Minnesota DLI Professional License Scraper

Minnesota DLI License Scraper — Contractor, Electrician, Plumber, Boiler & Bond License Data

The fastest, most comprehensive Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) license data extractor on Apify. This Minnesota DLI scraper extracts the official regulant database — residential building contractors, master and journeyman electricians, plumbers, boiler operators, elevator constructors, high-pressure pipefitters, contractor registrations, and mechanical contractor bond holders — into clean, normalized records ready for compliance, B2B lead generation, trades recruiting, credentialing, and market intelligence across Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Rochester, Duluth, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Plymouth, Woodbury, Lakeville, St. Cloud, and every other Minnesota market. No login, no coding, no captcha.

Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or API.

Built for: construction and building material suppliers building B2B lead lists, general contractors running subcontractor credentialing and compliance checks, trades staffing recruiters sourcing certified journeymen, underwriters evaluating commercial surety and liability risk, and market researchers tracking Minnesota construction growth.

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⚡ At a glance

Feature	Details
Data Source	Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) Official Regulant Database
Geographic Scope	All 87 Minnesota counties (Twin Cities metro, Rochester, Duluth, St. Cloud, statewide)
Trade Categories	Electrical, Plumbing, Residential Contractors, Registrations, Mechanical Bonds, Boiler, High-Pressure Piping, Elevator
Available Records	260,000+ active & historical licensed professionals and registered businesses
Key Output Fields	License #, legal name, DBA, trade subtype, entity type, status, issue date, expiration date, street address, city, state, ZIP, county, phone, bond info
Export Formats	JSON, CSV, Excel (XLSX), XML, HTML table, webhook & REST API
Max Capacity	Scalable from 50 test records to 1,000+ or full state extraction (260K+ rows)
Execution Speed	~100 records in <10 seconds; full snapshots in under 2 minutes
Proxy Requirements	None required; optional Apify Proxy supported

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🔎 Why scrape Minnesota DLI license data?

The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) is the primary regulatory agency overseeing construction trades, mechanical contractors, electrical systems, and building safety across Minnesota. DLI maintains comprehensive credential records for more than 260,000 professional tradespeople, specialty contractors, and registered business entities.

Manually navigating public portals or parsing massive tabular files creates significant operational friction for sales and operations teams:

• B2B lead generation & sales prospecting: Construction material wholesalers, equipment rental providers, software vendors, and commercial lenders can pinpoint active licensed general contractors, master electricians, and plumbing businesses across specific Minnesota ZIP codes or counties.
• Subcontractor compliance & vendor onboarding: General contractors (GCs) and project managers can automate credential verification, ensuring that every trade partner on site possesses an active, unexpired license without disciplinary actions.
• Insurance underwriting & surety bonding: Commercial lines carriers, MGAs, and surety bond agents can cross-reference applicant data against official license status, effective dates, bond carrier information, and historical enforcement notices.
• Trades recruiting & talent acquisition: Staffing agencies and industrial employers can identify certified journeymen and master tradespeople holding specialized credentials (e.g., high-pressure pipefitting, boiler operation, elevator construction).
• Market intelligence & competitive analysis: Private equity firms and building product manufacturers can map trade contractor concentration, market share, and regional licensing velocity across the Upper Midwest.

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🗂️ Covered Minnesota License Categories

This scraper extracts data across all eight statutory DLI licensing categories:

