CSLB exam
Law & Business
The business-and-law exam every California contractor license requires, whatever the trade: how a contracting business is organized, financed, staffed, insured and contracted, and kept safe. Taken alongside the trade exam.
What Trade Forge Prep offers
This site covers all 7 content areas CSLB tests on this exam. Each area has its own study guides and practice questions; across them there are 11 job scenarios that put you on a real job and ask what you would do next, eight timed practice exams, and a study plan that paces your reading. You'll find the same for General Building (B): all 5 of its content areas, with every kind of practice.
Without an accountYou are here
Start free with Contract Requirements and Execution: its study guides, every practice question, and the job scenario. Plus the study guides for every other area.
With a free account
Everything above, plus Employment Requirements, one timed practice exam, and progress that follows you to any device.
With a paid account
Every content type in every area of both exams, eight timed practice exams for each exam, and a study plan that paces your reading.
What CSLB tests, and how much of each
These are the 7 content areas in CSLB's own exam PDF, and the share of the exam each one carries. Everything on this site is organized around them.
- Business Organization and Licensing
- 13%
- Business Finances
- 15%
- Employment Requirements
- 20%
- Insurance and Liens
- 12%
- Contract Requirements and Execution
- 21%
- Public Works
- 5%
- Safety
- 14%
Study guides
The guides are grouped by content area. Each one covers what the exam tests, the numbers worth memorizing, and the places people get tripped up, and every rule cites the law or code section it comes from.
Business Organization and Licensing
- Licensing: Getting the License, Keeping It, and Staying Inside It
- Company Organization: Who Actually Holds the License
- Advertising and Salespeople: What You Put in Front of the Public
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsThe Partner Who Left You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsThe Ninety Days You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
Business Finances
Employment Requirements
- Paydays, Paystubs and the Final Check
- Wages and Hours: What the Crew Is Owed
- Paid Sick Leave: What the Crew Accrues
- Job scenario · 4 decisionsThe Pay Stub You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Free account
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsThree Clocks on One Friday You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Free account
Insurance and Liens
- Insurance and Liens: Getting Paid, and Not Getting Wiped Out
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsThe Clock You Didn't Start You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsThe Helper You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
Contract Requirements and Execution
Public Works
Safety
- Safety Programs and Reporting: What You Write Down and Who You Tell
- General Safety: Permits, Heat Illness, Falls, Excavations, and Emergency Care
- Hazardous and Unknown Materials: Asbestos, Lead, and Chemical Hazard Communication
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsThe Popcorn Ceiling You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
- Job scenario · 4 decisionsFive Feet Down You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid