Did you know that the State of North Carolina has no single general business license? Businesses must ensure compliance with all requirements set by the state for the work their business does. Some businesses may be subject to several state requirements while others may not be subject to any. There are over 700 regulatory, state issued, and occupational licenses and permits in North Carolina. Oh wait! It gets better, there may be a local license required for your business too.
The fees from these licenses are typically flat fees and are collected by each individual county. The Department of Revenue does not collect individual license data, but does follow overall collections. Across North Carolina, counties collected $8.144 million in occupational license fees. See the list of county collections below.
Total License Collections | |
Cumberland | $ 921,773 |
Gaston | 733,650 |
New Hanover | 647,094 |
Cabarrus | 594,165 |
Orange | 547,738 |
Wake | 446,298 |
Currituck | 414,475 |
Mecklenburg | 382,750 |
Forsyth | 354,994 |
Wilkes | 340,482 |
Camden | 337,938 |
Nash | 274,001 |
Guilford | 198,343 |
Randolph | 116,067 |
Macon | 111,296 |
Rowan | 86,697 |
Onslow | 84,787 |
Iredell | 79,461 |
Durham | 74,611 |
Buncombe | 72,950 |
Brunswick | 70,846 |
Alamance | 70,064 |
Craven | 63,424 |
Carteret | 56,661 |
Union | 51,003 |
Johnston | 50,385 |
Catawba | 49,830 |
Robeson | 48,174 |
Rockingham | 47,737 |
Stanly | 40,615 |
Stokes | 39,485 |
Washington | 38,875 |
Pitt | 38,831 |
Edgecombe | 38,364 |
Dare | 35,377 |
Surry | 32,391 |
Haywood | 29,160 |
Halifax | 25,723 |
Duplin | 25,449 |
Wilson | 23,623 |
Sampson | 22,860 |
Person | 22,810 |
Burke | 22,445 |
Franklin | 21,685 |
Jackson | 21,283 |
Lenoir | 21,169 |
Hertford | 20,862 |
Cleveland | 20,235 |
Yadkin | 19,320 |
Davie | 18,566 |
Chatham | 18,205 |
Henderson | 17,392 |
Richmond | 15,205 |
Alexander | 12,660 |
Rutherford | 12,395 |
Cherokee | 11,040 |
Swain | 10,600 |
Madison | 10,440 |
Montgomery | 10,250 |
Pasquotank | 9,580 |
Avery | 8,640 |
Ashe | 7,991 |
Vance | 7,677 |
Mitchell | 7,080 |
Perquimans | 6,726 |
Granville | 6,710 |
Northampton | 6,455 |
Bertie | 5,935 |
Chowan | 5,400 |
Martin | 4,920 |
Scotland | 4,823 |
Clay | 4,500 |
Watauga | 4,425 |
Graham | 4,000 |
Alleghany | 3,980 |
Bladen | 3,718 |
Polk | 3,525 |
Hyde | 3,268 |
Yancey | 2,466 |
Gates | 2,060 |
Pamlico | 1,904 |
Tyrrell | 1,196 |
Jones | 1,065 |
Anson | 915 |
Caswell | 705 |
*All Information on occupational licenses can be found at the Dept. of Commerce and data was supplied from the Dept. of Revenue