HyreADU

Database

Who is named on California's ADU permits

Public-record counts in five jurisdictions. Not a ranking, not a statewide census, and not a completion count. A B license is not an ADU grade.

Updated September 2026 · Data as of Permit extracts harvested 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30; CSLB statuses 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30; LADBS resource confirmed 2026-09-05; computed 2026-09-05

Written by HyreADU Research Desk Primary-source research and data analysis

5 California jurisdictions, not the state Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San José, Unincorporated Marin
3,668 named-contractor records on 6,551 ADU sites Sums of per-jurisdiction records. A firm named in two cities is two records. Not a statewide unique-contractor count.
8,312 of 12,627 Los Angeles ADU-matching rows name the owner as the builder Excluded from the named-contractor index. 65.8% of that extract.
2023-05-19 last LADBS contractor-of-record date in this extract Current LADBS feeds dropped contractor columns. Resource last updated 2023-05-22.

The finding

This index is 5 California jurisdictions — City of Los Angeles; City and County of San Francisco; City of Sacramento; City of San José; Marin County (unincorporated areas) — not the state, and not a ranking. Across those extracts, harvested 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 and computed 2026-09-05, this desk counted 3,668 named-contractor records on 6,551 distinct ADU sites and 6,623 permits, with a named valuation of $769,106,274.

Sums of per-jurisdiction records. A firm named in two cities is two records. Not a statewide unique-contractor count.

In Los Angeles, owner-builder rows are the majority of the ADU-matching extract (8,312 of 12,627); those rows are excluded from the named-contractor counts, as are owner-builder rows elsewhere.

Across the 5 extracts, rows that name no contractor (9,020 owner-builder plus 2,403 blank) outnumber the 6,768 kept named-contractor rows. A building permit is not a completion — see permits versus completions.

California licenses no ADU classification: a B General Building license is not an ADU grade. HyreADU does not design, permit or build ADUs, and nothing below is a recommendation of a named firm.

Read this first

  • Five jurisdictions, not California

    The named set is Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San José and Unincorporated Marin. A missing city is unexamined, not “no ADU contractors.” City of San Diego was extracted and is kept out of these totals on purpose — see the San Diego section. Unincorporated Marin is not the ten incorporated towns inside Marin County.

  • This is not a ranking and not a recommendation

    Tables are ordered by distinct ADU site addresses in one extract. That is a count. It is not a grade, a score, a league table, or a reason to hire anyone. HyreADU does not rank builders and does not build ADUs.

  • Owner-builders are excluded

    A homeowner who pulls their own permit is not a contractor of record for this index. Los Angeles encodes 8,312 owner-builder rows of 12,627. San Francisco encodes 671 of 2,005.

    Sacramento and San José publish no owner-builder flag; they have 840 and 825 rows with no contractor named. Unincorporated Marin encodes 37 owner-builder rows, and 2 owner records (145 permits, 144 sites) remain in that harvest.

  • A B license is not an ADU grade

    California licenses no ADU classification and no ADU grade. A B General Building license evidences that a firm may contract for a dwelling, not that it builds ADUs well, or at all. C-classifications that appear on an ADU permit (solar, electrical) are the trade named on that row, not an ADU credential.

  • Los Angeles contractor evidence ends 2023-05-19

    LADBS’s current open-data extracts dropped every contractor column. The legacy resource xnhu-aczu is the only published LADBS shape that still carries the contractor of record and that contractor’s CSLB number.

    This desk confirmed the resource on 2026-09-05; the city’s last-updated stamp is 2023-05-22. Contractor evidence is deliberately not topped up from the newer feeds, which cannot supply it.

  • The company store (735 files) is a floor, not a census

    734 California, 1 New Mexico. It is the set of CSLB-verified companies this desk holds. It is not every ADU builder in the state, and it is not a unique-contractor roll-up of the five extracts.

  • A permit is not a completion

    An issued building permit is an issued building permit. HCD’s Annual Progress Report carries both permits and units completed; they are not the same number. This page counts names on issued permits. It does not count certificates of occupancy.

  • CSLB statuses are the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest, not a live census

    A live recheck was attempted on 2026-09-05 for licenses 1066382, 1023605, 1025311, 841898, 1094866. CSLB LicenseDetail.aspx rejected the request (WAF). Search form at CheckLicense.aspx loaded.

    Statuses on this page are the 29–30 August 2026 harvest, not a 5 September 2026 live census. Verify a named firm on CSLB Check a License the week you need the status.

  • Not legal advice, and HyreADU does not build

    Nothing here is a determination that a firm may contract for a job, that a license is in force today, or that a lot may take an ADU. The next useful step on a named contractor is the board; the next useful step on a parcel is the planning counter and a licensed professional.

Five things this page refuses to collapse

Named contractor of record
The business name (and, where the city prints it, the CSLB number) on an issued ADU building permit after owner-builder rows, blank-contractor rows, production-homebuilder “new SFR with an accessory unit” rows, and trade-only rows the method excludes have been removed. It is a name on a document. It is not a completed unit and not a grade.
ADU site
adu_sites counts DISTINCT SITE ADDRESSES, not permit rows. One ADU commonly draws a building permit plus electrical, plumbing and mechanical siblings; counting rows would multiply one job into four.
Owner-builder
A permit on which the jurisdiction records the owner as the builder. Those rows are the majority of the Los Angeles ADU-matching extract. They are excluded here. Sacramento and San José do not flag the category; a blank contractor field is reported as blank, not guessed as owner-builder.
B General Building license
The CSLB classification that lets a contractor contract for a dwelling. California has no ADU license class. “Current and active” on a B license is a board status on a harvest date. It is not an ADU grade, and a revoked, expired, suspended, canceled or inactive status in the harvest is a board status on that date, not a HyreADU score.
Named valuation
The sum of the valuation field the jurisdiction printed on the kept permits. It is the city’s figure, not an invoice and not an appraised value. Permits without a usable valuation contribute zero to the sum, not a guessed cost.

