Withdrawn Research — Operator Decision Required
License Transparency Study Withdrawn — Operator Decision Required
Withdrawal notice
The five-state warehouse depth layer still reproduces, but the 51-jurisdiction contractor-access buckets and the national transparency tiers come from a frozen May 6 primary-source recon outside production and cannot be re-derived from the current database. The historical study remains visible for operator review but is not a current finding.
Evidence split: the warehouse counts were observed again on 2026-07-18; the contractor-access recon was last performed on 2026-05-06 and has no production table from which to re-run it.
Historical short answer (withdrawn)
To check whether a professional is licensed, you first need the state's license roll — and most states make that hard. Across the only 51-jurisdiction primary-source recon available, just 3 publish a bulk-downloadable contractor file; 44 are lookup-only. Five more states publish a bulk professional roll, but an obtainable disciplinary feed exists for only 4 states. Aggregate counts only.
Historical findings (withdrawn)
jurisdictions (5.9%) publish a bulk-downloadable contractor-license file you can pull in one request — California, Louisiana, and Texas — in the only primary-source 50-state recon available. (Five other states publish a bulk professional or health-board roll; see below.) To check a contractor in the other 48 you are funnelled through a one-record-at-a-time portal, or worse.
jurisdictions offer lookup-only access — a search box that returns a single record, with no statewide file to download or audit. Two more publish nothing statewide at all (Kansas and Missouri, where the trades are licensed at the city or county level). This is the hard floor of license transparency.
— Illinois, Washington, New York, and Colorado — are the only ones where a published disciplinary-action feed could be obtained at all (128,342 actions in total). Whether a license is clean is, for most of the country, the part you cannot pull. Even where it exists, the basis for the action is recorded only 67.2% of the time.
license records make up the five consolidated bulk rolls Fonteum was able to obtain — Illinois (3,845,349), Washington (2,422,615), Colorado (1,566,603), Michigan, and Connecticut. These are the states whose professional and health boards publish a single downloadable file; everywhere else, the roll simply is not published in bulk.
expose a home street address in their published license roll — every roll Fonteum obtained carries a zero-populated address field. License number, license type, current status, and name are near-universal; issue and expiry dates and city are common but not guaranteed; clinical specialty is rare. Transparency about WHETHER someone is licensed does not mean exposure of WHERE they live.
Historical snapshot (withdrawn)
The transparency index — all 50 states + DC, tiered
Every jurisdiction is placed in one of five tiers by how much of its license data is actually obtainable. The top tiers are states where a consolidated roll — and, in Tier A, a published disciplinary feed — could be obtained. The bottom tiers are the §187 primary-source finding that no statewide bulk file is published. Each placement is sourced; none is inferred from Fonteum simply not having ingested a state.
| Tier | What it means | States | Which ones |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Bulk license roll and published discipline | 3 | CO, IL, WA |
| B | Bulk license roll, discipline not obtainable | 2 | CT, MI |
| C | Partial: bulk contractor file or published discipline only | 4 | CA, LA, NY, TX |
| D | Lookup-only — no bulk path found | 40 | AK, AL, AR, AZ, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MN, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV, WY |
| E | No statewide public license data | 2 | KS, MO |
- Tier A — A consolidated bulk license roll was obtained AND a published disciplinary-action feed was obtained.
- Tier B — A consolidated bulk license roll was obtained, but no published disciplinary-action feed could be obtained.
- Tier C — Either a bulk-downloadable contractor license file is published (§187) OR a published disciplinary feed was obtained, but not a consolidated professional bulk roll.
- Tier D — The §187 primary-source recon found portal-lookup-only access and no statewide bulk file for contractor licensing; no consolidated professional bulk roll was obtained either.
- Tier E — The §187 recon found no statewide contractor license data published at all (licensing is municipal/county or absent).
Tiers A and B are observed directly from rolls Fonteum obtained. Tiers C, D, and E lean on the §187 contractor-licensing recon, which is scoped to one profession; a state's health or professional boards can publish on a different posture (see Limitations).
The 50-state bulk-accessibility floor (§187 recon)
The §187 review read every state's official licensing pages and classified the data path. It is the only all-50-states-plus-DC primary-source recon available, and the picture is stark: a download exists in a handful of states, while the overwhelming majority funnel the public through a single-record search box. It covers contractor licensing specifically — stated plainly so the cut is not over-read.
| Data path | Jurisdictions | Share | Which ones |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bulk-downloadable file published | 3 | 5.9% | CA, LA, TX |
| No bulk file; data only by scraping a search portal | 2 | 3.9% | IL, NY |
| One-record-at-a-time portal lookup only | 44 | 86.3% | AK, AL, AR, AZ, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY |
| No statewide contractor license data published | 2 | 3.9% | KS, MO |
“Lookup-only” means a portal returns one record at a time with no file to download or audit. “No statewide data” means licensing happens at the municipal or county level (Kansas, Missouri). Source: §187 recon, reviewed 2026-05-06.
