There is no single, human-readable file manifest inside the download folder. Instead, DBPR maintains an Instant Public Records index that points to a separate page for each regulated profession. Those pages link to raw CSV files with names such as lic07mold.csv, lic04home.csv, electrical.csv, cilb_registered.csv, and hrfood7.csv.
The names do not follow one dependable pattern. The layouts are not universal. Many files have no header row. Some are replaced in place when DBPR refreshes them. This guide explains the system we use to locate, preserve, and analyze the files without turning a raw row count into a false conclusion.
Start with the profession page, not a guessed file name
The safest entry point is DBPR’s Instant Public Records page. It links to the public-record page for each program, including mold-related services, home inspectors, construction, electrical contractors, asbestos, real estate, hotels and restaurants, and other regulated fields.
Each profession page normally provides three things:
- a description of the file layout;
- a note describing which license statuses are included or excluded;
- one or more direct download links.
Use that profession page as the stable citation. Treat the raw CSV URL as a download endpoint, not as a permanent API contract.
Property-related DBPR files
These are the files most closely connected to Florida housing, inspection, repair, moisture, and remediation work.
Scroll the table horizontally on smaller screens.
| Area | Official file | What to check before using it |
|---|---|---|
| Mold assessment and remediation | lic07mold.csv | Includes mold assessors, mold remediators, and education records. Filter the occupation or class value and both status fields. |
| Home inspection | lic04home.csv | Uses the same 22-position license layout as the mold file, but includes active and inactive records. |
| Asbestos | lic59asb.csv | Use the asbestos program’s layout page and distinguish consultants, contractors, and businesses. |
| Community association management | lic38cam.csv | Do not mix individual managers, firms, applicants, and continuing-education records. |
| Electrical contractors | lic08el.csv | The public-record page also links separate applicant and education files. |
| Building code administrators and inspectors | BuildingCodeLicensee.csv | This is separate from the building-code continuing-education file. |
| Construction licensees | CONSTRUCTIONLICENSE_1.csv | The separate cilb_certified.csv and cilb_registered.csv downloads contain continuing-education records, not the main licensee list. |
| Construction continuing education | cilb_certified.csv and cilb_registered.csv | These files use the continuing-education layout. The October 7, 2026 certified download was about 743 MB. |
The Mold-Related Services public-record page and Home Inspectors public-record page are good examples of the standard license-file layout. Construction and food-service files use different structures and should not be forced into the same schema.
Why people search for hrfood7.csv
Hotels and restaurants are handled differently. Active food-service license records are split across seven regulatory districts:
hrfood1.csvhrfood2.csvhrfood3.csvhrfood4.csvhrfood5.csvhrfood6.csvhrfood7.csv
The Restaurants and Food Service public-record page also links separate inspection, new-establishment, ownership-change, plan-review, and disciplinary files. A district license file is not the same dataset as an inspection file.
If a direct hrfood7.csv link stops being useful, return to the public-record page and follow the current district link. Do not substitute another district merely because its file name looks similar.
The standard 22-position license layout
The mold and home-inspector downloads are quoted, comma-delimited files without a header row. Their program pages publish the field order separately.
| Position | Field |
|---|---|
| 1 | Board number |
| 2 | Occupation or class value |
| 3 | Licensee name |
| 4 | Doing business as name |
| 5 | Class code |
| 6 | Address line 1 |
| 7 | Address line 2 |
| 8 | Address line 3 |
| 9 | City |
| 10 | State |
| 11 | ZIP code |
| 12 | County code |
| 13 | License number |
| 14 | Primary status |
| 15 | Secondary status |
| 16 | Original licensure date |
| 17 | Effective date |
| 18 | Expiration date |
| 19 | Blank or reserved field |
| 20 | Renewal period |
| 21 | Alternate license number |
| 22 | Continuing-education exemption |
The second value in an actual mold row may be MRSA or MRSR, even though the program page labels the position as an occupation code. DBPR’s code reference maps board 07 to mold-related services and identifies MRSA as mold assessor and MRSR as mold remediator.
That mismatch is one reason to inspect real rows instead of building a parser from the field labels alone.
