Rhode Island Contractor Continuing Education

The Rhode Island Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board requires that all contractors take continuing education (CE). Specifically, in most cases, you’ll need a certain number of CE hours to renew your contractor license. 

Commercial-only contractors get a special exemption from CE. But if you do any residential work — even if you do both commercial and residential work — you’ll need to meet a CE requirement in order to renew your license. 

To give you a quick overview of what the Board mandates, here are the continuing education requirements for contractor license renewals. 

How much CE you need

• The state code (specifically, 440-10-00 R.I. Code R. § 2.8) requires that all registered contractors complete five hours of continuing education during each two-year renewal period. 

What CE counts

State code outlines a handful of specific parameters when it comes to what hours can count toward your CE requirement, but it pretty much boils down to two things. For CE hours to apply toward your Rhode Island contractor license renewal, those hours need to:

• Come from a Board-approved education provider
• Focus on relevant construction topics

As for the first, this basically comes down to making sure that any education provider you’re considering has the Board’s stamp of approval. You can scroll to the bottom of this page to see our approval letter as an example.

The good news for you is that the Board has approved some education providers to offer courses online, including TradesmanCE. That means you can get your five hours from any location that’s convenient for you at any time your schedule allows.

Now, for the second parameter. If you choose a Board-approved provider, they should automatically be offering a construction-focused course since those are the only ones the Board approves. But if you want to use this as a way to double-check that your CE hours will be legitimate, look over the course titles and outlines and make sure that what you will be learning applies to the work you do.    

What proof of completion you need to show

The Board requires you to show proof that you’ve completed the required CE. And they’re pretty specific about what they want to see. You need to show a certificate of completion that includes:

• The course name
• Its ID number
• The date you took it
• The number of hours you completed
• Contact info for the education provider and course instructor
• The course instructor’s signature

Effective June 2020, you need to submit that certificate to the Board using their ​​new online platform, Viewpoint Cloud. To get your account set up, fill out this form. Within Viewpoint Cloud, you can show your proof of CE completion and submit your actual renewal application. 

Once you’re done, don’t discard your certificate of completion. The Board mandates that you hang onto it for three years. 

Since you can take it online, your CE shouldn’t be a big hassle. That’s good news because without it, the Board can revoke, suspend, or refuse to renew your contractor license. Knock out your five hours online so the Rhode Island contractor CE requirement never prevents you from maintaining active registration with the state.