We are a licensed remediation contractor, and we are going to spend the first part of this page explaining how little the law protects you. That is an odd thing for a contractor to publish, but people searching this question deserve the actual answer rather than a comforting one.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you are in a dispute, talk to a Louisiana attorney or a legal aid organization.
Start with the thing almost nobody knows: a licensed mold remediation contractor is a real, separate thing in Louisiana. Most people have never heard of the license, do not know the state issues one, and have no idea it can be looked up in a minute. They call whoever advertises, and they assume that anyone doing the work must be allowed to.
What to ask a company before you hire one is the practical companion to this page. That single gap is why the rest of this page matters. If you did not know the license existed, you had no way to ask for it — and the companies that do not hold one are counting on exactly that.
The licensing rule — the only mold-specific law we have
Louisiana requires a mold remediation license from the State Licensing Board for Contractors, but only above a dollar threshold.
Under $7,500 of mold work: no license required. No certification required. Nothing.
At $7,500 or above: a mold remediation license is required.
We think that threshold is wrong, and we will say so plainly.
The number was not chosen for mold
$7,500 is the same threshold Louisiana uses for general remodeling work. Do more than $7,500 of remodel work and you need to be licensed. That figure was picked for construction generally, and mold got attached to it.
Nobody sat down and decided $7,500 was the right dividing line for contamination work. It is a borrowed number, and it does not reflect anything about mold — not the health considerations, not the containment requirements, not the fact that badly done mold work can spread a problem through a whole house rather than merely leaving it unfinished.
A bad kitchen remodel leaves you with a bad kitchen. Bad mold work can distribute spores into rooms that were previously fine. Those are not equivalent risks, and they should not share a threshold.
The overwhelming majority of residential mold jobs come in under $7,500. So for most homeowners in this state, the person who shows up is not required to hold any mold credential at all. No license, no training, nothing. In our view licensing should apply to all mold work, at any dollar value.
The bigger hole: the license belongs to the company, not the crew
Even above the threshold, the requirement is thinner than people assume.
Louisiana contractor licenses are held by a company, and qualified by one designated individual — the “qualifying party.” To hold a mold remediation license, a company needs one owner, member or employee who is mold certified. That is the person who completes the 24 hours of board-approved training.
One certified person per company. That is the whole requirement.
Everyone else on the crew can hold no mold certification at all, and in practice that is usually the case — other certified staff exist at some companies, but it is rare. The certified individual is frequently someone who never sets foot on a job.
Nobody is breaking a rule here. It is simply how contractor licensing is structured, and it is the same across most classifications. But mold is not most classifications. Containment either gets built correctly or it does not, the moisture source either gets found or it does not — and the person deciding that is whoever is standing in your hallway, not whoever holds the certificate.
The question to actually ask
Not “are you licensed?” — almost everyone will say yes, and above $7,500 they have to be.
Ask: “Is the person who will actually be working in my house mold certified?”
It is a fair question, a licensed company should be able to answer it immediately, and it separates a real operation from one where the certificate lives in a filing cabinet.
What that produces, locally
We are regularly in homes where someone has already paid for something described as remediation and nothing was actually fixed. No containment. No attempt to find where the water was coming from. Sometimes little more than spraying and a bill.
Those customers are not naive. They hired someone who was operating entirely legally, because below that threshold there is nothing to comply with.
And plenty of them do not have a certified mold person at all — not on the crew, not in the company. They spray something and hope.
The law is not vetting anyone for you on a job under $7,500. You have to do it yourself. Four questions worth asking anyone, us included:
- What is your license number? Then check it with the state board rather than taking the answer at face value.
- Is the person actually doing the work mold certified? See above — this is the one most people never think to ask.
- How will the work area be contained? You are listening for sealing the area and negative air pressure. If containment is not part of the answer, disturbing the mold will spread it.
- What do you think is causing the moisture? If there is no answer to this, they are treating a symptom and it will come back.
