PestPin Research
What state regulators have said about pest control sales and lead sites, 2025 to 2026
· Every action below links to the agency's own release
By Vijaygopal, Founder, PestPin. Compiled from official state sources.
Between August 2025 and July 2026, four states acted on how pest control work gets sold to homeowners. A state attorney general settled with a national home services marketplace for $100,000 over a certification label the state does not issue, and required it to send users to the state's own credential lookup instead. Another attorney general obtained a court order and $600,000 against a door-to-door pest control company. Two agriculture departments acted against unlicensed door-to-door sellers and told residents the same thing: confirm the license before anyone starts work.
That is the argument for the license record. It is the one thing about a pest control company that a stranger at your door cannot invent. Three of the four actions below end in the same instruction: point people at the state record, or check it before the work begins.
The actions, with the official source for each
Each row says what the agency's release says and nothing more. Where a company is named, it is named because the agency named it.
| State | Agency | Date | What happened | What it requires or advises | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vermont | Office of the Attorney General | Attorney General Charity Clark settled a dispute with Angi over the marketing term "Angi Certified Pro." Vermont runs no contractor certification program, and the company operated none either. | Angi paid the State $100,000, agreed to stop using that term or any term implying a governmental credential, and agreed to clearly and conspicuously direct or refer users to State resources to verify Vermont contractor credentials. | ago.vermont.gov | |
| Delaware | Department of Justice, Consumer Protection Unit | Attorney General Kathy Jennings obtained a Court of Chancery order against door-to-door pest control company Aptive Environmental for violations of Delaware's consumer protection laws, including contracts shown to homeowners only on an iPad and termination fees that were not disclosed. | The company pays $600,000 and is bound by the court's order covering its door-to-door sales in Delaware. | news.delaware.gov | |
| Florida | Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services | FDACS barred Grit Marketing LLC from all regulated pest control activity in Florida, including soliciting contracts, and fined Mira Home LLC $36,000, after more than 30 unlicensed workers solicited over 600 pest control contracts door to door. | Commissioner Wilton Simpson advised residents to verify that a pest control company and its employees are properly licensed before signing any contract. | fdacs.gov | |
| Georgia | Department of Agriculture, Structural Pest Division | The division warned of a spike in unlicensed door-to-door pest control solicitation, citing 175 violations in the year to that date and fines of up to $10,000 per violation. | The release told consumers to "always request to see proof of a valid license before allowing any work to begin." | agr.georgia.gov |
Why the license record is the check worth doing
A pest control license is a public record held by a state agency. It says the business met the state's requirement to treat property for pests, and it carries a number, a status and a date you can read yourself. Nobody standing on your porch controls what it says. That is why every agency above pointed homeowners at it rather than at a brochure, a badge or a review score.
The check matters most in exactly the situation these actions describe: someone knocks, the price is good today only, and the paperwork is on a tablet. Two minutes with the state roster answers the only question you can answer before the work starts.
How to check a pest control license
1. Open your state's official lookup
Our license lookup guides name the agency that issues pest control licenses in each state and link its official search. The four states on this page: Vermont, Delaware, Florida, Georgia.
2. Search the exact business name
Use the name on the contract or the truck, not the name the salesperson says. A crew can be working under a company whose name never appears on the paperwork you are handed.
3. Read the status and the date
You are looking for a current license that covers pest control work, not a lawn or agricultural category. States publish this differently, and the guide for your state says what yours shows.
4. If nothing comes back, stop there
Florida's commissioner put it as verifying before signing any contract. A record you cannot find is not a paperwork problem to sort out later, it is the answer to the question you asked.
On PestPin, every company we list is matched to a state license record, and its listing shows the license number next to the official source it came from. Start from your city or read how the matching works.
What these actions do not say
- They do not say a licensed company does good work. A license is permission to operate, not a rating, and holding one is the floor.
- Two of the four are consumer-protection actions brought by an attorney general under consumer law. They are not licensing decisions by a pest control board, and describing them as license revocations would be wrong.
- Three of the four concern door-to-door selling. Nothing here says that selling pest control at the door is unlawful. Each release describes what specific sellers did.
- The Georgia figure of 175 violations covers the year running up to its release on August 14, 2025. It is a 2025 figure and it is not a current count.
- One of the four concerned marketing language rather than any work performed on a customer's property.
- This page names no company that the agency did not name, and takes no position on any company beyond what the linked documents say. PestPin is not a party to any of these matters.
- Four actions in two years are not a measurement of how common any of this is. They are dated, public, and checkable, which is the only claim we make for them.
If you run a pest control company
Your license is the credential a homeowner has been told to look for, and it is already public. Claiming your free listing puts the license number, the issuing agency and the link to the state source next to your company name, so a homeowner can finish that check without leaving the page and without calling you to ask.
We issue no badge of our own, and we never will. The label on a listing says a record was matched, and it says nothing about insurance, work quality, service area or availability. Claiming is free, there is no card, and you can hand the listing back at any time.
Questions this page answers
Do I have to check a pest control license before hiring?
Nothing on this page puts a legal duty on a homeowner. What it shows is two state agencies telling residents in writing to check, and a third requiring a marketplace to send users to the state's own verification resources. Florida's commissioner said to verify the company and its employees are properly licensed before signing any contract. Georgia's Structural Pest Division said to request proof of a valid license before any work begins. The check is free and takes about two minutes.
Where do I look up a pest control license?
The state agency that issued it publishes a search. PestPin's license lookup guides name the agency for each state and link its official search, and every company we list shows its license number next to the source it came from. We hold no licensing authority ourselves and we issue no credential of our own.
Does a current license mean the company does good work?
No. A license records that a business met the state's requirement to operate. It says nothing about quality, price, insurance, or whether the company will show up. It is the floor, not a recommendation, and none of the actions on this page suggest otherwise.
What was the Vermont settlement actually about?
Marketing language. Vermont has no contractor certification process, and the settlement ended the use of a certification term or any term implying a governmental credential. It also required $100,000 and an agreement to direct users to the State's own resources for verifying contractor credentials.
Sources and reuse
Every row links the agency's own release. Quote and republish this page freely, including commercially, as long as you credit PestPin and link here. If an agency updates or withdraws one of these releases, write to hello@pestpin.com and we will correct the row or remove it.
Other editions: the licensing report, licensed but unreachable and the monthly snapshot.