Where a bulk roll exists — depth and field exposure
Five states' professional and health boards publish a single downloadable file, and Fonteum obtained all five — 8,143,005license records in total. They are the consolidated-publisher agencies (IDFPR, DOH, DORA, LARA, DPH), and they differ sharply in how many professions they cover, from Connecticut's single health-license stream to the 310 distinct license types in Washington and Colorado.
| State | Publishing agency | License records | License types | Disciplinary actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IL | Illinois Dept. of Financial & Professional Regulation (IDFPR) | 3,845,349 | 63 | 89,120 |
| WA | Washington State Dept. of Health (DOH) | 2,422,615 | 310 | 21,640 |
| CO | Colorado Dept. of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) | 1,566,603 | 310 | 8,585 |
| MI | Michigan Dept. of Licensing & Regulatory Affairs (LARA) | 289,444 | 15 | — |
| CT | Connecticut Dept. of Public Health (DPH) | 18,994 | 1 | — |
One consolidated umbrella source per state; “—” under disciplinary actions means no obtainable published feed was found for that state.
What each published roll actually exposes
A roll that exists is not the same as a roll that tells you much. Across the five obtained rolls, the core identity fields — license number, type, current status, and name — are near-universal, but the useful context fields vary hard. Michigan publishes no issue or expiry date; Washington publishes no city; clinical specialty is rare everywhere. Critically, no state exposes a home street address.
| State | License # | Status | Issue date | Expiry date | City | Specialty | Street address |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IL | 100% | 100% | 99.6% | 95.5% | 100% | 5.1% | — |
| WA | 100% | 100% | 89.8% | 92% | — | — | — |
| CO | 100% | 100% | 99.8% | 92.1% | 99.8% | — | — |
| MI | 100% | 100% | — | — | 99.8% | 8.5% | — |
| CT | 100% | 100% | 92.7% | 92.7% | 100% | — | — |
Percent of records with the field populated, computed over the full roll. “—” = field not populated (0%). License type, status, and name are ≥99% in every state and omitted from the table for space.
The part most states do not publish — disciplinary history
A current-license check tells you someone holds a license today; it does not tell you whether they have ever been disciplined. That second record — the one that matters most for trust — is published as obtainable data in just four states (IL, WA, NY, CO), 128,342actions in all. New York's is medical-conduct only. And the basis for the action is recorded only 67.2% of the time.
| State | Publishing source | Disciplinary actions |
|---|---|---|
| IL | Illinois Dept. of Financial & Professional Regulation (IDFPR) | 89,120 |
| WA | Washington State Dept. of Health (DOH) | 21,640 |
| NY | New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) | 8,997 |
| CO | Colorado Dept. of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) | 8,585 |
128,342 actions across 293 license types; the earliest dated action is 1935-03-05. Action date is present 76.2% of the time (a small number of records carry malformed future dates). No individual is named.
Warehouse-only reproducibility
Re-derive the surviving five-state warehouse layer from the published SQL. The national §187 buckets and composite tiers are not production-derived and are the reason the study is withdrawn.
- Re-derivation SQL — the canonical, read-only production diagnostic for the surviving warehouse layer and the missing national relation. Its exact result is retained with the study audit; it does not reproduce the national §187 recon or the tiers built from it.
Source-lineage limits
The warehouse rows retain a source locator, source URL, state and agency labels, ingestion timestamps, and the state-licensing/v1 methodology. The source registry separately records each authority, official homepage, attribution, and refresh cadence. The rows do not carry a populated source ID or snapshot SHA-256, so this study cannot claim file-level digest or attestation linkage. The re-derivation SQL inventories both the available lineage and that limitation.
Methodology
The study combines two evidence layers, kept deliberately separate. The DEPTH layer aggregates two tables in the fonteum-platform warehouse: public.state_provider_licenses (8,143,005 license records across five states) and public.state_disciplinary_actions (128,342 actions across four states). Per-state record counts use the indexed (state, license_number)path; per-field population is computed by sweeping primary-key id ranges and summing the parts, with each sum reconciling to the state's record total exactly. The BREADTH layer is the §187 primary-source recon (51jurisdictions), a direct read of each state's official licensing pages classifying the data path as bulk-download, scrape-only, lookup-only, or no-public-data. The tiers combine the two: Tiers A and B are observed from obtained rolls; Tiers C–E follow the §187 classification. The production-derived warehouse subset and the absence of a current national relation are re-derivable from the SQL above; the withdrawn tier claims are not.
