About pestlist

Why it exists

If you think you have termites, the hard part isn't finding a pest control company. It's working out whether the one you found is actually licensed to do the work, and whether the document they hand you is the one your state recognises.

That information is public. Every state that licenses structural pest control keeps a register, and most publish it. It just isn't in a form anyone would want to read: a spreadsheet of tens of thousands of rows, or a search box that returns one record at a time.

So this site takes those registers and turns them into something usable. Each business is shown with its licence number, what the licence covers, how long it has been held, and the date we checked it.

What makes it different

The large home-services marketplaces are absent from termite inspection searches almost entirely, and where they do appear they cannot show you a licence number, because they don't hold one. We can, because we started from the register instead of from a sales list.

Everything on a listing is a fact from a public record, with the date attached. There are no ratings, no sponsored placements, and no badges. If we can't source it, we don't publish it. Read the methodology.

What it doesn't do

It doesn't tell you who is good. A licence means the state issued a credential and it is current: a floor, not a review. Get more than one quote, ask what form the report will be issued on, and ask whether the company that inspects will also be the one selling you the treatment.

Coverage and what's next

California and Texas are live. Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas are in progress. Several states don't publish licence data online at all and need a public records request, which is slower but gets there.

Corrections and additions are welcome, especially from inspectors whose listings are missing contact details. Get in touch.