HVAC & Mechanical in Georgia
The number on your trucks is a person's license number, and it comes off when they leave.
Georgia does not issue a conditioned air license to a company. The Division of Conditioned Air Contractors licenses an individual, and a partnership, LLC or corporation is given a business registration number that is that individual's own license number with GA. REG. in front of it. Board Rule 121-3-.05 then requires the business to stop conditioned air contracting the moment that person stops qualifying it, and to change every display of the number before it starts again. If that person leaves at closing, the fleet is re-lettered, every invoice and proposal form is reprinted, and a notarized severance form is due inside five days.
Atlanta / Savannah / Augusta / Columbus
Every display of the number changes before the work restarts
The individual who qualifies the company holds the license, and their own license number, with GA. REG. in front of it, is what the company letters on its trucks and calls a business registration. Board Rule 121-3-.05 makes the business registration number the license number of the qualifying licensee, including the prefix CN or CR, and requires it on both sides of every commercial vehicle in characters at least two inches high, in advertising, and on all invoices and proposal forms.
The same rule provides that if a licensee no longer qualifies a business to perform conditioned air contracting, the business shall cease conditioned air contracting until a licensee qualifies the business and all displays of the registration number are changed to include the license number of the new qualifying licensee. The registration is keyed to a person, so a share purchase leaves the entity holding a number belonging to whoever has just left. If the seller-owner is the qualifier and walks at closing, the trucks stop that day, and the buyer picks up a re-lettering of the fleet and a reprint of every invoice, proposal form and advertisement carrying the old number.
Chapter 43-14 has one continuation provision and it is a probate accommodation. O.C.G.A. § 43-14-14(e) lets the partners, officers and employees of a deceased licensee operate under a license which was valid at the time of the licensee's death for 90 days from the date of death, with one additional 90 day grace period available at the Division's discretion on a showing of good cause. Nothing in the chapter gives a resignation, a retirement or a change of ownership anything equivalent.
The notice deadline changed on July 1, 2026, and the board rule is shorter than the statute. O.C.G.A. § 43-14-14(g) makes it the duty of every qualified partnership, limited liability company and corporation to notify the appropriate division within seven days of the severance of the person upon whom qualification rested; the predecessor, former § 43-14-8(i), said only immediately. Board Rule 121-5-.02(f) makes it unprofessional conduct to fail to notify the Division in writing within five days of the severance of connection with a registered business. A closing calendar built on the statutory seven days can still produce a disciplinary finding under the five-day rule. Notice goes on the Conditioned Air Company Qualifying Licensee Severance Notification, and it has to be notarized inside those five days.
Georgia does not leave supervision to the facts. Board Rule 121-6-.01(1) provides that a qualifying licensee may not qualify more than one proprietorship, partnership or corporation for business registration at any one time, must be actually engaged in the practice of the business on a full-time basis, and is deemed unable to supervise work or respond to problems during the hours when such licensee is working for another employer. The deeming clause settles on the face of the rule what would otherwise be a question of fact about how much of the person's time the company actually gets. O.C.G.A. § 43-14-14(f) does the same for a second office, requiring a separately licensed person stationed on a full-time basis in each branch. Chapter 43-14 sets no residency requirement and no minimum ownership percentage, so the qualifier can be a salaried employee. The count is one licensee per registered entity and one per branch office.
O.C.G.A. § 43-14-2(5) caps Class I, the restricted class carrying the CR prefix, at air conditioning and heat pump systems of 60,000 BTUs of cooling or less and gas heating systems of 175,000 BTUs or less. Section 43-14-2(6) makes Class II, the CN prefix, residential and commercial without limitations or restrictions on project size or equipment types, except for the installation of boilers, which is licensed under the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire. Even an unlimited Class II license stops short of boiler installation, so a target running commercial mechanical work that includes boilers needs a credential the conditioned air file will not show. Section 43-14-2 does not carry the experience and examination criteria behind either class; the Division administers them, so what a replacement qualifier has to clear is not readable from the statute.
A mechanic is the statute's own example of who cannot be bound
Article 4 of Chapter 8 of Title 13 has governed Georgia restrictive covenants since May 11, 2011. O.C.G.A. § 13-8-53(a) bars enforcement of a post-employment non-compete against any employee who does not customarily and regularly solicit customers or prospective customers for the employer, does not customarily and regularly engage in making sales or obtaining orders, does not perform the described management duties, and is not a key employee or a professional.
O.C.G.A. § 13-8-51(14) defines a professional to exclude employees performing technician work using knowledge acquired through on-the-job and classroom training, rather than by acquiring the knowledge through prolonged academic study, such as might be performed, without limitation, by a mechanic, a manual laborer, or a ministerial employee. On-the-job and classroom training is how every HVAC service technician in the state learned the trade, and mechanic is the first example the statute reaches for. Section 13-8-53(a) is drafted as a bar on enforcement, so a covenant signed by an excluded technician was unenforceable on the day it was signed.
