BC Has Required Your TSBC Licence Number on Your Website Since 2023. We Checked 277 Okanagan Electrical and Gas Contractors, and 6 in 10 Still Leave It Off.

If you're a licensed electrical or gas contractor in British Columbia, your Technical Safety BC licence number is supposed to be on your website. Not on your truck, that part is optional. On your website, your Google Business Profile, your ads, your quotes and your invoices.

The rule came into force in September 2022, and Technical Safety BC (TSBC) phased it in, starting with websites and other online ads on January 1, 2023. It's in the Safety Standards General Regulation, section 37: a contractor who offers or advertises regulated work “must include with the offer or advertisement both of the following”: the licensed contractor's name and its licence number. The next subsection says that information has to be given “in a manner that is clear”.

Almost three years later, how many Okanagan contractors actually do it? On October 25, 2026, we found the electricians, heating companies, gas fitters and plumbers that Google lists in 11 Okanagan towns, linked each one to TSBC's own licence registry and read their websites.

Of 277 licensed contractors whose websites advertise electrical or gas work, 168 (60.6 percent) don't show a usable licence number. That's 6 in 10. And 82 of those 168 still call themselves “licensed” on the pages we read.

What BC's Rule Actually Says, and Where the Number Has to Go

The rule covers licensed contractors in four areas: electrical, gas, boilers, pressure vessels and refrigeration, and elevators and lifts. TSBC's advertising guidelines page puts it simply: these contractors are required “to add their Technical Safety BC licence number to all digital and print advertising”.

The detailed advertising guidelines go through each kind of ad. For a website, the number should be “clearly visible on the website”. For online directories, and TSBC names Google My Business, Yelp and the Better Business Bureau, it should be “clearly visible in the listing”. Here's the short version, with the date each phase started:

• Since January 1, 2023 (online): your website, your Google Business Profile and other directory listings, Google and Facebook ads, the profile section of your social media accounts, marketplace listings like Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace, and marketing emails.
• Since September 30, 2023 (print): business cards, quotes, contracts, invoices, brochures and door hangers, and job site signs.
• Optional: company vehicles and storefronts. TSBC recommends the number there but made it voluntary.
• Exempt: word of mouth, posts on your own social media account, branded clothing and swag, and a few others listed in the guidelines.

The number is your company's licensed contractor number, the one that looks like LEL0123456 for electrical or LGA0123456 for gas. Some older licences use a LIC- format instead. TSBC's advertising FAQ is clear that “It is not your or your employee's individual certification number or your municipal business licence number.” It also asks for all 7 digits, with zeros in front if yours is shorter, because “If the format LXX123456 is used, your company may not show up on the lookup results.”

What happens if you don't? The same FAQ says the maximum penalty is high: “The maximum monetary penalty Technical Safety BC may issue under legislation is $100,000.” But it also says where TSBC is putting its effort: “We intend to focus our compliance and enforcement efforts on identifying and investigating unlicensed contractors that are advertising regulated services.” We'll come back to that.

How We Checked 277 Okanagan Websites Against the Licence Registry

We ran 88 Google business searches: electrician, electrical contractor, furnace repair, heating and air conditioning, gas fitter, plumber, gas fireplace installation and hot water tank installation, in Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Vernon, Coldstream, Armstrong, Penticton, Summerland, Peachland, Oliver and Osoyoos. Each search returned up to 40 businesses, including service-area businesses that hide their address. After dropping 16 businesses based outside the Okanagan, we had 611 business profiles.

Then we took TSBC's public registry, the same data its Find a Licensed Contractor tool shows, for every electrical, gas and boiler or refrigeration licence in BC. We linked each Google profile to the registry by phone number, by the email domain the contractor gave TSBC, or by its legal name. 434 of the 611 profiles linked to an active licence. We read all 21 links that rested on the name alone.

Finally, we opened every website those profiles list, 451 different sites, in a headless browser: the home page plus up to five About, Contact or licence pages. 392 opened properly. 27 sat behind a bot check, which we logged and did not try to get past. 25 were broken: a dead domain, an expired site or a suspended account. 300 readable sites belong to a contractor with an active licence, and 277 of those advertise the kind of work the licence covers. Those 277 are the websites in this post. We left out the other 23, mostly plumbing pages from companies that hold a gas licence but don't mention gas work.

What this can't tell you:

• Every share is a floor. We read the text on each page, plus the file name and description of every image. A number printed inside an image with a plain file name would be invisible to us. Where an image was labelled as a licence or TSBC badge, we opened it and read it.
• Up to six pages per site. A number that appears only on a services page we didn't open would be missed. Most sites that show it put it in the footer, on every page.
• Linked contractors only. A business we couldn't link to the registry might hold a licence under another name or phone number. We don't say any business is unlicensed.
• Websites only. We didn't check Google profiles, ads or quotes.
• One day. Websites change.

We read 40 of the “no number” websites by hand to check the count, and the search hadn't missed a number on any of them. We haven't named any business.

6 in 10 Don't Show the Number, and Half of Those Still Say “Licensed”

Here's what the 277 websites show:

What the website shows	Websites	Share
Full licence number, as text	94	33.9%
Right digits, not in TSBC's format	11	4.0%
Number only inside an image	4	1.4%
A number that isn't in the registry	1	0.4%
No licence number at all	167	60.3%
All websites checked	277	100%

109 websites (39.4 percent) show their licence number in some form. 91 of them show it on the home page, usually in the footer, and 58 label it as a TSBC or Technical Safety BC number, the way the guidelines suggest.