What this index is

Cities publish who pulled the permit. Almost nobody publishes who is named on accessory-dwelling permits in a named city, with a retrieval date, with owner-builders taken out, and with no score attached. This page is that list for the 5 jurisdictions harvested 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30.

It is a database of public-record counts. A firm with more named sites in an extract is a firm with more named sites in that extract. The order of a table is the order of a count.

Treating that order as quality is the error this page is built not to make. Sums of per-jurisdiction records. A firm named in two cities is two records. Not a statewide unique-contractor count.

The company store (735 files; 734 California, 1 New Mexico) is a floor and is not folded into these totals.

HyreADU does not sell construction, does not match homeowners to builders, and does not build ADUs. Confirm a name on CSLB Check a License before it means anything on a job.

The five-city named-contractor totals

3,668 named-contractor records (a firm in two cities is two records) Sums of per-jurisdiction records. A firm named in two cities is two records. Not a statewide unique-contractor count.
6,551 distinct ADU site addresses with a named contractor adu_sites counts DISTINCT SITE ADDRESSES, not permit rows. One ADU commonly draws a building permit plus electrical, plumbing and mechanical siblings; counting rows would multiply one job into four.
6,623 kept issued permits with a named contractor Of 18,770 ADU-matching rows across the 5 extracts
$769,106,274 sum of named-permit valuation fields The city’s figure, not an invoice

Named-contractor counts by jurisdiction

JurisdictionNamed contractorsLicense no. on permitADU sitesADU permitsNamed valuationFirst permit in extractLast permit in extract
Los Angeles1,9951,9953,7823,820$251,824,1702017-02-282023-05-19
San Francisco7837831,2961,314$280,725,5972015-06-262026-08-28
Sacramento3530736749$109,763,7642018-10-292026-07-24
San José3160461461$48,318,1152008-02-112026-08-27
Unincorporated Marin2210276279$78,474,6282014-04-102026-07-20

Per-jurisdiction named-contractor totals from the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest, computed 2026-09-05. Los Angeles last-permit date is a contractor-column limit, not a claim that the city stopped issuing ADU permits.

San Francisco and Los Angeles print a CSLB number on the permit, so the board half is a lookup. Sacramento, San José and unincorporated Marin do not; their board half is a business-name match. City of San Diego is not a sixth row.

The typical ADU permit does not name a contractor

The named-contractor index is the minority slice. Across 5 jurisdictions this desk matched 18,770 rows as ADU work: 9,020 owner-builder, 2,403 with no contractor named, 6,768 kept. Owner-builder plus blank (11,423) is larger than kept.

Los Angeles is the majority owner-builder city in this set — 8,312 of 12,627 (65.8%). San Francisco encodes 671 of 2,005.

Sacramento and San José publish no owner-builder flag: contractor is blank on 840 and 825 rows respectively, and this desk does not recode a blank as an owner-builder.

Unincorporated Marin encodes 37 owner-builder rows, and still has 2 owner records (145 permits, 144 sites) in the harvest. 155 rows were a new single-family house that contains an accessory unit — a production-homebuilder product, counted in the funnel, never in the determination.

How an ADU-matching row became a named-contractor permit

JurisdictionADU-matching rowsOwner-builderNo contractor namedKeptNew SFR with ADUOther exclusions
Los Angeles12,6278,3124733,820157
San Francisco2,00567101,314200
Sacramento2,1090840749115405
San José1,291082546150
Unincorporated Marin73837265424012

Funnel from each jurisdiction’s ADU-matching extract to the kept named-contractor permits. “Other exclusions” sums non-strong matches, wrong permit type, excluded work class, excluded activity codes, and Marin’s trade-only filter.

Sacramento restricted kept rows to building-work activity codes and dropped electrician, plumber, mechanical, roofer and pool families, plus wrecking. Marin has no permit-discipline field, so a solar or electrical permit that merely names an existing ADU as its location is excluded unless a builder verb also appears.

Method

  • Primary extracts, harvested 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30

    Each jurisdiction is an official building-permit open-data extract. The query that reproduced the pull is in the city blocks below. Trade directories were not a source of counts.

  • Sites, not permit rows

    adu_sites counts DISTINCT SITE ADDRESSES, not permit rows. One ADU commonly draws a building permit plus electrical, plumbing and mechanical siblings; counting rows would multiply one job into four.

  • A bare “ADU” substring is never a standalone match

    It hits GRADUATE, ADULT and MODULE. Los Angeles, Sacramento and Marin re-test locally against word-boundary patterns after the city’s own text filter.

    San Francisco and San José classify the permit themselves (an `adu` Y/N column; a subtype “ADU Accessory Dwelling Unit”); those determinations are not re-tested against free text, because re-testing would discard rows the city itself calls ADU permits.

  • Owner-builder and blank contractor are out

    A named contractor is a name the city printed. Guessing that a blank field is a particular firm, or leaving the owner in as if they were a contractor, would fabricate the thing this index exists to avoid.

  • New SFR with an accessory unit is out

    A production house that contains an ADU is counted in the funnel (155 rows across the five) and never in the determination.

  • CSLB status is a dated harvest

    License numbers printed on the permit (Los Angeles, San Francisco) are looked up. Sacramento, San José and Marin are exact business-name matches against the board, and every such match is weaker. Statuses on this page are 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30. The 2026-09-05 live recheck did not replace them.

  • No rank, no score, no statewide unique count

    Sums of per-jurisdiction records. A firm named in two cities is two records. Not a statewide unique-contractor count. Adding the five named-contractor fields together is addition, not a de-duplicated census of firms.

Reproducible query, per city

The queries below are the pulls behind every city table on this page. A reader with the city’s portal can rerun them. The matching notes are the determination; they are not a suggestion to swap in a looser substring.