A dispatch or branch manager whose primary duty is management, who customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more other employees, and who can hire or fire or have those suggestions given particular weight, meets the management limb. A comfort advisor or in-home sales lead customarily and regularly makes sales and obtains orders. A technician who runs a route and quotes nothing meets none of the four.
O.C.G.A. § 13-8-53(b) permits a restriction on soliciting or attempting to solicit business from customers, and provides that it need not contain a specific geographic area where it is limited to the customers with whom the employee had material contact. A route technician has material contact with the customers they service, so the non-solicit reaches the person the duties test put outside the non-compete.
A $10,000 bond, a trade name filing, and one building department
O.C.G.A. § 43-14-16(b)(2) permits a licensed conditioned air contractor to execute and deposit with the judge of the probate court in the county of his or her principal place of business a bond in the sum of $10,000.00, in cash or with a surety company. Section 43-14-16(b)(1) then bars a county or municipality from requiring a code compliance bond of a licensee who has done so. The deposit is optional, and the individual licensee makes it, in that licensee's own county. A new qualifying licensee, or a move to a different county, means a new deposit, and until it is made a county or municipality can require a code compliance bond again.
O.C.G.A. § 43-14-19(b) provides that no municipality or county may require a person licensed under the chapter to comply with any additional licensing requirements. Section 43-14-16(c) preserves the power to levy and collect occupation taxes and license, registration and gross receipt fees, and § 43-14-16(a) goes further, letting a qualifying municipal or county inspection authority suspend the state license after notice and hearing, effective inside that authority's own jurisdiction. A single building department can close part of a metro-area company's service territory with no action by the state board, so the target's inspection history has to be read jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
Board Rule 121-5-.02(h) makes it unprofessional conduct to register a business that is in violation of O.C.G.A. § 10-1-490, the trade name registration filed with the Clerk of Superior Court, and Rule 121-5-.02(i) makes it unprofessional conduct to fail to produce that registration on request. A buyer that keeps the seller's brand as a d/b/a without filing the trade name registration in its own entity's name cannot produce that registration when the Division asks for it, which is itself unprofessional conduct under Rule 121-5-.02(i).
Questions Georgia sellers ask
- Our owner holds the license and wants to retire at closing. What does that cost?
- Contracting stops on the day of severance and does not restart until a licensee qualifies the business and the number is changed everywhere it appears. The only continuation in Chapter 43-14 is O.C.G.A. § 43-14-14(e), which gives 90 days after a licensee's death, with one additional 90 day period at the Division's discretion, and it is not available for a retirement. Two options answer it: seat a second Class II holder who intends to stay, or run the owner's post-closing consulting period long enough to cover requalification. Nothing in the chapter requires the qualifier to be a Georgia resident or to hold equity, so the role can sit with an employee.
- How long do we have to tell the state that the qualifier has left?
- Work to five days. O.C.G.A. § 43-14-14(g), effective July 1, 2026, gives seven days from the severance of the person upon whom qualification rested. Board Rule 121-5-.02(f) makes failing to notify the Division in writing within five days unprofessional conduct, so the shorter number is the one with discipline behind it. Notice goes on the Conditioned Air Company Qualifying Licensee Severance Notification, and it has to be notarized inside the five days.
- Our technicians quote replacements on commission. Does that move them inside the covenant statute?
- It can. O.C.G.A. § 13-8-53(a) reaches an employee who customarily and regularly engages in making sales or obtaining orders or contracts for products or services to be performed by others, and a technician who routinely quotes a replacement that an install crew then performs is doing what that limb describes. Whether a given technician has crossed the line is a fact question decided on the duties actually performed, so a roster where some technicians quote and some do not will split. The ones who stay outside all four categories are still reachable by a customer non-solicit under § 13-8-53(b) where they had material contact.
- Our buyer's counsel is working from a memo that cites O.C.G.A. § 43-14-8. Is that still the right section?
- No. Senate Bill 553, Act 472, signed May 11, 2026, repealed and re-enacted Chapter 43-14 effective July 1, 2026, and conditioned air moved from § 43-14-8 to § 43-14-14, with the chapter now running through § 43-14-24. The Division's own Business Registration Application and Severance Notification, both revised 1/2025, still print the old cite and still name Board Rule 121-6-.04, which was renumbered to 121-3-.05 effective March 19, 2025. Anything built on a template written before July 1, 2026 cites a repealed section.
Where these facts come from
Everything above that is a rule rather than a judgment is listed here with its publisher and the date it was checked. Licensing, tax and non-compete rules change, sometimes without much notice. None of this is legal or tax advice, and it is not a substitute for your own counsel and CPA.
