Reminder emails
California CSLB license renewal fee and cycle
Select the holder, active or inactive status, C-10 or another classification, and the expiration month on the license. The timely fee and the PDF preview update on this page. Nothing is sent until you press the button.
The checklist now, then three reminder emails before the expiration month ends: 30 days, 7 days, and 1 day.
What the fee table lists for these answers
Choose the holder, the status, the classification, and the expiration month, and the published timely row appears here.
What the PDF prints
The PDF preview fills in with these answers before you pay. A blank short name prints as Primary.
The yearly plan sends three emails, counted back from the last day of the month stored with the order: 30 days out, 7 days out and 1 day out. The stored month is the one printed on the license, so all three land in the weeks before the license stops being current.
What follows is what each of the three carries, what none of them can do, how to correct a month that was typed wrong, and what a cancellation does to the emails that were still to come.
Counting back from the last day of the month
The expiration date on a contractor license is the last day of the month printed on it, as the expiration date page sets out. A license that reads June runs through June 30, so the reminders fall 30 days before that date, 7 days before it and 1 day before it.
Nothing else moves them. The status on the license, the classification and the plan a reader chose do not shift a reminder by a day; only the stored month does.
The 30-day email
Thirty days out is the planning message. CSLB mails the renewal application about 60 days before the expiration date, so by this point the form should already be on the desk; if it is not, this is the week to request a duplicate renewal and confirm the mailing address CSLB holds.
The email restates the date and links the fee table. It does not carry a form, because the form comes from CSLB, and it does not tell the reader whether their renewal is fine. It only makes sure the month is in front of them while there is still time to order a replacement.
The 7-day email
Seven days out is the week to pay. The reader decides whether the license renews online, which is open to an entity with one qualifier, or by mail or hand delivery with the completed form, which is the path for a license with multiple qualifiers. The online renewal page separates the two paths.
Either way the payment goes to CSLB and the amount comes from the table. The email repeats the date and the link and does not compute a total, because a figure worked out in advance is exactly the kind of number that goes stale.
The 1-day email
The last message lands one day before the month ends, which is the final day the word timely allows: a renewal is timely when it is postmarked or received on or before the expiration date, and delinquent after it.
At that distance there is still room to act, and the email is built to say so plainly rather than to alarm. It states the date. It cannot make a payment timely, and it does not pretend that opening it changes anything.
What a reminder cannot do
It does not file a renewal, book an appointment, place a call, visit a site, introduce a contractor or produce a receipt. It does not move a CSLB deadline, extend an expiration date or excuse a delinquency fee.
It is a dated message with a link. The work after it stays with the license holder, and the record that matters stays with CSLB.
Where the date comes from, and how to correct it
The month is the one typed at checkout and stored with the order. If it is wrong, for any reason at all, write to support@contractorlicensedue.com and the schedule is corrected against the month that belongs there.
A reminder schedule is deleted on request within 7 days, while the payment record is kept for accounting. Correction and deletion are different requests: one keeps the emails coming on the right dates, the other ends them.
The plan that sends nothing
The one-time plan schedules no emails at all. Nineteen dollars buys this year's checklist and nothing behind it: no month is stored for a later mailing, and the order closes when the file lands. A buyer on that plan has not missed a reminder, because none was ever set. The three dates described on this page belong to the yearly plan, and the choice between the two happens at checkout rather than after it.
Both plans buy the same file, so nothing in the PDF tells a reader which one was bought. What is in the checklist is six lines either way, and the difference is entirely in what gets sent afterward.
When the stored month and the license disagree
The stored month is the only input the schedule uses, so a disagreement between it and the license is worth settling before the emails arrive. The month on the license is the one the expiration date is counted from, and when the certificate and the public record differ, the record is the copy CSLB acts on, as the expiration date page sets out.
If the record carries a different month from the one typed at checkout, write to support@contractorlicensedue.com with the correct one and the schedule is moved to it. Correcting it after the first email has gone out moves the two that remain; the one already sent is not recalled. The 30-day email is also the point at which the application should already be on the desk, and the renewal checklist walks through what to do if it is not.
The same message is the place to ask what was stored when the order address is uncertain, and support answers it from the order record rather than from memory. The contact page lists what a message needs, and how this site works sets out the order the whole sequence happens in.
Cancelling, and what happens to future emails
The yearly plan can be canceled at any time by writing to support@contractorlicensedue.com. Cancellation stops the next charge and every reminder that would have followed it. Nothing further is sent after the cancellation is processed.
It does not refund a year in which the checklist or a reminder was already sent, which is the line the refund page draws in full. A reader who wants the file but not the emails can simply ignore them; cancelling is the cleaner step if the card should not be charged again.
Why the emails link the table instead of naming an amount
An amount inside an email becomes a snapshot with an expiration of its own. The table at https://www.cslb.ca.gov/about_us/library/fees.aspx, read 2026-11-14, carries $450 for an active timely sole owner, more for a delinquent one, and one parenthetical that does not match its own row label.
A link is opened at the moment of payment and read in that moment. A copied number cannot be corrected once it is sent, so the reminders send the reader to the page that is kept current rather than to a figure that was right on the day the email went out.
If a reminder lands in spam
Add support@contractorlicensedue.com to the address book or the safe-sender list, and mark the first message as not spam so the other two follow it. The mail is ordinary transactional email with no attachments beyond the PDF, which helps, but filters still guess.
A reminder sitting in a spam folder has still been sent, so it counts against the refund window as well as against nothing else. If none of the three arrive at all, write to that address and the schedule is checked against the stored month.
Questions
How many reminders does the yearly plan send?
Three, at 30 days, 7 days and 1 day before the last day of the month stored with the order. The one-time plan sends none.
Can I choose different reminder dates?
No. The three dates are fixed at 30, 7 and 1 days back from the stored month. A month entered wrongly can be corrected by writing to support@contractorlicensedue.com.
Do reminders keep coming after I cancel?
No. Cancellation stops the next charge and the reminders that would have followed it. It does not refund a year in which a checklist or a reminder was already sent.
Will a reminder pay CSLB on my behalf?
No. The email carries the date and a link to the fee table. The renewal form and the payment are handled by the license holder, through the online portal or by mail or hand delivery.
What if my license expires in a different month than I entered?
Write to support@contractorlicensedue.com with the correct month and the schedule is moved to it. The month stored with the order is the only thing the three dates are counted back from.