How to Verify an Auto Body Shop's License in New Jersey
Short answer: New Jersey licenses auto body facilities directly, under N.J.S.A. 39:13, through the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Unlike most states, the MVC publishes the entire roster of licensed auto body facilities as a free public PDF, so you can check any shop in the state in about a minute.
Who licenses body shops in New Jersey
The NJ MVC issues auto body facility licenses under N.J.S.A. 39:13 and N.J.A.C. 13:21-21. This is a genuine body-shop-specific licence, not a general repair registration, which makes New Jersey one of the cleaner states to verify.
Where the official record lives
The MVC publishes the current roster of licensed auto body facilities as a downloadable document:
Licensed auto body facilities (NJ MVC PDF)
This is the source we pull for every New Jersey shop in this directory. The file lists the licence type, licence number, expiry date, business name, address and phone for each licensed facility.
The licence types: and what they mean
New Jersey types each facility on the roster. Ours carry that type through:
| Licence type | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| ABR | Auto body repair: the full licence. The large majority of licensed facilities. |
| ABL | Auto body limited: a restricted scope of body work. |
| ABE | A further facility category on the MVC roster; we classify these by business name rather than assume the scope. |
The roster carries an expiry date per facility, and a status letter can appear appended to that date in the published file. If a date on our page looks unusual, that formatting quirk in the source is why.
What we hold for New Jersey
As of our 2026-07-30 pull, the directory carries 1,173 licensed New Jersey auto body facilities: 1,062 ABR, 44 ABL and 67 ABE. Of those, 1,129 classify as collision or body shops.
An earlier version of this page said 1,091 / 46 / 70, which sums to 1,207, thirty-four more than the total on the same line. That was our own counter's fault, not a rounding choice: it tallied licence types before the geocoding step dropped 34 records, so the breakdown described a slightly larger set than the total beside it. The figures above are counted from the records we actually publish, and they add up.
New Jersey contributes no lapsed-credential block to the State of Collision Repair 2026-Q3 report, the published MVC roster is a current-licensees list, so an expired licence simply drops off it rather than being published with a lapsed status.
If you cannot find a shop on the roster
- Check the business name carefully. Licences are held by the legal entity, which is often not the name on the sign.
- Check the address. A licence attaches to a facility; a shop that moved may appear at its previous location.
- Ask the shop for its licence number and match it against the PDF.
- Absence is not proof. The roster is a point-in-time publication. A newly licensed shop may not be in the current cut yet.
Verify a specific New Jersey shop
Every New Jersey shop page in this directory shows its MVC licence number, licence type, expiry where the source carries one, and the date we last checked.
- Auto body shops in New Jersey
- 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.