Guide · Washington State, 2026
How to check a contractor before you pay one.
In Washington a contractor has to be registered with Labor and Industries, bonded and insured. That takes five minutes to verify and almost nobody does it.
Every registered contractor has a license number. You can look it up on the state's own site and see the registration status, the bond, the insurance and any history attached to it. Ask for the number, check it yourself, and do it before the deposit rather than after the dispute. Ours is MAKSYBL809B7.
The five checks, in the order that matters
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01
Registration, bond and insurance
All three, current, on the state record. A lapsed bond is not a technicality: it is the thing standing between you and a half-finished room.
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02
Who pulls the permit
It should be them, in their name. A contractor asking the homeowner to pull the permit is moving the liability onto you, and it is the single loudest warning sign in this trade.
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03
A scope you can read
Not a number on one line. What is included, what is an allowance, what is excluded, and what happens when an allowance is exceeded. Two quotes for the same room can differ by thirty thousand dollars and both be honest, because they are not quoting the same job.
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04
A payment schedule tied to work, not to dates
Money should follow stages that have visibly happened. A large deposit up front with the rest on the calendar is how people end up funding somebody else's previous project.
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05
A client whose job went wrong
Ask for one. Every builder has had a project go sideways, and the useful reference is not the one who loved the kitchen. It is the one who watched them handle a problem.
The cheapest quote is usually the least complete one.
Before you compare three numbers, check that all three include the sales tax, the permit fee, the design hours, the appliances, the stone template and a contingency for what is behind the walls. The gap is almost always in what one of them left out rather than in the price of the work itself.
Questions that separate a real quote from a hopeful one
Is the sales tax in it?
Construction work is taxable in Washington and the rate follows the job address, not the contractor's office. On a large renovation it is a five-figure line, and it is the most common reason a final invoice surprises people.
Is design in the number, or coming later?
Plans, elevations and selections take real hours. A quote with no design line means either it arrives as a separate invoice or nobody has drawn the room yet.
What are the allowances, and what do they assume?
Tile "at twelve dollars a square foot" is an allowance, not a selection. If the tile you want is thirty, the difference is yours. Ask what each allowance was priced at.
How are change orders handled?
In writing, priced, signed before the work happens. Verbal changes on site are how a project quietly grows by fifteen percent and nobody can point at when.
Who is actually on site every day?
Ask whether the person selling you the job will be the person running it, and who to call when they are not there. In a design-build firm this should be a very short answer.
Is there a written warranty?
On the workmanship, with a period on it, separate from the manufacturers' warranties on the products. Ask what it covers and what voids it.
Reviews are evidence, as long as you read the ones with photographs.
A review with the finished room attached is hard to fake and tells you what the work looks like after handover rather than during the sales conversation. Ours are published in full and unedited, including the photographs clients uploaded themselves.