General contractor

A general contractor holds the license for the overall construction work and is the party responsible for delivering the project. On a permitted job, the general contractor usually pulls the master permit and coordinates the trade contractors who pull sub-permits underneath it.

What the license means for permitting

The license is what lets the contractor pull the permit at all. Departments verify that the license is current, is the right classification for the scope, and is registered or certified for the jurisdiction. A license that is valid but of the wrong class for the work is a routine intake rejection.

Responsibility

Pulling the permit means accepting responsibility for the permitted work meeting code. That responsibility does not shift to the subcontractor who did the work badly; it is why contractors are careful about what they will pull a permit for, and why "I'll pull the permit, you do the work" arrangements are a licensing violation in most states.

Classifications

Contractor licenses are tiered, and the tiers limit scope. A residential contractor is generally limited to residential structures, a building contractor to structures up to a certain height or scale, and a general contractor to the broadest range. The specific vocabulary and limits are set by state law.