Does Texas license roofing contractors?
No. Roofing appears nowhere on the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation's list of regulated programs. There is no state exam, no state registration and no state license number to ask for. Anyone in Texas can print a business card that says roofer and start knocking on doors the week after a storm.
House Bill 3344, filed in the 89th Legislature in 2025, would have created a state roofing registration. It did not pass. The position today is the same as it was before.
What is the RCAT "license" then?
A voluntary trade credential, issued by the Roofing Contractors Association of Texas, that the association itself calls a license. It carries no state authority. A contractor holding it has chosen to meet RCAT's requirements, which is a real signal of seriousness — it is not permission from the state to work, because no such permission exists.
Treat the word carefully in both directions. A roofer describing RCAT certification accurately is telling you something useful. A roofer implying the state licensed them is describing something that does not exist.
What checks actually work
Four, and each one is verifiable by the homeowner rather than taken on trust.
- Workers' compensation. Texas does not force a private contractor to carry it, but a contractor without it has to file DWC Form-005 with the state. Ask which applies, then verify the coverage through the Texas Department of Insurance yourself. An uninsured worker injured on your roof becomes your problem.
- General liability. Ask for the certificate direct from the insurer, not a photocopy from the contractor.
- An independent opinion. A condition report from someone with no work at stake removes the conflict entirely.
- A physical trading history in the county. Who answers a warranty call in two years matters more than who answers the door today.
- The written scope. Decking allowance and per-sheet rate, which flashings are replaced rather than reused, and both warranty documents. A contractor who puts those in writing before payment is the whole test.
Why this matters more after a storm
Washington County sees wind events far more often than hail. The National Weather Service logged 17 thunderstorm wind events here between 2016 and 2026, and a single EF0 in May 2016 that downed numerous trees near William Penn Road. Each county-wide event brings out-of-state crews within days.
Those crews are not all bad, and they are all temporary. The absence of a state license means nothing stops one from arriving, taking a deposit and leaving. Ask question three above before anything else.
The question to ask about insurance
A roofing contractor in Texas is barred from acting as your insurance adjuster. Texas Insurance Code § 4102.163 forbids a contractor from adjusting, or advertising to adjust, a claim on property it provides contracting services on. The Supreme Court of Texas upheld that in 2024.
So a pitch to handle, fight or maximize your claim describes something the law does not permit. That alone rules a contractor out. The honest division is that you deal with the carrier and the roofer deals with the roof, and that is how a replacement or a targeted repair gets scoped from the start.