1. Residential Contractors (Residential_Contractors): Licensed residential building contractors (RBC), residential remodelers (RR), and residential roofers (RS). These are primary entities constructing, repairing, and improving homes throughout Minnesota.
2. Contractor Registrations (Contractor_Registrations): Unlicensed specialty trade subcontractors registered under Minnesota's statutory contractor registration program.
3. Electrical (Electrical): Class A and Class B master electricians, journeyman electricians, maintenance electricians, power limited technicians, and licensed electrical contractor businesses. Represents over 110,000 records statewide.
4. Plumbing (Plumbing): Master plumbers, journeyman plumbers, plumbing contractors, medical gas piping certifiers, and registered plumbing apprentices.
5. Mechanical Contractor Bond (Mechanical_Contractor_Bond): Heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), sheet metal, refrigeration, and environmental systems contractors holding statutory mechanical surety bonds with the state.
6. Boiler Operations & Inspection (Boiler): Chief engineers, 1st class engineers, 2nd class engineers, special boiler engineers, and certified boiler historical operators overseeing high and low pressure boilers.
7. High Pressure Piping (High_Pressure_Piping): Pipefitter journeymen, pipefitter contractors, and certified high-pressure piping specialists working on pressurized industrial process piping systems.
8. Elevator Constructors (Elevator): Master elevator constructors, journeyman elevator constructors, and elevator contractor businesses servicing commercial conveying systems.

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✨ What this Minnesota DLI scraper does

This actor delivers an end-to-end data pipeline that extracts, validates, and normalizes Minnesota trades licensing records into structured datasets:

• ✅ Full category coverage: Access all 8 primary regulant categories — Electrical, Plumbing, Residential_Contractors, Contractor_Registrations, Mechanical_Contractor_Bond, Boiler, High_Pressure_Piping, and Elevator.
• ✅ Flexible extraction modes: Pick specific trade categories for targeted searches, or toggle full-state mode to process the comprehensive statewide dataset in a single run.
• ✅ Clean entity classification: Automatically categorizes entries into business entities versus individual license holders based on official regulatory attributes.
• ✅ Deep 1,000+ record pagination: Request anywhere from a quick 100-record sample to 1,000+ entries or full statewide dumps without artificial caps.
• ✅ Standardized data hygiene: Cleanly formats telephone numbers, normalizes dates into standardized ISO stamps, strips padding from postal codes, and resolves DBA trade names.
• ✅ Status filtering: Instantly filter for currently active (issued) licenses or include expired, suspended, and historical records for audit trails.
• ✅ Developer-friendly integration: Native Apify dataset export to JSON, CSV, and Excel, with webhook triggers and REST API support.

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📊 Extracted Data Fields

The scraper extracts all regulatory fields and maps them into a consistent, developer-ready schema:

🏢 Licensing & Classification Fields

Field	Coverage	Description
licenseNumber	🟢 High (100%)	Official state license or registration number (e.g., BC654321)
name	🟢 High (100%)	Primary business or individual licensee name
licenseType	🟢 High (100%)	High-level regulatory trade category (e.g., Residential Contractors)
licenseSubtype	🟢 High (98%)	Specific credential or craft classification (e.g., Residential Building Contractor)
sourceCategory	🟢 High (100%)	Standardized internal category key
entityType	🟢 High (100%)	Entity classification: Business or Individual
businessName	🟡 Conditional	Clean business entity name when license is corporate
individualName	🟡 Conditional	Formatted personal name when license is held individually
dba	🟡 Conditional	Doing Business As / trade name registered with DLI
responsibleIndividual	🟡 Conditional	Qualifying licensee or designated responsible managing officer

📅 Status & Compliance Fields

Field	Coverage	Description
status	🟢 High (100%)	Current licensing status (Issued, Expired, Suspended, Revoked)
issueDate	🟢 High (99%)	Date the credential was originally issued (YYYY-MM-DD)
expirationDate	🟢 High (99%)	Current expiration date (YYYY-MM-DD)
enforcementAction	🟢 High (100%)	Indicates whether formal enforcement or disciplinary action is noted (true/false)
renewalInProgress	🟢 High (100%)	Flags whether a license renewal application is currently pending (true/false)
bondAmount	🟡 Conditional	Stated surety or mechanical bond amount where required by statute
bondCompany	🟡 Conditional	Underwriting surety company holding the active compliance bond