City of Los Angeles

Query to reproduce (2026-08-29, ca-la-adu-permits, resource xnhu-aczu). GET https://data.lacity.org/A-Prosperous-City/LA-BUILD-PERMITS/xnhu-aczu.json?$where=upper(work_description)%20like%20'%25ACCESSORY%20DWELLING%25'&$limit=20000&$offset=<n>&$order=:id

Match. Matched on the jurisdiction’s own free-text work description with "upper(work_description) like '%ACCESSORY DWELLING%'", then re-tested locally against /\bACCESSORY\s+DWELLING\b|\bJ\.?A\.?D\.?U\b|\bA\.?D\.?U\b/i. A bare 'ADU' substring is never used as a standalone match: it hits GRADUATE, ADULT and MODULE.

Filters. Permits whose description is a NEW SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE that contains an accessory unit are counted separately and never contribute to the determination. They are a production-homebuilder product, not the thing a homeowner means by an ADU.

Feed. LA BUILD PERMITS, resource xnhu-aczu on data.lacity.org, the LEGACY LADBS permit extract.

It is the only published LADBS shape that carries the contractor of record and that contractor’s CSLB license number; the current extracts (pi9x-tg5x, dyxf-7hc4, e67z-kt2n) dropped every contractor column.

Contractor evidence therefore ends 2023-05-19 and is deliberately not topped up from the newer feeds, which cannot supply it.

CSLB. license number on permit — 1,995 of 1,995 named contractors carry a license number on the permit.

City and County of San Francisco

Query to reproduce (2026-08-30, ca-sf-adu-permits, resource i98e-djp9 + 3pee-9qhc). GET https://data.sfgov.org/Housing-and-Buildings/Building-Permits/i98e-djp9.json?$where=upper(adu)%3D'Y'%20AND%20issued_date%20IS%20NOT%20NULL&$limit=20000&$offset=<n>&$order=:id

Match. DBI publishes an `adu` Y/N column on the permit record. The determination that a permit is an accessory-dwelling permit is the building department’s own, not a text match made here. Selected with "upper(adu)='Y' AND issued_date IS NOT NULL".

NO local word-boundary re-test is applied and none should be: the jurisdiction has classified the permit, and re-testing its free text would discard rows the city itself calls ADU permits.

Filters. Permits whose description is a NEW SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE that contains an accessory unit are counted separately and never contribute to the determination. They are a production-homebuilder product, not the thing a homeowner means by an ADU.

Feed. Building Permits (i98e-djp9) joined on permit_number to Building Permits Contacts (3pee-9qhc), both on data.sfgov.org and both refreshed continuously.

This is the only Californian ADU feed located that carries the contractor’s CSLB license number on the permit, which makes the license half of the conjunction a lookup rather than a name match.

Restricted to permits with an issued_date: a filed application is not a permit.

CSLB. license number on permit — 783 of 783 named contractors carry a license number on the permit.

City of Sacramento

Query to reproduce (2026-08-30, ca-sacramento-adu-permits, resource BldgPermitIssued_Archive/0 + BldgPermitIssued_CurrentYear/0). GET https://services5.arcgis.com/54falWtcpty3V47Z/arcgis/rest/services/BldgPermitIssued_Archive/FeatureServer/0/query?$where=UPPER(Work_Desc)%20LIKE%20'%25ADU%25'%20OR%20UPPER(Work_Desc)%20LIKE%20'%25ACCESSORY%20DWELLING%25'%20OR%20UPPER(Work_Desc)%20LIKE%20'%25SECONDARY%20DWELLING%25'%20OR%20UPPER(Project_Name)%20LIKE%20'%25ADU%25'%20OR%20UPPER(Project_Name)%20LIKE%20'%25ACCESSORY%20DWELLING%25'&$limit=20000&$offset=<n>&$order=:id

Match. Matched on the jurisdiction’s own free-text work description with "UPPER(Work_Desc) LIKE '%ADU%' OR UPPER(Work_Desc) LIKE '%ACCESSORY DWELLING%' OR UPPER(Work_Desc) LIKE '%SECONDARY DWELLING%' OR UPPER(Project_Name) LIKE '%ADU%' OR UPPER(Project_Name) LIKE '%ACCESSORY DWELLING%'", then re-tested locally against /\bACCESSORY\s+DWELLING\b|\bJ\.?A\.?D\.?U\b|\bA\.?D\.?U\b/i. A bare 'ADU' substring is never used as a standalone match: it hits GRADUATE, ADULT and MODULE.

Filters. Restricted to building-work activity codes N1, A1, A2, I1, I3, I4, C10, C11, B1, B4, Z14, Z8.

This register types every permit, and the E, P, M, R and J code families are the electrician, plumber, mechanical contractor, roofer and pool contractor working on an ADU project — none of them is an ADU builder.

W1 WRECK is demolishing an ADU, which is not building one. Permits whose description is a NEW SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE that contains an accessory unit are counted separately and never contribute to the determination.

They are a production-homebuilder product, not the thing a homeowner means by an ADU.

Feed. ArcGIS FeatureServer layers BldgPermitIssued_Archive/0 and BldgPermitIssued_CurrentYear/0 on services5.arcgis.com/54falWtcpty3V47Z. Sacramento is NOT on Socrata and has no CKAN API. It publishes no contractor license number, so the CSLB half is a name match. Its date field is Status_Date (MM/DD/YYYY) against Rpt_Status='Issued', normalised to ISO here.

CSLB. cslb business name exact — 0 license numbers on the permit. Statuses for 114 firms at 2+ sites are a name match, not a lookup.

City of San José

Query to reproduce (2026-08-30, ca-sanjose-adu-permits, resource 761b7ae8-3be1-4ad6-923d-c7af6404a904 + df4b8461-0c7a-4d16-b85d-ff7f71c5fed5). GET https://data.sanjoseca.gov/api/3/action/datastore_search_sql?$where=upper(%22SUBTYPEDESCRIPTION%22)%20LIKE%20'%25ADU%25'&$limit=20000&$offset=<n>&$order=:id

Match. San José classifies the permit itself as subtype 'ADU Accessory Dwelling Unit'. The determination is the city’s own. The free-text WORKDESCRIPTION does NOT carry an ADU token and a description sweep of this register returns zero.

Selected with "upper(\"SUBTYPEDESCRIPTION\") LIKE '%ADU%'". NO local word-boundary re-test is applied and none should be: the jurisdiction has classified the permit, and re-testing its free text would discard rows the city itself calls ADU permits.

