Texas ACR classes and endorsements, side by side.

The department decides what you qualify for, and the statute decides what each allows. Class A entitles the holder to each endorsed type of contracting in relation to a system, product, or equipment of any size or capacity. Class B covers the same work up to the cooling tonnage and heating output limits the statute names, which takes in most residential and light commercial systems. A shop that wants the rooftop units and the mechanical work needs Class A, and the exams are separate by class and by endorsement. For a coverage review the class tells the underwriter the size of the work.

Only if you do both kinds of work. The statute says a license must be endorsed with an environmental air conditioning endorsement, a commercial refrigeration and process cooling or heating endorsement, or both, and each endorsement has its own exam within each class. Environmental air is comfort cooling and heating for people; commercial refrigeration and process cooling or heating is the walk-in, the rack, and the process load. A shop that services restaurant refrigeration alongside rooftop units carries both, and the submission should say how the revenue splits, because the claims are different.

A technician assists a licensed contractor with maintenance work, and the department offers two paths. Registration is a short online filing with no exam. Certification has its own requirements and can count toward a contractor license: the statute lets an applicant qualify with thirty-six months of practical experience in the preceding forty-eight if they have held a technician certification for the preceding twelve months, instead of the forty-eight months otherwise required. For a coverage review, what matters is who is on your payroll and what they do, which is a workers’ comp class code question.

Yes. The statute says a contracting company must employ full time in each permanent office a license holder who holds an appropriate license assigned to that company, and a company without one at the time a contract is signed and when the work is performed may not collect a fee or otherwise enforce the contract. A license holder may assign the license to only one permanent location. So a second branch means a second license holder, and it also means a second address on the policy, which is why we ask about locations before the quote.

Not on your ACR license alone. The statute says a person licensed as a contractor under this chapter may not perform work defined as plumbing under chapter 1301 unless the person holds a plumbing license, and it draws similar lines around engineering and around liquefied petroleum gas work licensed elsewhere. So the gas connection to a furnace is where an HVAC shop either employs a licensed plumber or subcontracts. We do not draw that line for a specific job. We ask who does the gas work, because it changes the underwriting and the certificates we collect from subs.

Generally no, and that is the useful part. The statute says a license issued by the department is valid throughout the state and that a state license holder is not required to hold a municipal license to contract in any municipality in Texas, though a municipality may require notice that you hold the state license and may adopt consistent standards of its own. A municipal ACR license that meets the statute is valid inside that municipality only. So a shop working across several cities is simpler on the state license, and the department’s certificate is the one every city can verify.