📍 Location & Contact Fields

Field	Coverage	Description
address	🟢 High (98%)	Primary mailing or business physical street address
city	🟢 High (99%)	City or municipality name
state	🟢 High (100%)	Two-letter state code (MN or out-of-state licensee origin)
zipCode	🟢 High (99%)	Standardized 5-digit US postal ZIP code
county	🟡 Conditional	Minnesota county name corresponding to the licensee address
phone	🟡 Conditional (55-65%)	Primary telephone contact number provided on the license filing
email	⚪ Rare (<5%)	Email address when voluntarily supplied on public public filings
scrapedAt	🟢 High (100%)	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp of record extraction

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⚙️ Input Parameters

Configure your crawl using intuitive settings in the Apify Console or pass JSON parameters via API:

{
  "categories": [
    "Residential_Contractors",
    "Electrical",
    "Plumbing"
  ],
  "useZip": false,
  "statusFilter": "issued",
  "maxRecords": 500,
  "requestDelay": 200
}

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
categories	array	["Mechanical_Contractor_Bond", "High_Pressure_Piping"]	Select one or more trade categories to extract. Leave empty to process all categories.
useZip	boolean	false	Enable to download the full statewide snapshot in one pass. Ideal for comprehensive bulk exports.
statusFilter	string	"all"	Filter by license standing: "issued" for active licenses only, or "all" for full historical records.
maxRecords	integer	100 (prefill), 0 (default)	Maximum records to output across selected categories. Set to 0 for unlimited extraction.
requestDelay	integer	200	Optional millisecond pause between category streams to balance network throughput.
proxyConfiguration	object	{"useApifyProxy": false}	Optional proxy settings. Public streams operate reliably without proxies.

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📦 Sample Output

Every record is returned as structured, normalized JSON:

{
  "licenseNumber": "BC789123",
  "name": "NORTH STAR CRAFTSMEN LLC",
  "businessName": "NORTH STAR CRAFTSMEN LLC",
  "individualName": null,
  "dba": "NORTH STAR ROOFING & EXTERIORS",
  "responsibleIndividual": "JOHN R LARSON",
  "licenseType": "Residential Contractors",
  "licenseSubtype": "Residential Building Contractor",
  "sourceCategory": "Residential_Contractors",
  "entityType": "Business",
  "status": "Issued",
  "issueDate": "2018-04-12",
  "expirationDate": "2026-03-31",
  "enforcementAction": false,
  "renewalInProgress": false,
  "address": "1420 INDUSTRIAL BLVD STE 200",
  "city": "MINNEAPOLIS",
  "state": "MN",
  "zipCode": "55413",
  "county": "Hennepin",
  "phone": "(612) 555-0192",
  "email": null,
  "bondAmount": "$15,000",
  "bondCompany": "TRAVELERS CASUALTY & SURETY CO",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-11-10T12:00:00.000Z"
}

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💡 Practical Use Cases

1. B2B Sales Prospecting for Building Supplies

Commercial suppliers selling lumber, electrical panels, plumbing fixtures, or roofing materials can filter by category (e.g., Residential_Contractors or Electrical) and target active, licensed business entities throughout Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding metros. Export contacts with phone numbers and street addresses to feed CRM outreach campaigns.

2. General Contractor Subcontractor Credentialing

Before dispatching specialty trades to active job sites, commercial general contractors can cross-reference trade partners against official DLI records. Verify whether their license is currently Issued, confirm that the license subtype matches the contracted scope of work, and ensure that expiration dates extend beyond project milestones.

3. Surety & Commercial Insurance Lead Generation

Surety bond brokers and commercial P&C agencies can track firms registered under Mechanical_Contractor_Bond or Residential_Contractors whose licenses approach statutory renewal deadlines. Proactively reach out to offer competitive commercial auto, general liability, and bonding solutions.

4. Direct Mail Marketing to Licensed Trades

Direct mail campaigns targeting trades professionals achieve significantly higher deliverability when verified against state licensing rosters. Pull physical addresses for verified businesses and eliminate invalid leads before printing postcards, catalogs, or equipment promotions.

5. Regional Economic Analysis & Roll-Up Strategy

Private equity investors and corporate acquirers pursuing HVAC, electrical, or plumbing roll-ups in the Upper Midwest can gauge market density, corporate age (based on issueDate), and geographic clustering of independent service contractors.