Filters. Permits whose description is a NEW SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE that contains an accessory unit are counted separately and never contribute to the determination. They are a production-homebuilder product, not the thing a homeowner means by an ADU.

Feed. CKAN datastore resources 761b7ae8 (Active Building Permits) and df4b8461 (Expired Building Permits) on data.sanjoseca.gov. San José publishes NO contractor license number, so the CSLB half of the conjunction has to be matched by trading name against the board rather than looked up by number, and every such match is weaker than San Francisco’s.

CSLB. cslb business name exact — 0 license numbers on the permit. Statuses for 60 firms at 2+ sites are a name match, not a lookup.

Marin County (unincorporated areas)

Query to reproduce (2026-08-30, ca-marin-adu-permits, resource mkbn-caye). GET https://data.marincounty.gov/County-Government/Building-Permit/mkbn-caye.json?$where=upper(description)%20like%20'%25ACCESSORY%20DWELLING%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25JADU%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25J%20A%20D%20U%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25GRANNY%20FLAT%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25SECOND%20UNIT%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25GARAGE%20CONVERSION%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25COMPANION%20UNIT%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25ADU%25'%20OR%20upper(description)%20like%20'%25A%20D%20U%25'&$limit=20000&$offset=<n>&$order=:id

Match. Matched on the jurisdiction’s own free-text work description with "upper(description) like '%ACCESSORY DWELLING%' OR upper(description) like '%JADU%' OR upper(description) like '%J A D U%' OR upper(description) like '%GRANNY FLAT%' OR upper(description) like '%SECOND UNIT%' OR upper(description) like '%GARAGE CONVERSION%' OR upper(description) like '%COMPANION UNIT%' OR upper(description) like '%ADU%' OR upper(description) like '%A D U%'", then re-tested locally against /\bACCESSORY\s+DWELLING\b|\bJ\s?A\s?D\s?U\.?S?\b|\bA\s?D\s?U\.?S?\b|\bGRANNY\s+FLAT\b|\bSECOND\s+UNIT\b|\bGARAGE\s+CONVERSION\b|\bCOMPANION\s+UNIT\b/i. A bare 'ADU' substring is never used as a standalone match: it hits GRADUATE, ADULT and MODULE.

Filters. Permits whose description is a NEW SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE that contains an accessory unit are counted separately and never contribute to the determination.

They are a production-homebuilder product, not the thing a homeowner means by an ADU. Excluded a trade noun (/\b(PHOTOVOLTAIC|SOLAR|PV SYSTEM|EV CHARGING|RE-?ROOF|WATER HEATER|FURNACE|HVAC|MECHANICAL APPLIANCE|ELECTRICAL PANEL|SERVICE UPGRADE|SEWER LATERAL|WATER SERVICE|GENERATOR|SUB\s?PANEL|SMOKE DETECTOR|ALARM)\b/i) unless a builder verb (/\b(NEW|CONSTRUCT|BUILD|ADD|ADDITION|CONVERT|CONVERSION|LEGALIZ|REMODEL|ATTACHED|DETACHED|DEMOLITION|DEMO|FOUNDATION|FRAMING)\b/i) also appears.

This jurisdiction publishes no permit-discipline field, so a solar, electrical, mechanical or reroof permit that merely names an existing ADU as its location cannot otherwise be told apart from a permit to build one.

Feed. Building Permit (mkbn-caye) on data.marincounty.gov, described by the county itself as covering permits 'processed by, and under the jurisdiction of, Marin County' — i.e. UNINCORPORATED county land, not any of the ten incorporated towns inside Marin’s borders, each of which runs its own permitting. `city_town` is a postal city and is never treated as a municipality here; `city_id` is null and no company-city row is written from the permit jurisdiction.

Publishes no contractor license number on most rows and no permit-discipline field, so both the credential (by name) and the building-vs-trade distinction (by keyword) are weaker than the four municipal feeds above.

CSLB. cslb business name exact — 0 license numbers on the permit. Statuses for 31 firms at 2+ sites are a name match, not a lookup.

Most named contractors appear on one site

Jurisdiction1 site2 sites3–45–910+Named contractorsShare of contractors on 1 siteShare of sites in the ten highest site-counts
Los Angeles1,35932919283321,99568.1%8.8%
San Francisco57911453261178374.0%10.7%
Sacramento239603411935367.7%28.0%
San José256242411131681.0%14.3%
Unincorporated Marin1911982122186.4%15.9%

Named contractors bucketed by distinct ADU sites in that jurisdiction’s extract. The one-site firm is the typical named contractor in every city in this set. The last column is the share of named sites sitting with the ten firms that have the most sites in that extract — a concentration count, not a quality score.

Los Angeles: 1,359 of 1,995 named contractors (68.1%) appear on one site, and those one-site firms account for 35.9% of named sites. The ten highest site-counts in that extract cover 334 sites (8.8%). San José’s 1 firm in the 10+ bucket is a count of one, not a market.

What the distribution is not

A one-site named contractor is the common case in every city in this set. Reading the high-count names as “who builds ADUs here” would erase most of the named firms and all of the owner-builders.

Even among named contractors, the ten highest site-counts cover 8.8% of named sites in Los Angeles, 10.7% in San Francisco, 28.0% in Sacramento, 14.3% in San José, 15.9% in unincorporated Marin.

Sacramento is the most concentrated of the five on that measure. That is still a share of named sites in one extract, not a reason to hire anyone.

Los Angeles68.1%
1,359 of 1,995 named contractors appear on one ADU site
San Francisco74.0%
579 of 783 named contractors appear on one ADU site
Sacramento67.7%
239 of 353 named contractors appear on one ADU site
San José81.0%
256 of 316 named contractors appear on one ADU site
Unincorporated Marin86.4%
191 of 221 named contractors appear on one ADU site

Board status on the harvest date is not a grade either

Where the city prints a license number, this desk looked that number up on CSLB during 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30, for firms with at least 2 named ADU sites — 636 in Los Angeles, 204 in San Francisco.

