. Both sit below their national figures, which is a fact about the state's cost base rather than about any one business in it.
Check the license against the size of the job before anything else. Under ten thousand dollars a builder may lawfully be unlicensed. Over it, an unlicensed builder is working outside the Act, and the recovery fund route closes along with it.
On a roof, check at a much lower number, and understand what you are and are not buying. Two thousand five hundred is where the license starts. The fund does not follow.
Ask about the limitation on the license, not only about its existence. The Board issues licenses without limitation and with limitation, and the wording on the certificate is exactly what the recovery fund rule reads.
Keep the dates. The six-year window runs from substantial completion or from when the original homeowner took possession, and a separate ten-day certified letter to the Board follows the filing of a civil complaint.
The Home Builders Licensure Board licenses a residential home builder once the cost of the undertaking exceeds $10,000. A residential roofer is licensed once it exceeds $2,500. Both figures sit in Ala. Code section 34-14A-2(12).
Board rule 465-X-7 caps it at $30,000 on a single transaction and $90,000 in the aggregate for the acts of any one licensee. Interest and court costs are not recoverable.
Yes. The rule requires a valid judgment and expressly excludes a consent judgment. The complaint must also reach the Board within six years of substantial completion, or of the date the original homeowner took possession.
Not where the license is limited to roofing. The rule requires a license without limitation, or with limitation, but excludes a license with limitation limited to roofing.
The Board states that a subcontractor hired by a homeowner claiming the exemption must be licensed if the cost of the portion they are hired to do exceeds $10,000.