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🛠️ Data Normalization & Quality Assurance

Raw regulatory rosters frequently suffer from legacy formatting artifacts. This Actor applies extensive data hygiene filters on every record:

• Entity Separation: Analyzes regulatory classification headers to accurately populate businessName versus individualName.
• Phone Number Cleansing: Removes extraneous alpha characters, strips non-numeric noise, and standardizes numbers into standard 10-digit formats with area codes.
• Address & Postal Standardization: Trims redundant zero-padded ZIP+4 extensions (e.g., 55401-0000 is cleaned to 55401) and capitalizes municipality names uniformly.
• Date Normalization: Parses varied US date stamps (MM/DD/YYYY) into standard ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD) for direct database ingest and temporal filtering.
• Enforcement Flagging: Booleans enforcementAction and renewalInProgress are parsed into true booleans rather than ambiguous state codes.

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🚀 How to Run via Apify API

Trigger the actor programmatically from your Node.js, Python, or shell workflows:

Node.js (Apify Client)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

const run = await client.actor('haketa/minnesota-dli-license-scraper').call({
    categories: ['Residential_Contractors', 'Plumbing'],
    statusFilter: 'issued',
    maxRecords: 1000,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Successfully scraped ${items.length} active Minnesota licenses.`);

Python (Apify Client)

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.getenv('APIFY_TOKEN'))

run = client.actor('haketa/minnesota-dli-license-scraper').call(run_input={
    'categories': ['Electrical', 'Mechanical_Contractor_Bond'],
    'statusFilter': 'issued',
    'maxRecords': 1000,
})

dataset_items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(f'Retrieved {len(dataset_items)} Minnesota licensing records.')

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/haketa~minnesota-dli-license-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "categories": ["Residential_Contractors"],
    "statusFilter": "issued",
    "maxRecords": 500
  }'

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

How many records are available in total? The entire Minnesota DLI regulant registry contains over 260,000 records across all 8 trade categories. The Electrical category alone represents over 100,000 individual and business entries.

Can I request 1,000+ or unlimited records? Yes. You can set maxRecords to 1000, 5000, 50000, or 0 (unlimited). Setting maxRecords: 0 instructs the scraper to collect all matching records for your selected categories or full statewide export.

How fast does the actor run? Targeted category runs collecting 100–500 records typically finish in 5 to 15 seconds. Full statewide extractions using useZip: true process hundreds of thousands of rows in under two minutes thanks to optimized streaming parsers.

Are phone numbers and email addresses included? Primary business telephone numbers are present on approximately 55% to 65% of records, depending on whether the licensee elected to provide a phone contact upon filing. Email addresses are rarely disclosed in public regulatory exports (<5%).

Can I run the actor on a recurring schedule? Yes. Use Apify Schedules to trigger weekly or monthly runs. This enables you to track license status changes, detect newly issued trade credentials, and identify expiring bonds automatically.

What formats can I download the results in? Datasets can be downloaded directly from the Apify Console or API as JSON, CSV, Microsoft Excel (XLSX), XML, or RSS feeds.

What is the difference between Residential Contractors and Contractor Registrations? Residential Contractors hold a full qualifying builder or remodeler license (such as RBC or RR), requiring insurance, bonding, and exam qualifications. Contractor Registrations cover specialty trade subcontractors that do not require a separate state license but must be registered with DLI.

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Can I export directly into Pandas or CSV for data analysis? Yes. You can fetch the raw dataset directly into a Python Pandas DataFrame using pd.read_csv("https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?format=csv") or by calling the Apify Python client directly.

How often does the state update licensing information? The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry refreshes its public licensing database continuously. New licenses, renewals, and status modifications are reflected in live daily snapshots.

Are disciplinary records and enforcement actions detailed? The scraper provides a boolean flag (enforcementAction) indicating whether formal administrative or disciplinary enforcement exists on the record. For full enforcement order texts, licensees can be cross-referenced with public DLI dockets.

