Texas Is a Two-Axis License. Most Owners Only Think About One.
Class tells you what size you can touch. Endorsement tells you what kind of system. You need both right — and both cap your revenue.
| Element | What TDLR Says | What It Means for Your Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Class A | "The Class A license allows you to work on any size unit." | No capacity ceiling. Full light-commercial and commercial bidding. |
| Class B | "cooling systems of 25 tons and under, and heating systems of 1.5 million BTUs/hour and under." | 25 tons is where light commercial begins. A 30-ton rooftop is unbiddable — by law, not by skill. |
| Endorsement E | Environmental Air Conditioning. | Comfort cooling and heating. Most residential and light-commercial comfort work. |
| Endorsement R | Commercial Refrigeration & Process Cooling and Heating. | Walk-ins, coolers, process equipment. An entirely separate revenue stream — and one you cannot legally touch on an E endorsement alone. |
| Endorsement C | Combined endorsements. | Both lanes open. The widest addressable market available. |
| Fees | Contractor application $115; renewal $65. Registered technician $20 (minimum age 16, no exam). Certified technician $50. | The fees are trivial next to what a class or endorsement upgrade unlocks. |
| Insurance | TDLR requires a certificate of insurance in order to perform public work. | We publish no specific minimums — we could not confirm those figures in the TDLR document we retrieved. Verify directly with TDLR. |
Two numbers most Texas owners have never calculated: what did you turn away last year because it was over 25 tons? And how many refrigeration calls did you hand to a competitor because you hold E and not C? Multiply each by your average ticket. That is the real, quantified cost of your current license — and it is usually a much bigger number than owners expect.
Every licensing figure on this page came from the state board’s own website or its official application document. Every employment number came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Every climate figure came from NOAA. Where a number could not be confirmed at the primary source, we left it out rather than repeat it.
Licensing rules change. Confirm current requirements directly with the board before making a business decision. JordanWORX provides business guidance — not legal, licensing, or regulatory advice.
JordanWORX is headquartered in Orlando, Florida. We work with Texas owners remotely and on-site. We are not going to invent a local office or a local phone number to look like something we are not.
We will be straight with you: Texas is where we lean hardest on systems rather than local familiarity. Pricing, agreements, pay plans, dispatch discipline and recruiting are built on your numbers and transfer anywhere. Houston’s Gulf Coast humidity profile is the closest Texas analogue to the market we run in daily.
For context: the largest names in HVAC coaching run out of Washington State, Minnesota and New Jersey and sell nationally. Remote-delivered coaching is the norm in this industry, not the exception.
Leonard has spent 34+ years building, running, repairing, scaling and selling HVAC companies — starting his first from scratch in 1993 as the one man doing nearly everything. These systems were built under real pressure, with real payroll on the line. Not in a classroom.