“Current and active” is the board’s phrase on that harvest, not an ADU credential. A live recheck of licenses 1066382, 1023605, 1025311, 841898, 1094866 was attempted on 2026-09-05. CSLB LicenseDetail.aspx rejected the request (WAF).

Search form at CheckLicense.aspx loaded. Statuses on this page are the 29–30 August 2026 harvest, not a 5 September 2026 live census.

Sacramento, San José and Marin do not print a number; their board half is a name match, and unmatched rows stay unmatched. A missing status is a missing match, not a hidden clean record.

Los Angeles — CSLB status of 636 firms with 2+ named ADU sites

CSLB status (harvest)FirmsShare of the 2+ set
Current and active45471.4%
Inactive121.9%
Expired6710.5%
Suspended294.6%
Canceled253.9%
Revoked497.7%

License numbers printed on LADBS permits, looked up 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30, method license number on permit. Last contractor-of-record date in the extract: 2023-05-19.

A canceled, expired, revoked, suspended or inactive status in this harvest is a board fact on that date. It is not a HyreADU ranking. A current-and-active B license is still not an ADU grade. Re-check the number on CSLB before it means anything on a job.

San Francisco — CSLB status of 204 firms with 2+ named ADU sites

CSLB status (harvest)FirmsShare of the 2+ set
Current and active18289.2%
Inactive52.5%
Expired125.9%
Suspended21.0%
Canceled21.0%
Revoked10.5%

License numbers printed on DBI permits, looked up 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30, method license number on permit. Issued-date window in this extract: 2015-06-26 to 2026-08-28.

San Francisco is the only feed in this set that both classifies the permit as ADU itself and prints the contractor’s CSLB number. That does not make a high site-count a recommendation.

Name-match CSLB harvest (no license number on the permit)

CSLB harvest fieldSacramento (114 at 2+ sites)San José (60)Unincorporated Marin (31)
Names searched1145831
Exact business-name match832617
Near match232
Ambiguous name match2745
No match3249
Out of state100
Wrong class000
Current and active (of those matched)682213
Search errors140

Business-name matches against CSLB during 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30. Categories are the harvest’s own fields; they are not forced to a single pie. San José searched 58 of 60 two-plus-site names.

An exact name match is still weaker than a number printed on the permit. Ambiguous, none, near, search-failed and business-name-mismatch rows stay in the named-contractor tables as unmatched. They are not dropped to make the matched set look cleaner.

Names, with counts, in each extract

The tables below are the precomputed high-count slice in the dataset: name, license the city printed (or a name-matched number, or neither), sites, permits, window, named valuation, harvest-date CSLB status.

They are not a recommended list. A canceled license can sit on a high site-count because the count is historical.

SOUTH COAST SOLAR is printed with C46, B, C10 — a trade class on an ADU permit is still just the name the city printed. A search-failed San José row is still a name on San José’s register.

Read a row as a public record, then open CSLB, then compare bids on the same drawings.

Los Angeles — named contractors with the most ADU sites in this extract (12 rows)

Name on the permitLicenseADU sitesADU permitsFirstLastNamed valuationCSLB status (harvest)
UNITED DWELLING CONSTRUCTION INC1066382 · B51602021-08-032023-04-25$697,840Canceled
ULTIMATE GREEN CONSTRUCTION INC1023605 · B46462017-09-282023-02-28$1,443,914Current and active
SOUTH COAST SOLAR1025311 · C46, B, C1043432018-07-272021-12-30$1,551,000Expired
MARKAS DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION832632 · B38402017-05-012022-06-22$3,121,302Current and active
OCHOA VICTOR MANUEL908306 · B35362018-01-302021-06-24$1,037,840Revoked
716 MANAGEMENT INC1019255 · B, C1031322018-02-062021-12-17$1,719,700Revoked
L E A D ENTERPRISES INC955824 · B26262017-05-242022-07-18$728,501Current and active
PREFERRED HOME BUILDERS INC773147 · B23242017-06-212023-05-03$781,000Current and active
PAUL P HOMAYOUN1028148 · B22222017-07-142023-05-12$2,820,600Current and active
LEVET INC1027447 · B19192019-04-122022-07-01$533,400Current and active
E G N BUILDERS GROUP1051430 · B18192019-06-052022-07-20$928,048Expired
VIRIDI CONSTRUCTION INC1043410 · B18182021-12-162023-01-12$1,063,500Revoked

City of Los Angeles. Ordered by distinct ADU site addresses in this extract. Order is a public-record count, not a grade, not a recommendation, and not a measure of quality. CSLB status is the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest, looked up by the license number printed on the permit.

Owner-builders are excluded. A site is a distinct address, not a permit row. A B license is not an ADU grade. Contractor columns in this Los Angeles extract end 2023-05-19.

San Francisco — named contractors with the most ADU sites in this extract (12 rows)

Name on the permitLicenseADU sitesADU permitsFirstLastNamed valuationCSLB status (harvest)
S L M Development Inc.84189822222017-03-082025-06-23$5,497,331Current and active
Doherty Restoration, Inc.67470721232017-05-242026-06-17$5,631,537Current and active
S F Garage Company Inc.68486317172016-08-092020-06-17$2,526,000Current and active
Axel8 Construction104513912122018-02-232024-02-29$2,728,198Current and active
Sandbank Construction, Inc89399312122016-10-042023-03-17$4,545,178Current and active
Wickman Development And Construction97076812122018-02-142022-10-27$2,622,200Current and active
Halyard Inc104921711112018-09-272022-10-24$4,821,500Current and active
Sure, Inc.56165811112016-11-162024-10-01$2,592,434Current and active
Hong Wei Construction Inc94686110102016-09-262022-06-07$1,958,000Current and active
Reliable Construction Inc98365810102019-09-112026-02-11$2,191,891Current and active
Sgdm Llc99754510102018-04-272021-11-22$1,511,000Expired
Rei Build Up Construction Corp10566289102019-07-012026-05-04$4,589,893Current and active

City and County of San Francisco. Ordered by distinct ADU site addresses in this extract. Order is a public-record count, not a grade, not a recommendation, and not a measure of quality. CSLB status is the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest, looked up by the license number printed on the permit.