Can I target specific trade subtypes like Journeyman Electrician or Master Plumber? Yes. While the scraper pulls across the requested high-level category (e.g., Electrical), every row retains its granular licenseSubtype (such as Class A Master Electrician, Class A Journeyman, or Maintenance Electrician). You can filter downstream or in Apify dataset views.

🔗 Related State Licensing Scrapers

Building multi-state contractor databases? Explore these complementary scrapers from the same publisher:

• Arizona ROC Contractor License Scraper — Official Arizona Registrar of Contractors database
• Washington L&I Contractor License Scraper — Washington State Department of Labor & Industries
• Virginia DPOR Professional License Scraper — Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation
• Colorado Professional License Scraper — Colorado DORA state licensing board
• Ohio eLicense Scraper — Ohio state professional and trades licensing
• NC Licensing Board for General Contractors Scraper — North Carolina general contractor registry

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🗺️ Minnesota Geographic & County Coverage

This scraper extracts licensing data across all 87 Minnesota counties and major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs):

• Twin Cities Metropolitan Area: Hennepin County (Minneapolis, Bloomington, Plymouth, Brooklyn Park, Eden Prairie), Ramsey County (Saint Paul, Roseville, Maplewood), Dakota County (Lakeville, Eagan, Burnsville), Anoka County (Coon Rapids, Blaine, Andover), Washington County (Woodbury, Cottage Grove, Stillwater), Carver County (Chanhassen, Chaska), and Scott County (Shakopee, Prior Lake).
• Central & Northern Minnesota: Olmsted County (Rochester), St. Louis County (Duluth, Hibbing, Virginia), Stearns County (St. Cloud), Clay County (Moorhead), Crow Wing County (Brainerd), and Beltrami County (Bemidji).
• Southern & Western Minnesota: Blue Earth County (Mankato), Winona County (Winona), Nicollet County (North Mankato), Lyon County (Marshall), and Kandiyohi County (Willmar).
• Out-of-State Reciprocal Licensees: Regulants based in neighboring states (Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota) maintaining registered reciprocal licenses to operate on Minnesota construction projects.

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🔄 Automated Workflows & CRM Integration

Seamlessly integrate scraped Minnesota licensing records into your existing technology stack:

• HubSpot & Salesforce CRM Sync: Ingest new general contractors and electrical firms directly into your CRM pipeline with automated enrichment for business name, license status, and phone numbers.
• Automated Zapier & Make Webhooks: Configure Apify Webhooks to trigger instantaneous notifications or update Google Sheets whenever a scheduled run finishes.
• PostgreSQL / BigQuery Data Warehousing: Pipe clean JSON datasets into relational warehouses to maintain historical time-series datasets of contractor credential renewals and bond statuses.
• Weekly Compliance Alerts: Schedule a weekly diff run to spot subcontractors whose licenses have lapsed from Issued into Expired or Suspended status.

📋 Changelog

Version 1.2 (2026-11)

• Deep 1,000+ Pagination Unlocked: Fully uncapped record limits for multi-category and bulk queries, enabling seamless extraction of 1,000 to 260,000+ records.
• Fast Prefill Optimization: Streamlined default prefill parameters to deliver a high-signal 100-record mixed sample in <10 seconds.
• Enhanced Field Normalization: Upgraded phone number formatting, ISO date parsing, and robust ZIP code trimming across all 8 trade categories.
• Improved Fault Tolerance: Hardened streaming parser against corrupted or malformed rows in regulatory snapshots.

Version 1.1 (2026-07)

• Added dual ingestion support: individual category streams and full statewide combined archives.
• Automated entity classification into corporate businesses versus individual tradespeople.
• Integrated bond amount and surety company detection for mechanical and contracting bond holders.

Version 1.0 (2026-04)

• Initial release with support for all 8 Minnesota DLI trade categories.
• Direct HTTPS streaming engine with zero proxy or browser overhead.