Georgia Board Rule 121-3-.05 provides that the business registration number is the license number of the qualifying licensee, including the prefix CN or CR preceded by "GA. REG."; requires the registration number to be displayed on both sides of every commercial vehicle used by the business in characters at least two inches high, in advertising, and on all invoices and proposal forms; and provides that if a licensee no longer qualifies a business to perform conditioned air contracting, the business shall cease conditioned air contracting until a licensee qualifies the business and all displays of the registration number are changed to include the license number of the new qualifying licensee. The Division's Conditioned Air Company Qualifying Licensee Severance Notification carries the same statement, that the company shall cease conditioned air contracting at the time of such severance and shall no longer use the business registration number assigned in connection to the previous qualifying licensee.
Georgia Secretary of State, Rules and Regulations of the State of Georgia, Rule 121-3-.05. Checked 2026-09-07.
This rule was numbered 121-6-.04 until March 19, 2025, and the Division's own Business Registration Application and Severance Notification forms, both revised 1/2025, still cite the old number. Read the rule at its current citation and confirm which form revision the Division is accepting before building a closing calendar on it.
Georgia Board Rule 121-5-.02 defines unprofessional conduct for the Division of Conditioned Air Contractors. Subsection (f) makes it unprofessional conduct to fail to notify the Division in writing within five (5) days of the severance of connection with a registered business. Subsection (h) makes it unprofessional conduct to register a business that is in violation of O.C.G.A. § 10-1-490, the trade name registration filed with the Clerk of Superior Court, and subsection (i) makes it unprofessional conduct to fail to produce that registration on request. Notice of severance is given on the Conditioned Air Company Qualifying Licensee Severance Notification (form _6_QLSN), which must be notarized.
Georgia Secretary of State, Rules and Regulations of the State of Georgia, Rule 121-5-.02. Checked 2026-09-07.
The five-day rule is a conduct standard carrying discipline; the seven-day period in O.C.G.A. § 43-14-14(g) is a statutory duty. The two have not been reconciled in the rule text, so confirm the operative deadline with the Division rather than defaulting to the longer one. The text of O.C.G.A. § 10-1-490 is not on this page and should be read at its own citation.
O.C.G.A. § 43-14-14, enacted by Ga. L. 2026, p. 427, § 2/SB 553 and effective July 1, 2026, governs conditioned air contractor licensing. Subsection (e) permits partners, officers and employees of the qualifying individual to keep operating under a license which was valid at the time of the licensee's death for a period of 90 days from the date of such death, and permits the Division, at its discretion and upon application by the conditioned air contractor showing good cause, to grant one additional 90 day grace period. Subsection (f) requires a company with more than one office location performing conditioned air contracting to have a separately licensed person stationed on a full-time basis in each branch office. Subsection (g) makes it the duty of all partnerships, limited liability companies and corporations qualified under the chapter to notify the appropriate division within seven days of the severance of connection with such entity of any person or persons upon whom such qualification rested. The predecessor provision, former § 43-14-8(i), required notice "immediately" and set no fixed count. Chapter 43-14 contains no continuation permit, transition license or grace period for a resignation, a retirement or a change of ownership.
Justia, republishing the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, § 43-14-14. Checked 2026-09-07.
Justia republishes the Code and is not the official publisher. The 90-day provision is triggered by the licensee's death and by nothing else, and the second 90 days is discretionary rather than available on request. Conduct before July 1, 2026 is governed by former § 43-14-8; confirm which numbering applies to the period in question.
O.C.G.A. § 43-14-2(5) defines a Conditioned Air Contractor Class I as any individual licensed under the chapter for air conditioning and heat pump systems of 60,000 BTUs of cooling or less, and for gas heating systems of 175,000 BTUs or less. Section 43-14-2(6) defines a Conditioned Air Contractor Class II as any individual licensed under the chapter for residential and commercial work without limitations or restrictions on project size or equipment types, except for the installation of boilers, which is licensed under the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire. Both definitions attach the license to an individual rather than to a company. Class I licenses carry the prefix CR and Class II licenses the prefix CN.
Justia, republishing the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, § 43-14-2. Checked 2026-09-07.
Justia republishes the Code and is not the official publisher. The experience, examination and coursework criteria behind each class are administered by the Division and set outside § 43-14-2; read them from the Division's current application rather than from the definitions, and confirm the boiler carve-out with the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire for the specific equipment in question.