Owner-builders are excluded. A site is a distinct address, not a permit row. A B license is not an ADU grade. Window in this extract: 2015-06-26 to 2026-08-28.

Sacramento — named contractors with the most ADU sites in this extract (12 rows)

Name on the permitLicenseADU sitesADU permitsFirstLastNamed valuationCSLB status (harvest)
IMKAT CONSTRUCTION CORP1094866 (name match)56562023-04-042026-07-07$10,149,648Current and active
ANCHORED TINY HOMES INCORPORATED1078940 (name match)44452022-04-152024-07-16$7,357,903Revoked (name-matched to ANCHORED TINY HOMES LLC)
A CONSTRUCTION PRO INC1007869 (name match)21222021-04-232026-04-21$4,422,576Current and active
JAGIR INVESTMENTS LLCNot on permit14152022-02-182025-02-26$1,878,731business_name_mismatch
RPM DEVELOPMENT AND ENGINEERING LLC1083258 (name match)14142024-07-052026-07-17$2,412,637Current and active
CALDWELL CONSTRUCTION INCNot on permit13132021-04-232026-06-04$1,555,124ambiguous_name_match
ABRAHAMS CONSTRUCTION INC662204 (name match)12122019-08-122025-12-11$1,622,681Current and active
GLAD CONSTRUCTION LLC1080388 (name match)12122024-05-082026-06-10$2,241,923Current and active
RIVERLAND HOMES INC783707 (name match)11112025-09-122026-03-05$2,636,590Current and active
D LOESCH CONSTRUCTION INC975325 (name match)992023-05-102026-06-05$1,027,981Current and active
LFG CONSTRUCTIONNot on permit992024-06-202024-07-15$1,770,000business_name_mismatch
NONNA ADU AND CONSTRUCTION INC1115116 (name match)782024-05-312025-02-28$1,300,700Revoked

City of Sacramento. Ordered by distinct ADU site addresses in this extract. Order is a public-record count, not a grade, not a recommendation, and not a measure of quality. CSLB status is the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest, cslb business name exact — weaker than a number printed on the permit.

Owner-builders are excluded. A site is a distinct address, not a permit row. A B license is not an ADU grade. Window in this extract: 2018-10-29 to 2026-07-24.

San José — named contractors with the most ADU sites in this extract (12 rows)

Name on the permitLicenseADU sitesADU permitsFirstLastNamed valuationCSLB status (harvest)
SPEED CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT INCNot on permit16162025-01-282026-07-22$1,838,103search_failed
ACTON CONSTRUCTION INCNot on permit772019-08-022026-06-03$586,569search_failed
NORCAL HOME BUILDERS LLCNot on permit772024-04-172026-08-06$490,479search_failed
VILLA TECHONOLGIES, INC.Not on permit662021-11-292026-08-06$721,271search_failed
ARCUS CONSTRUCTION INC1131639 (name match)552026-01-222026-08-03$693,880Current and active
BOLD BUILDERS INC1065514 (name match)552025-07-292026-08-13$900,282Current and active
CRAIG A ROGERS CONSTRUCTION INC978553 (name match)552020-09-142026-07-06$411,975Current and active
De NguyenNot on permit552025-10-172026-04-30$580,080no_exact_name_match
LEGEND BUILDERS INC892185 (name match)552020-10-282026-04-02$714,324Current and active
VALLEY HOME BUILDERS, INCNot on permit552020-05-192026-02-25$595,890no_exact_name_match
VIAM BUILDERS1064965 (name match)552020-11-202026-08-19$356,032Current and active
Weiran JiaNot on permit552025-08-282026-02-09$813,753no_exact_name_match

City of San José. Ordered by distinct ADU site addresses in this extract. Order is a public-record count, not a grade, not a recommendation, and not a measure of quality. CSLB status is the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest, cslb business name exact — weaker than a number printed on the permit.

Owner-builders are excluded. A site is a distinct address, not a permit row. A B license is not an ADU grade. Window in this extract: 2008-02-11 to 2026-08-27.

Unincorporated Marin — named contractors with the most ADU sites in this extract (12 rows)

Name on the permitLicenseADU sitesADU permitsFirstLastNamed valuationCSLB status (harvest)
HAVEN CONSTRUCTION INCNot on permit11112024-10-142025-08-21$6,931,680ambiguous_name_match
BURTON BUILDERS LLC1042450 (name match)772022-04-012024-05-30$1,766,084Current and active
NATOMAS LABS INC, DBA VILLA HOMESNot on permit552023-01-272025-10-31$431,040no_exact_name_match
EMR CONSTRUCTION INC882570 (name match)342024-01-182026-01-23$1,375,000Current and active
ABODU INC1073522 (name match)332023-03-072024-10-21$120,000Suspended
ADVANCED BUILDING SOLUTIONSNot on permit332023-10-252026-01-08$3,195,000ambiguous_name_match
COHAN STRUCTURES1075634 (name match)332024-12-102026-05-12$906,019Current and active
DC DESIGN/BUILDNot on permit332018-02-282018-07-30$95,000no_exact_name_match
G FAMILY INC893848 (name match)332022-10-052025-07-16$705,325Current and active
JUAN CALMELL876589 (name match)332014-04-102014-06-12$127,612Suspended
TJ BUILT CONSTRUCTION INC858657 (name match)332018-05-142021-09-16$287,500Canceled
DIVINE ELECTRIC INCNot on permit232023-12-142025-10-07$99,934ambiguous_name_match

Marin County (unincorporated areas). Ordered by distinct ADU site addresses in this extract. Order is a public-record count, not a grade, not a recommendation, and not a measure of quality. CSLB status is the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest, cslb business name exact — weaker than a number printed on the permit.

Owner-builders are excluded. A site is a distinct address, not a permit row. A B license is not an ADU grade.