Historical citation (withdrawn)
Fonteum (2026). Professional License Lookup: Which States Make It Hardest (2026). Derived from state licensing-board rolls and published disciplinary actions (aggregated 2026-07-14) and the §187 contractor-licensing bulk-accessibility recon (2026-05-06). https://fonteum.com/gov/research/license-verification-transparency-2026
Canonical URL: https://fonteum.com/gov/research/license-verification-transparency-2026 · License: U.S. Government Works (public domain; 17 U.S.C. §105)
Related government-records evidence
Limitations
- The 50-state floor is a contractor-licensing recon.Tiers C, D, and E follow the §187 review, which read each state's contractor-licensing pages. A state's health or professional boards can publish on a different posture — Illinois contractor boards are scrape-only, yet IDFPR's professional license file is bulk. Read a Tier-D placement as “no statewide bulk contractor file published per the recon,” not as proof that every board in the state is closed.
- Absence from Fonteum is never used as evidence. A state we have not ingested is not called opaque on that basis. The lookup-only and no-statewide-data placements come from the primary-source recon, not from our pipeline status. It is possible a state we have not loaded publishes bulk data for some professions.
- The depth layer is five states. The field-exposure and record-count figures describe the five consolidated rolls Fonteum obtained (IL, WA, CO, MI, CT). They are not a national sample and should not be generalized to states outside that set.
- Counts are as-of the snapshot. A record count reflects what was loaded as of 2026-07-14, not a live count, and states change portals and publishing posture over time. The §187 recon was reviewed 2026-05-06.
- Disciplinary feeds are uneven.The four obtainable feeds differ in scope (New York's is medical-conduct only) and completeness (the basis field is populated 67.2% of the time; a few records carry malformed dates). Absence of a feed here is not proof a state never disciplines licensees — only that an obtainable published feed was not found.
Sources
Two evidence layers: state licensing-board rolls and published disciplinary actions in the Fonteum warehouse (public records, aggregated 2026-07-14), and the §187 contractor-licensing bulk-accessibility recon of all 51 jurisdictions (reviewed 2026-05-06). State license data is public record; this study reports only aggregate counts and state-level publishing classifications.
Sources: state licensing-board rolls (public.state_provider_licenses) and published disciplinary actions (public.state_disciplinary_actions), aggregated 2026-07-14; plus the §187 contractor-licensing bulk-accessibility recon (50 states + DC), reviewed 2026-05-06. State license data is public records. Confirm any specific license at the issuing state board.
Historical frequently asked questions (withdrawn)
What does this study actually measure?
One question: how hard is it to obtain the data you would need to check whether a professional is licensed in a given state? It measures three things per jurisdiction — (1) whether a bulk-downloadable license file is published, (2) whether published disciplinary actions can be obtained, and (3) where a roll is published, how complete its fields are. Every figure is an aggregate count or a state-level classification. No licensee is named.
Why does the 50-state ranking lean on a contractor-licensing recon?
The §187 recon is the only primary-source review covering all 50 states plus DC — a direct read of each state's official licensing pages, classifying each as bulk-download, scrape-only, lookup-only, or no-public-data. It is scoped to contractor licensing, which we state plainly. Fonteum's own warehouse holds deep professional and health-board data, but for only five states, so it cannot rank the country on its own. The two layers are combined into the tiers, with each state's placement sourced. A state can diverge by profession: Illinois contractor boards are scrape-only, yet IDFPR's professional license file is bulk — which is why Illinois sits in the top tier.
If Fonteum doesn't have a state, does that mean the state is opaque?
No, and the study is careful never to imply that. A state's absence from Fonteum's warehouse is not evidence about the state. The "lookup-only" and "no statewide data" placements come from the §187 primary-source recon, not from our pipeline status. It is entirely possible a state we have not ingested publishes bulk data for some professions; where that is unconfirmed, the state is placed on the §187 finding and flagged as such in the limitations.
Why is published disciplinary history so rare?
License rolls answer "is this person currently licensed?" Disciplinary feeds answer "has this person ever been sanctioned?" — and far fewer states publish the second as obtainable data. In this snapshot only four do (Illinois, Washington, New York, and Colorado, 128,342 actions total). New York's feed is medical-conduct only (OPMC). The action's basis — why it happened — is present just 67.2% of the time, so even the published record is often thin on reasons.
Is this a ranking of, or accusation against, any professional?
No. The unit of analysis is the STATE and what data it publishes — not any licensee. The study names no individual, renders no individual record, produces no per-person report, dossier, or score, and makes no determination about anyone's standing. It is FCRA-safe by construction: aggregate counts and state-level publishing classifications only. To confirm a specific license, use the issuing state board.
How current are these figures?
The warehouse rolls and disciplinary actions were aggregated 2026-07-14; the §187 bulk-accessibility recon was reviewed 2026-05-06. States change portals and publishing posture over time, and a record count reflects what was loaded as of the snapshot, not a live count. Re-derive every warehouse figure from the SQL linked on this page.