La. R.S. 37:2150.1; La. R.S. 37:2156–2158. Licensed remediators complete 24 hours of board-approved training. Property owners working on their own property are exempt.
Testing and remediation must be separate companies
This one is genuinely good law, it is not widely known, and it protects you.
Louisiana makes it a violation for a licensee to:
“Perform both mold assessment and mold remediation on the same property” — or to “own an interest in both the entity which performs mold assessment services and the entity which performs mold remediation services.”
La. R.S. 37:2158(A)(23)
The reason is obvious once you see it. A company that both tests your house and gets paid to fix what it finds has an interest in finding more. The statute removes that, and the ownership clause closes the loophole of setting up a second company to do the testing.
So if one company offers to test your home and then remediate it, that is a red flag — and above the threshold, a licensing violation. This is why we do remediation only and refer testing to an independent company. It is not a preference. It is the law.
What Louisiana does not do
- No exposure limits. No legal spore count, no threshold at which mold becomes officially unsafe.
- No mandated timeline. Nothing sets a deadline for remediation.
- No state inspection. The Department of Health does not inspect homes for mold, does not enforce mold standards, and does not issue mold citations. It publishes guidance and convenes an advisory task force with no regulatory power.
- No mold insurance regulation. Coverage depends on your policy, and most contain a fungus exclusion with a limited buy-back. Whether mold is covered usually depends on whether it came from a sudden covered water loss or from long-term seepage.
Six things people get wrong
“Louisiana has a black mold law.”
It does not. There is no exposure limit, no spore standard, and “toxic black mold” is not a legal category in Louisiana at all.
“Anyone doing mold work has to be licensed.”
Only at $7,500 and above. Below that, no license and no certification is required by law.
“The health department will come out and inspect it.”
They will not. There is no state mold inspection or enforcement program in Louisiana.
Common questions
Does Louisiana have a mold law?
Not a general one. Louisiana has no mold exposure limit, no spore-count standard, no required remediation timeline and no state mold inspection program. The only mold-specific statute is contractor licensing (La. R.S. 37:2150.1 et seq.), which requires a mold remediation license once the mold portion of a job reaches $7,500. Sale disclosure and related obligations run through general Civil Code and property law that does not mention mold.
Does a mold remediation company have to be licensed in Louisiana?
Only if the mold work is valued at $7,500 or more. Below that threshold no license or certification is required by law, which means most residential mold jobs in Louisiana can legally be performed by someone with no mold credentials at all. Licensed remediators complete 24 hours of board-approved training. Property owners working on their own property are exempt.
Does every technician have to be mold certified in Louisiana?
No. A Louisiana mold remediation license requires one owner, member or employee who is mold certified — the qualifying party, who completes the 24 hours of board-approved training. Everyone else on the crew can hold no mold certification at all. Some companies have additional certified staff, but it is uncommon, and the certified individual is frequently not the person on the job. Ask specifically whether the person who will be working in your house is certified, not only whether the company is licensed.
Can the same company test my home for mold and then remediate it?
No. La. R.S. 37:2158(A)(23) makes it a violation for a licensee to perform both mold assessment and mold remediation on the same property, and also prohibits owning an interest in both an assessment entity and a remediation entity. The purpose is to remove the conflict of interest created when the company diagnosing the problem is paid to fix it.
Will the Louisiana Department of Health inspect mold in my home?
No. LDH does not license, inspect or set standards for mold in homes. It publishes guidance and hosts an advisory Task Force on Mold, which has no regulatory or enforcement authority. There is no state agency that will come and cite anyone for mold.
Sources: La. Civ. Code arts. 2682, 2683, 2691, 2692, 2694, 2696, 2699, 2715 · La. R.S. 9:3221 · La. R.S. 37:2150.1, 37:2156–2158 · Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors · Louisiana Department of Health.
Current as of September 2026. Law changes; verify before relying on any of this. Nothing here is legal advice.