Window in this extract: 2014-04-10 to 2026-07-20. 2 owner records remain in the harvest and are not a named contractor. city_town on this feed is a postal city, never treated here as an incorporated town.

How a reader verifies a named contractor on CSLB

Verification runs on CSLB, not here: this page is a dated harvest and the board is the live record. Use the search form; do not trust a deep link this desk could not load on 2026-09-05.

  1. 1
    Take the number the city printed, if it printed one

    Los Angeles and San Francisco print a CSLB number on the permit. That is the number to type. Sacramento, San José and unincorporated Marin usually do not; start from the business name on the permit, and treat a name match as weaker.

  2. 2
    Open CSLB Check a License

    Check a License is the search form that loaded when this desk attempted a live recheck on 2026-09-05. LicenseDetail.aspx is the page the WAF rejected. Use the form.

  3. 3
    Confirm four fields, not one

    Number, current business name, classification, and status. A B classification is the dwelling class, not an ADU class. Personnel and personnel-of-record changes belong on that page, not on this one.

  4. 4
    Read the complaint disclosure the board actually publishes

    CSLB Check a License is built to show complaint disclosure and legal actions. This index does not ingest that file. An empty mention of discipline here is absence of retrieval, not a clean record.

  5. 5
    Do not treat a 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 status as today’s status

    Statuses in the tables are the harvest. CSLB LicenseDetail.aspx rejected the request (WAF). Search form at CheckLicense.aspx loaded. Statuses on this page are the 29–30 August 2026 harvest, not a 5 September 2026 live census. A canceled or revoked row can still have a high historical site-count. The count does not revive the license.

  6. 6
    Then compare the bid, not the site-count

    A public-record count is not a proposal. Same drawings, site work and utilities as lines: the bid comparison. HyreADU does not rank the names you just checked.

San Diego was extracted. It is not in this index.

City of San Diego is not a sixth geography in the totals above. in_index is false. The harvest (ca-sandiego-adu-permits, generated 2026-08-30) pulled 9,890 ADU-matching rows, kept 8,775, named 5,674 contractors, and set aside 1,084 new-SFR-with-ADU rows.

Owner-builder flag: 0. No contractor named: 31. Folding those 5,674 names into the five-city 3,668 records would silently expand the index past the named set. This page does not.

Development Permits — Approvals Issued (development_permits/approvals_issued_datasd.csv) on seshat.datasd.org, indexed only at data.sandiego.gov/datasets/development-permits/.

It is a flat CSV on an S3-backed host: San Diego is on NEITHER Socrata NOR ArcGIS Hub NOR CKAN (data.sandiego.gov/api/3/action/* answers HTTP 404), which is why two catalog sweeps of California reported no unharvested register and missed the state’s second city. 1,074,257 approval rows, issue dates 2001 to 2026-08.

It publishes NO contractor license number and NO owner-builder flag, so the CSLB half of the conjunction is an exact business-name match and homeowners are excluded only by that match and by the two-distinct-address floor.

Source: approvals issued CSV via https://data.sandiego.gov/datasets/development-permits/. No contractor license number, no owner-builder flag: the CSLB half would be a name match, and homeowners would be excluded only by that match and by a two-distinct-address floor. That is a weaker conjunction than Los Angeles or San Francisco, and it is not mixed into those counts.

The company store is a floor

Separately, this desk holds 735 CSLB-verified company files (734 California, 1 New Mexico).

That store is a floor, not a census, and not a de-duplicated roll-up of the 3,668 named-contractor records above. A firm can be in the store and absent from these extracts, or on a Sacramento permit and absent from the store.

Neither absence is a finding that the firm does not exist. Who is building California’s ADUs is the store side. This page is the permit side, with no score.

What a homeowner can actually do with a name on a permit

Treat the table as a public record, not a shortlist. Verify the license on CSLB the week you need it — classification, status, personnel, complaint disclosure. The harvest on this page is 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30. Los Angeles contractor names can be years stale: the last contractor-of-record date in that extract is 2023-05-19.

Ask whether the person at the table is the person on the permit. Owner-builder is the majority outcome in Los Angeles. Then compare complete proposals, not site-counts: the bid comparison.

HyreADU analysis: the market wanted a ranked list of ADU builders. California does not license that object, owner-builders do most of the Los Angeles volume, and a permit is not a completion.

The honest page is a dated count of names the city printed, in 5 places, with board status as of a harvest that is already not live. That is the finding.

Questions

Who is named on California's ADU permits?
In the 5 jurisdictions harvested 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San José, Unincorporated Marin — this desk counted 3,668 named-contractor records on 6,551 distinct ADU sites and 6,623 permits. That is not a statewide unique-contractor count, not a ranking, and not every California city. In Los Angeles, 8,312 of 12,627 ADU-matching rows name the owner as the builder and are excluded.
Is this a ranking of ADU builders?
No. Tables are ordered by distinct ADU site addresses in one city’s extract. Order is a public-record count. HyreADU does not score, grade or recommend the names. California licenses no ADU classification.
Why are owner-builders excluded?
Because they are not a contractor of record. Owner-builder rows are the majority of the Los Angeles ADU-matching extract (8,312 of 12,627). Leaving them in would turn a homeowner pulling their own permit into a fake ADU contractor. Sacramento and San José do not flag owner-builder; blank contractor fields are reported as blank.
Does a B license mean a contractor builds ADUs?
No. A B General Building license is the dwelling class. It is not an ADU grade. A current-and-active status on a harvest date is a board status, not evidence of ADU work. Evidence of ADU work on this page is a name on an issued ADU permit in a named city, which is still not a completion and still not a recommendation.
Why does the Los Angeles list stop in 2023?
LADBS’s current open-data extracts dropped contractor columns. The legacy resource xnhu-aczu still carries the contractor of record; the last such date in this extract is 2023-05-19. The city’s last-updated stamp on that resource is 2023-05-22, confirmed 2026-09-05. Newer feeds were not used to invent contractor names they do not contain.
How do I check a named contractor on CSLB?
Open CSLB Check a License, type the license number from the permit (Los Angeles and San Francisco print it), and confirm name, classification, status and complaint disclosure. Statuses on this page are the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest. A live recheck on 2026-09-05 was rejected by the board’s WAF on LicenseDetail.aspx.
Why is San Diego missing?
It was extracted (ca-sandiego-adu-permits, 5,674 named contractors from 9,890 ADU-matching rows) and is not in the index. The feed publishes no contractor license number and no owner-builder flag. Adding it would silently expand the five-city totals. in_index is false.
Does a named permit mean the ADU was built?
No. This page counts names on issued permits. Completions are a different HCD Annual Progress Report field. See the permits-versus-completions study. A permit with a canceled license in a later harvest is still a historical permit, not a standing credential.