The other 168 are the interesting group. 82 of them (48.8 percent) use the word “licensed” somewhere on the pages we read: “Licensed & Insured” in a banner, “our licensed electricians” in the About text. 15 of them mention Technical Safety BC or its old name, and 5 even show a Technical Safety BC logo, but none of the 168 gives a number a customer could look up. TSBC's rules for its contractor badge say you “must include your licence number when displaying the badge”.

For context, TSBC's registry lists 1,050 contractors based in Okanagan towns with an active electrical or gas licence. The 277 in this check are the ones that show up in Google's business listings with a working website of their own.

Gas Contractors Leave It Off More Often Than Electricians

Here's the share of websites that show the number, split a few ways:

Group	Websites	Show the licence number
Electrical licence only	117	54 46.2%
Gas licence only	128	38 29.7%
Both electrical and gas	32	17 53.1%
0 to 24 Google reviews	149	57 38.3%
25 to 99 reviews	87	32 36.8%
100 to 299 reviews	24	9 37.5%
300 or more reviews	17	11 64.7%
In the top 3 of at least one of our searches	77	31 40.3%
Never in a top 3	200	78 39.0%
Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Peachland	93	34 36.6%
Vernon, Coldstream, Armstrong and nearby	36	17 47.2%
Penticton, Summerland, Oliver, Osoyoos and nearby	47	21 44.7%
Address hidden on Google	101	37 36.6%

Electrical contractors do better: 46.2 percent of electrical-only websites show the number, against 29.7 percent of gas-only websites. Most gas-only websites here belong to heating and plumbing companies, where the licence is one part of a bigger list of services. That may be why it gets missed.

The busiest companies, the 17 with 300 or more Google reviews, show it more often (64.7 percent), but that's a small group. Below that, the share sits between 36.8 and 38.3 percent no matter how many reviews a contractor has.

One thing it doesn't track: where you show up on Google. Contractors in the top 3 of at least one of our searches show the number about as often as everyone else (40.3 versus 39.0 percent). This is a rule to follow and a trust signal for customers. Don't expect it to move your rankings, and don't let anyone sell it to you that way.

The Mistakes on the Sites That Do Show It

Showing a number isn't the same as showing it the way TSBC asks. We read every website that showed a partial or unusual number. Here's what we found:

• Right digits, wrong format (11 sites). “Licence #54321” instead of the full LEL0054321. A 6-digit version that drops a zero. “Reg. #” with no prefix. A number with an electrical prefix on a licence the registry lists in its older LIC- format. A customer typing these into the lookup tool may not find you.
• Number only inside a picture (4 sites). All 4 badge images carried the right number, which we checked against the registry. But Google and screen readers can't read a number inside an image, and a customer can't copy it. Put the number in the text as well.
• A number that isn't in the registry (1 site). The site showed a TSBC-style number that doesn't appear in the registry at all. The company's active licence is a different number. Check yours against the lookup tool, digit by digit.
• A logo with no number (5 sites). A Technical Safety BC logo tells a customer nothing they can check.
• The old name (8 sites). 8 of the 277 websites still say “BC Safety Authority” or show its logo. The regulator changed its name to Technical Safety BC in September 2017.

If you work across the border too, the same problem shows up in a different form. Four U.S. states have their own rules, and in our check of 869 contractor websites in those states, 3 in 10 left the number off.

How to Fix It in 15 Minutes: Website, Google Profile, Ads and Paperwork

Start by looking up your own company in TSBC's registry and copy the number exactly as it appears there. If you hold more than one licence, the guidelines let you show your main one, all of them, or the one that matches the work you're advertising.

1. Website footer. Add a line like “TSBC Licence # LEL0123456” to the footer, as text, so it shows on every page. Keep the badge image if you like it, but don't rely on it.
2. Google Business Profile. Put the same line in your business description. TSBC lists Google My Business by name. While you're in there, check that your phone number matches your website. In our check of 724 Okanagan contractors, 1 in 16 didn't.
3. Ads. The guidelines say the number must be “clearly legible” inside Google and Facebook ads. In Google Ads, put it in a description line, because extra assets like callouts don't always show.
4. Social profiles and listings. Add it to the profile or About section of Facebook, Instagram, HomeStars, Yelp and the BBB. You don't need it on every post to your own page.
5. Paperwork. Quotes, contracts, invoices and business cards have needed it since September 30, 2023. Update the template once.

Is anyone going to fine you for a missing footer line? So far, TSBC says its focus is unlicensed contractors who advertise. Of the 103 enforcement actions its public registry lists against electrical, gas and boiler contractors since 2022, the 2 that involve advertising were both against contractors advertising without a licence. None was for a licensed contractor leaving a number off. This isn't legal advice, and that could change.

But the number does a job for you. It's the quickest way for a homeowner to tell a licensed contractor from someone working out of a pickup, and it's how TSBC tells customers to check you. When 6 in 10 of the contractors in our check leave it off, 15 minutes of work puts you ahead of most of them.

If you'd like help with the rest of your online presence, our local SEO plan for trades in Vernon and Kelowna starts with an audit of your Google profile and website and a list of fixes, and our Google Business Profile management covers the description field where your licence number goes.

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