Status codes: current is not the same as active
For the cross-agency license files, DBPR lists these primary status codes:
C: CurrentP: ProbationS: Suspended
The secondary status codes include:
A: ActiveI: Inactive
A count of usable active licenses normally needs both conditions, Primary Status = C and Secondary Status = A, plus the intended occupation or license type. Counting every row in the file overstates the active market.
The profession page matters here. The mold and home-inspector pages say their downloads contain active, inactive, and voluntarily inactive licensees while excluding null-and-void, delinquent, and involuntarily inactive records. An excluded row is not proof that the person or license never existed.
Four common parsing mistakes
1. Treating the first row as column names
The files we checked begin immediately with data. Supply the field names yourself from the official layout page.
2. Letting a spreadsheet change identifiers
License numbers, ZIP codes, county codes, and other identifiers may begin with zero. Import them as text. Opening the file directly in a spreadsheet can remove leading zeros or display long values incorrectly.
3. Counting licenses as people
One person can hold more than one license. In our August 4, 2026 mold snapshot, 5,306 active licenses belonged to 3,936 people because many individuals held both assessor and remediator licenses. The matching method and limits are described in our Florida mold remediators by county analysis.
4. Treating the address county as the service area
The county field describes the address in the license record. It does not prove that the licensee works only in that county. A Fort Lauderdale business can take a job in Miami, and a county with no registered remediator may still be served by companies based elsewhere.
What our October 2026 check found
We downloaded two standard license files on October 7, 2026.
Scroll the table horizontally on smaller screens.
| File | Raw rows | Header row | Approximate size |
|---|---|---|---|
lic07mold.csv | 6,967 | No | 1.26 MB |
lic04home.csv | 9,436 | No | 1.69 MB |
Those are raw record counts, not counts of active professionals. They will change as DBPR refreshes the downloads. The retrieval date belongs beside every result derived from them.
The certified CILB continuing-education file was in a different class entirely at about 743 MB. That is large enough to be inconvenient in a browser or spreadsheet and another reason not to promise one universal DBPR workflow.
How often the data changes
DBPR’s general public-record disclaimer says download data is refreshed weekly, although maintenance can delay an update. Some divisions state a different schedule. Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, for example, says its extract files are updated every morning.
Always use the schedule stated on the relevant program page. Record the retrieval date yourself. A file’s URL does not encode the snapshot date.
For up-to-the-minute verification of an individual license, DBPR directs users to its Verify a License search. A bulk download is a research snapshot, not a substitute for that search.
Why we save snapshots
Many current license files keep the same name when DBPR refreshes them. That makes the link convenient, but it means two downloads from the same URL can contain different records.
Some DBPR divisions publish historical reports. Others do not provide a comparable archive for their core licensee file. For mold-related services, we saved the August 4, 2026 extract and plan to keep dated copies. A time series can answer questions that one overwritten snapshot cannot, such as how many active licenses appeared, disappeared, or changed status between quarters.
We do not present a missing record as a business closure without additional evidence. The change may reflect renewal timing, a status update, an address change, or the file’s inclusion rules.
Public data still needs restraint
Some DBPR files contain names and mailing addresses. Public availability answers whether a record can be inspected. It does not automatically answer whether every field should be republished in a new searchable profile.
Aridalia uses these records for aggregate reporting and reproducible counts. Before building a person-level search product, we would separately review the file’s terms, the public-record context, the purpose of republication, and the risk of amplifying personal addresses.
A repeatable DBPR workflow
- Open the Instant Public Records index.
- Choose the regulated profession.
- Read the program’s inclusion note and file-layout section.
- Download the file from that page instead of guessing its name.
- Save a dated copy and record the source URL.
- Import identifier columns as text.
- Apply occupation and status filters before counting.
- Separate licenses, people, businesses, applicants, courses, and inspections.
- State what the address or county field actually represents.
- Use DBPR’s live license search for current verification.
Sources
- DBPR Instant Public Records
- DBPR Public Records Read Me and Disclaimer
- Understanding DBPR Codes
- Mold-Related Services Public Records
- Home Inspectors Public Records
- Construction Industry Public Records
- Electrical Contractors Public Records
- Asbestos Contractors and Consultants Public Records
- Building Code Administrators and Inspectors Public Records
- Community Association Managers and Firms Public Records
- Restaurants and Food Service Public Records
- Aridalia methodology