How to Verify an Auto Body Shop's License in Florida
Short answer: Florida does not "license" body shops so much as register them. A motor vehicle repair shop must hold a Motor Vehicle Repair registration from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) under Fla. Stat. 559.901-559.9221. That requirement is not gated on the size of the job; there is no dollar threshold below which a repair shop may operate unregistered. The registration number belongs on your written estimate, and the whole register is publicly searchable.
Who registers body shops in Florida
FDACS, through its Division of Consumer Services, administers the Motor Vehicle Repair Act. The registration covers any motor vehicle repair shop (collision, mechanical, glass, or mobile), so an active FDACS number confirms the business is lawfully registered to do repair work, not that it specializes in collision.
Florida law also gives you a concrete right: for any repair costing more than $150, the shop must prepare a written estimate before doing any diagnostic or repair work, and must hand you a signed disclosure saying so (Fla. Stat. 559.905).
That number changed recently, and a lot of published advice is still wrong. The threshold was $100 for over forty years. Chapter 2024-137, Laws of Florida raised it to $150. If you find a consumer guide, a shop handout, or a printed estimate form still citing $100, it is out of date, check the current text of Fla. Stat. 559.905 rather than the handout.
Where the official record lives
FDACS runs a public, no-login search of every registered business:
This is the source we pull for every Florida shop in this directory. One quirk worth knowing if you search it yourself: a single registration can be filed against multiple counties served, so the same physical shop often appears several times under different county selections. We de-duplicate on the registration number.
The register's status words: and what they mean
FDACS uses its own vocabulary, and we keep it verbatim rather than flattening it:
| Register's word | What it actually means | Records we hold |
|---|---|---|
| Registered | The registration is current and in good standing. | 22,539 |
| CRM - Registered | Current registration recorded through the department's consumer-response system. Treated as active. | 108 |
| Expired | The registration lapsed and was not renewed. | 1,301 |
| Law NA | Meaning not published by FDACS, see the note below. | 665 |
| Closed - Out of Business | The department recorded the business as closed. | 80 |
| Cancelled | The registration was cancelled. | 28 |
| Closed - Change of Owner | Closed on the register because the business changed hands. | 20 |
| Canceled - Insurance Missing | Cancelled for want of required insurance. Note FDACS spells this one with a single "l". | 10 |
| Denied | The application was refused. | 8 |
| Terminated | Terminated on the register. | 1 |
| Law NA - Commercial | Meaning not published by FDACS. | 1 |
Only Registered and CRM - Registered are surfaced as live licensed shops in this directory. The rest are tracked separately so an expired shop is never quietly presented as a current one.
A word we cannot define for you. "Law NA" is the second most common non-active value in the file, 665 records, and FDACS does not publish a key explaining it. We keep the department's own word rather than guessing at a meaning or silently folding it into "expired", so if you meet it on a shop page you are seeing exactly what the state's file says. If you need to know what it means for a specific business, the department's Division of Consumer Services is the place to ask. We would rather tell you we do not know than invent an answer.
What we hold for Florida
As of our 2026-08-03 pull, the directory carries 22,647 current Florida Motor Vehicle Repair registrations, of which 2,236 fall into our body-shop tier. Florida's register does not label a shop as "collision"; that classification is ours, made from the business name and trade descriptors, and it is the one figure on this page that is a judgement rather than a records fact.
We separately track 2,114 Florida registrations in a non-active state, of which 1,301 carry the register's own word "Expired". The full county breakdown is in the State of Collision Repair 2026-Q3 report.
These counts move every night as FDACS republishes. The date above is the pull they came from, not the date this page was last touched.
If the shop you are looking at shows expired
- Ask for the current registration number. It should appear on the written estimate and the invoice.
- Check how long it has been lapsed. A recent gap is often an administrative renewal; a multi-year gap is not.
- Insist on the written estimate anyway. Your right to one above $150 does not depend on the shop's registration status.
- Weigh it, do not stop at it. Registration status is a records fact. Manufacturer certifications, years at the address, and federal environmental and safety records all say something too.
Verify a specific Florida shop
Every Florida shop page in this directory shows its FDACS registration number, the register's own status word, the issue date where the source carries one, and the date we last checked.
- Auto body shops in Florida
- Search the map by ZIP
- How our data is verified
- Nationwide licensing statistics
General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.