Short answer (data cut-off 2026-10-19): none of our verified licensing requirements changed this week. We re-checked 125 official source pages that our data policy lets us crawl and confirmed 120 of them; 328 of our 575 verified fact records are now confirmed against the live official page as of 2026-10-19, and 0 needed a correction. We added 0 new facts this week.
Key takeaways
- 0 requirement changes. On the 15 pages whose text changed, all 36 facts we quote still appear word for word. The changes were page templates, menus, a “current as of” date and a processing-time notice.
- 120 of 125 crawlable pages confirmed (105 unchanged, 15 reworded around our facts). 328 fact records now show a check date of 2026-10-19.
- 5 pages could not be re-checked. Ohio’s licensing board pages returned “not found” (15 facts), Prince Edward Island showed a bot check (9 facts) and one South Dakota page did not respond (1 fact). These facts keep their earlier evidence date.
- 222 facts are on sites we no longer crawl (blocked, robots or terms; see data sources). They stay published with their original check date.
- Dataset size: 553 verified English facts (plus 22 French-language Québec records) across 59 states, provinces and territories, 151 trade–jurisdiction pages and 192 official pages.
What we checked this week
Every Monday a script re-downloads each official page behind a verified fact, one request at a time, at least 2.5 seconds apart, identifying itself with our contact address. It asks the server whether the page changed since our last copy, and compares the page text with what we stored. When the text differs, an editor reads the changed passages and checks each affected fact against the live page. No AI is used to read or change data.
Outcome of the 2026-10-19 re-check for all 192 official pages behind our verified facts (number of pages). Paused sites are not crawled under our data policy.
Which pages changed, and why no facts changed
Fifteen pages had different text from our last copy. We read each change. None touched a fee, hour count, exam rule or other requirement we publish:
| Jurisdiction / trade | Official page | Facts on page | What changed (our reading) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama electrician | aecb.alabama.gov | 5 | Page template/navigation changed; fee and reciprocity wording identical |
| Alabama general contractor | genconbd.alabama.gov | 3 | Header/footer changed; fee, exam and reciprocity wording identical |
| Alabama general contractor | hblb.alabama.gov | 1 | Navigation menu changed; bond wording identical |
| Arkansas electrician | labor.arkansas.gov | 3 | Site template changed (menus, e-mail links); license classes and reciprocity wording identical |
| Arkansas general contractor | labor.arkansas.gov | 1 | Site template changed; board description identical |
| Arkansas hvac | labor.arkansas.gov | 2 | Site template changed; reciprocity and exam wording identical |
| Idaho plumber | dopl.idaho.gov | 1 | Page layout changed (steps reordered on screen); IAPMO exam wording identical |
| Louisiana plumber | spbla.com | 3 | Page now serves its full text in a new layout; apprentice wording identical |
| Manitoba hvac | web2.gov.mb.ca | 3 | Only the 'most current version as of' date moved from Oct 17 to Oct 19 |
| North Carolina electrician | ncbeec.org | 1 | One footer link changed; $125 exam-fee wording identical |
| Quebec general contractor | rbq.gouv.qc.ca | 8 | Processing-time notice dates updated; exam rules identical |
| Saskatchewan electrician | saskatchewan.ca | 1 | Scheduled-maintenance banner removed; TSASK wording identical |
| Wisconsin electrician | dsps.wi.gov | 2 | New page template; CE and exam wording identical |
| Wisconsin hvac | dsps.wi.gov | 1 | New page template (title line, 'On this page' menu); CE wording identical |
| Wisconsin plumber | dsps.wi.gov | 1 | New page template; CE wording identical |
Pages we could not re-check
- Ohio (15 facts for electrical, plumbing and HVAC contractors): Returned HTTP 404 to our checker on 2026-10-19 (the agency site's home page also returned 404). We keep the facts as captured on 2026-10-17 and will re-check them by hand.
- Prince Edward Island (9 facts on Red Seal and trade certification): Showed a bot-verification page; we stopped and paused this host. Following our data policy we do not try to get around bot checks.
- South Dakota plumbing continuing education (1 fact): Connection closed by the server twice; will retry next week.
The dataset at a glance
Verified English-language facts by trade as of 2026-10-19 (number of facts; French-language Québec duplicates excluded). Each fact is quoted from an official page and reviewed by an editor.
| Trade | US facts | Canada facts | Total | Re-checked 2026-10-19 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrician | 139 | 37 | 176 | 102 |
| Plumber | 126 | 28 | 154 | 90 |
| General contractor | 106 | 8 | 114 | 56 |
| HVAC | 78 | 31 | 109 | 58 |
What this means for you
If you used one of our requirement pages this month, the numbers you saw are still what the boards publish, as far as we could check. Pages such as Alabama electrician, Arkansas electrician, Manitoba HVAC and Québec general contractor now show a source fetch date of 2026-10-19. For Ohio and Prince Edward Island, confirm with the board before you pay a fee or book an exam. To check a specific contractor, use our license lookup. If you’re moving, see the electrician reciprocity matrix.
Method, sources and download
Data cut-off: 2026-10-19. Scope: every fact with status “verified” in our database. Sources: official state, provincial and territorial licensing pages, listed on our data sources page with licence notes. Method: a script requests each page, sends the date of our last copy so the server can answer “not modified”, compares a hash of the page text, and checks that each quoted passage is still on the page. Counts are computed by code from our fact file. Download the per-page summary as CSV: trade-license-data-update-2026-w43.csv (our own counts; no text copied from official pages). Earlier and later issues are in the report archive.
FAQ
Did any trade license requirements change in week 43 of 2026?
None that we track. We re-checked 125 official pages on 2026-10-19; 15 had text changes, but every one of the 36 facts on those pages was still stated word for word, so 0 values were corrected.
How many facts does TradeLicenseLookup track?
553 verified English facts plus 22 French-language Québec records, across 59 US states and Canadian provinces/territories and four trades, taken from 192 official pages.
Why were some pages not re-checked?
67 pages are on sites we no longer crawl because they blocked automated access or their terms or robots rules don’t allow it. 5 more pages returned errors or a bot check this week.
How often is the data re-checked?
Every Monday. Each weekly summary is listed in the report archive with its cut-off date.