Written and audited by

HyreADU Research Desk

Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking

We are a research desk, not a builder. We read the permit extract, the statute, the HCD return or the fee schedule ourselves, and publish each figure with its source and retrieval date.

Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we leave it out and say what we could not verify. Our store-based claims cover California only.

CA
the only state this desk will make store-based claims about
5
jurisdictions with extracted ADU permit evidence
735
CSLB-verified companies in the California store
0
national claims from a one-state store

How this desk works

  • Primary sources only. Permit counts come from the city or county that issued the permit. Production counts come from HCD’s Annual Progress Report. Rents come from HUD or the Census. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we download the source and compute the figure ourselves.
  • This is a California site. The company store is 734 California firms and one New Mexico firm. Permit evidence exists for five named jurisdictions: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San José and unincorporated Marin. A number from that store is titled to those places, never to the United States.
  • A permit is not a completion, and a license is not an ADU grade. California licenses no ADU classification. Being named on an ADU permit is evidence of engagement in that jurisdiction, not of quality, completion, or work anywhere else. Owner-builder permits are excluded from contractor counts.
  • Calculation is labeled as calculation. Figures we derive are never presented as something HCD, HUD, the Census or a city published. Terner Center research is cited as Terner’s, never restated as ours.
  • We do not design, permit or build ADUs, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Pages that look like rankings are not: they publish public-record counts and let the reader decide.
  • Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice. Zoning, underwriting and appraisal practice vary by jurisdiction, lender and appraiser. The useful next step on a specific lot is the planning counter and a licensed professional.

Data as of Permit extracts harvested 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30; CSLB statuses 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30; LADBS resource confirmed 2026-09-05; computed 2026-09-05. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold.

Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.

Sources & retrieval dates

  1. Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) — building permits issued, open-data extract , City of Los Angeles. Resource xnhu-aczu. 12,627 ADU-matching rows; 1,995 named contractors; 3,782 sites; window 2017-02-28 to 2023-05-19. Retrieved 2026-08-29.
  2. San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (DBI) — building permits issued, open-data extract , City and County of San Francisco. Resource i98e-djp9 + 3pee-9qhc. 2,005 ADU-matching rows; 783 named contractors; 1,296 sites; window 2015-06-26 to 2026-08-28. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  3. City of Sacramento Community Development Department — building permits issued, open-data extract , City of Sacramento. Resource BldgPermitIssued_Archive/0 + BldgPermitIssued_CurrentYear/0. 2,109 ADU-matching rows; 353 named contractors; 736 sites; window 2018-10-29 to 2026-07-24. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  4. San José Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement — building permits issued, open-data extract , City of San José. Resource 761b7ae8-3be1-4ad6-923d-c7af6404a904 + df4b8461-0c7a-4d16-b85d-ff7f71c5fed5. 1,291 ADU-matching rows; 316 named contractors; 461 sites; window 2008-02-11 to 2026-08-27. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  5. Marin County Community Development Agency — Building and Safety Division — building permits issued, open-data extract , Marin County (unincorporated areas). Resource mkbn-caye. 738 ADU-matching rows; 221 named contractors; 276 sites; window 2014-04-10 to 2026-07-20. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  6. City of San Diego — Development Permits, Approvals Issued , Extracted, not in the five-city index (in_index=false). 9,890 ADU-matching rows; 5,674 named contractors; 1,084 new SFR with ADU. No license number, no owner-builder flag. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  7. City of San Diego — data.sandiego.gov development-permits dataset , Portal page that indexes the approvals-issued CSV. Not Socrata, not ArcGIS Hub, not CKAN. Retrieved 2026-08-30.
  8. Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety — building permits issued, resource xnhu-aczu (legacy contractor columns) , Confirmed 2026-09-05. City last-updated stamp 2023-05-22. Contractor-of-record evidence in this extract ends 2023-05-19. Current LADBS extracts dropped contractor columns. Retrieved 2026-09-05.
  9. California Contractors State License Board — Check a License , Search form used for the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 status harvest and for the 2026-09-05 live-recheck attempt. CSLB LicenseDetail.aspx rejected the request (WAF). Search form at CheckLicense.aspx loaded. Statuses on this page are the 29–30 August 2026 harvest, not a 5 September 2026 live census. Retrieved 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30.
  10. California Contractors State License Board — licensing classifications , B General Building is the dwelling class. There is no ADU classification and no ADU grade. Retrieved 2026-09-05.

A permit count is not a bid

A name on a permit is a public-record count in one city. It is not a recommendation, a grade, or a price. If you have proposals in hand, compare them on the same drawings, with site work and utilities as lines.

ADU bid comparison Who is building California’s ADUs

HyreADU does not design, permit or build accessory dwelling units and does not rank, score or recommend contractors. This index is informational.

It is not legal, licensing, tax, financial or construction advice, and it is not a determination that a named firm may contract for a job.

Geography is Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San José, Unincorporated Marin — not California as a whole, and not the United States. Owner-builders are excluded. A B General Building license is not an ADU grade. Los Angeles contractor-of-record evidence in this extract ends 2023-05-19.

CSLB statuses are the 2026-08-29 to 2026-08-30 harvest; a live recheck on 2026-09-05 did not replace them. The company store (735 files; 734 California, 1 New Mexico) is a floor, not a census. City of San Diego was extracted and is not in the five-city totals.

Confirm any named license on CSLB Check a License and any lot with the local building department before it means anything on a job.