Senate Bill 553 (Act 472), signed May 11, 2026, repealed and re-enacted O.C.G.A. Chapter 43-14 effective July 1, 2026. The chapter was retitled "State Construction Industry Licensing Board" and expanded from §§ 43-14-1 through 43-14-18 to §§ 43-14-1 through 43-14-24. Conditioned air contractor licensing moved out of the omnibus § 43-14-8 into its own § 43-14-14, whose history line reads "Code 1981, § 43-14-14, enacted by Ga. L. 2026, p. 427, § 2/SB 553, effective July 1, 2026." The Division's Business Registration Application for Conditioned Air Companies (form _6_CAREG) and Conditioned Air Company Qualifying Licensee Severance Notification (form _6_QLSN), both revised 1/2025, still cite O.C.G.A. § 43-14-8(h)-(j) and Board Rules 121-6-.04 and 121-5-.02(f), and Rule 121-6-.04 was renumbered to 121-3-.05 effective March 19, 2025.
Justia, republishing the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, Chapter 43-14. Checked 2026-09-07.
Justia republishes the Code and is not the official publisher. Form revision dates and the citations printed on the forms change without notice; pull the current forms from the Division before relying on either numbering, and read the enrolled act for anything load-bearing.
Georgia Board Rule 121-6-.01(1) provides that a qualifying licensee may not qualify more than one proprietorship, partnership or corporation for business registration at any one time, must be actually engaged in the practice of the business on a full-time basis, must supervise work in progress and respond in a timely manner, and is deemed unable to supervise work or respond to problems during the hours when such licensee is working for another employer. Chapter 43-14 imposes no Georgia residency requirement and no minimum ownership percentage on a qualifying licensee. The Division does require a criminal background check and a lawful presence affidavit under O.C.G.A. § 50-36-1.
Georgia Secretary of State, Rules and Regulations of the State of Georgia, Rule 121-6-.01. Checked 2026-09-07.
The background check and lawful presence affidavit are application requirements administered by the Division rather than text of this rule, and O.C.G.A. § 50-36-1 applies across Georgia public benefit applications and should be read at its own citation. The absence of a residency or ownership test is a reading of what the chapter does not say, so confirm it with the Division before staffing a qualifier on that basis.
O.C.G.A. § 13-8-53(a) bars enforcement of a post-employment non-compete against any employee who does not, in the course of employment, customarily and regularly solicit for the employer customers or prospective customers; customarily and regularly engage in making sales or obtaining orders or contracts for products or services to be performed by others; perform the described management duties, being a primary duty of managing the enterprise or a customarily recognized department or subdivision of it, customarily and regularly directing the work of two or more other employees, and holding authority to hire or fire other employees or to have those suggestions given particular weight; or perform the duties of a key employee or of a professional. O.C.G.A. § 13-8-51(14) defines "professional" to exclude employees performing technician work using knowledge acquired through on-the-job and classroom training, rather than by acquiring the knowledge through prolonged academic study, such as might be performed, without limitation, by a mechanic, a manual laborer, or a ministerial employee. O.C.G.A. § 13-8-53(b) permits a restriction on soliciting or attempting to solicit business from customers and provides that it need not contain a specific geographic area where it is limited to the customers with whom the employee had material contact. Article 4 of Chapter 8 of Title 13 took effect May 11, 2011, and sets no salary or wage threshold, no advance notice requirement and no garden leave period.
Justia, republishing the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, § 13-8-53. Checked 2026-09-07.
Justia republishes the Code and is not the official publisher, and the definition of "professional" sits at § 13-8-51(14) rather than on this page. Section 13-8-53(a) is drafted as a bar on enforcement rather than as a grant, so an employee outside all four categories cannot be bound whatever the covenant says. Whether a given technician has crossed into the sales or management limbs is a fact question decided on duties actually performed, and a company that pays technicians to quote replacements has moved some of them.
O.C.G.A. § 43-14-16(b)(2) permits a licensed conditioned air contractor to execute and deposit with the judge of the probate court in the county of his or her principal place of business a bond in the sum of $10,000.00, in cash or with a surety company, and § 43-14-16(b)(1) provides that a county or municipality may not require a code compliance bond of a licensee who has done so. Section 43-14-16(c) preserves the power of counties and municipalities to levy and collect occupation taxes and license, registration and gross receipt fees. Section 43-14-16(a) permits a qualifying municipal or county inspection authority, after notice and hearing, to suspend the state license, with the suspension effective only within that authority's own jurisdiction. O.C.G.A. § 43-14-19(b) provides that no municipality or county may require a person licensed under the chapter to comply with any additional licensing requirements. The chapter conditions the conditioned air license itself on no state surety bond and no insurance filing.
Justia, republishing the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, § 43-14-16. Checked 2026-09-07.
Justia republishes the Code and is not the official publisher, and § 43-14-19(b) sits at its own citation rather than on this page. The bond is permissive: it is an election that buys off local code compliance bond demands, not a condition of the state license, and the statement that no state bond or insurance filing is required is a reading of what the chapter does not impose. These sections were renumbered by SB 553 effective July 1, 2026; confirm the current numbering before citing them in a disclosure schedule.
Page last reviewed 2026-09-07.
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