Participation Standards

This page describes who is eligible to take the ANA ANA Registered Provider Pledge, what pledging actually involves, and the conditions under which a contractor's participation is suspended or terminated.

Who is eligible

A contractor is eligible to pledge if all of the following are true:

• The contractor operates a contracting business in the United States — operating includes sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, corporations, and any other lawful business form.
• The contractor performs at least one of the trades listed in the trades directory.
• The contractor holds every license, registration, or certification their jurisdiction legally requires for the trades they perform. ANA does not verify this — the contractor's pledge represents that this is true. A contractor working in jurisdictions that do not require a license for the trades they perform is also eligible.
• The contractor agrees to follow the published twelve pledges in connection with the work covered by the listing.
• The contractor agrees to the public consequences of revocation if a customer complaint is substantiated.
• The contractor's monthly subscription is current.

There is no education, training, experience, or examination prerequisite — those belong to state licensing boards, not to a directory listing. There is no minimum or maximum business size. There is no geographic exclusion within the United States.

Who is NOT eligible

A contractor is not eligible to pledge if any of the following are true:

• The contractor is currently subject to an unappealed pledge revocation (during the post-revocation waiting period stated in their revocation notice).
• The contractor is currently on a state licensing board's published list of suspended, revoked, or barred licensees in any of the trades they propose to be listed under.
• The contractor is currently the subject of an active criminal investigation or open felony charge directly related to contracting work (fraud, theft by contractor, larceny, embezzlement involving customer deposits or materials).

If any of these conditions becomes true while a contractor is actively listed, the contractor is required (by Pledge #4 — credentials honestly stated) to notify ANA in writing within 14 days. Failure to notify is itself a substantiable violation.

What pledging involves

Pledging is a single transaction with three parts:

1. Reading the Pledge. The full text of the Pledge — preamble, twelve numbered pledges, "what this is / what this is not" framing, public-consequences clause, effective date — is presented in full at signup. The contractor reads it. There is no clickwrap acceleration past the document.

2. Signing the Pledge. The contractor types their full legal name and the name of the business they represent, confirms they have authority to sign on the business's behalf, and submits. The submission emits a timestamped signed-record retained by ANA permanently. The exact text of the Pledge in effect on the signing date is preserved alongside the signature.

3. Paying the first month. $10 charged to the payment method the contractor enters at signup. The listing activates same day on successful payment. Subsequent monthly charges renew the pledge.

The contractor may withdraw at any time by canceling the subscription. Withdrawal is not the same as revocation: a contractor who withdraws in good standing remains eligible to re-pledge in the future without a waiting period; a contractor whose pledge was revoked has the waiting period stated in their revocation notice.

What pledging does not involve

• No examination or test of the contractor's technical competence.
• No interview by ANA staff.
• No upload of license documents, insurance certificates, bond papers, or W-9 forms (the contractor may choose to publish copies on their listing page; ANA does not require it and does not validate authenticity).
• No reference checks by ANA.
• No background check by ANA.
• No credit check.
• No business-plan review.
• No territory exclusivity granted, requested, or implied.

When participation is suspended

A contractor's listing is suspended (badge stops resolving, listing comes down) when:

• Subscription fails: A failed Stripe charge suspends the listing the same day. To reinstate, the contractor signs the current Pledge text and submits a new first-month payment; the listing reactivates within 24 hours.
• Pledge revoked: A substantiated complaint per the complaints process results in revocation. The listing is removed; the contractor's name appears on the revoked-pledges page with the date and reason; the contractor receives written notice including the appeal procedure and the post-revocation waiting period.
• Voluntary withdrawal: The contractor cancels the subscription. The listing remains live through the end of the current billing period, then comes down.
• Court order: A court of competent jurisdiction orders ANA to remove the listing.

In every suspension the badge stops resolving — wherever the contractor displays it (truck, business card, website), scanning the QR or following the link lands on a "Listing Inactive" page rather than the active listing.

When participation is reinstated

• After subscription failure: the contractor signs the current Pledge text, pays the first month, and the listing reactivates within 24 hours.
• After voluntary withdrawal: the contractor signs the current Pledge text, pays the first month, and the listing reactivates within 24 hours.
• After revocation: the contractor must wait the period stated in the revocation notice (typically 12–24 months for a single substantiated violation), submit a written statement describing what changed in their practice, sign the current Pledge text, and pay. The original revocation entry remains on the public revoked-pledges page permanently with a "Reinstated YYYY-MM-DD" annotation.

Multi-trade and multi-jurisdiction listings

A contractor pledged in three trades is listed in three trade categories. A contractor working four counties is listed in four counties. There is no surcharge for breadth or depth.

The contractor selects trades and jurisdictions at signup and may update the selection at any time through the account dashboard. Adding or removing a trade does not change the subscription price.

A contractor working both residential and commercial contracting may list the residential side under a residential-trades classification and the commercial side under a commercial-trades classification on the same listing — same contractor, same business, both sides represented.

Changes to the Pledge

ANA may update the Pledge from time to time. Material changes (additions, deletions, substantive rewordings of the twelve pledges) are announced 60 days before they take effect. A contractor may withdraw before the new Pledge takes effect if they prefer not to sign the updated text.

The Pledge text in effect at the time of a substantiated complaint is the text the determination is reviewed against — not the current text, which may have changed in the interim. Each contractor's listing preserves the version of the Pledge they signed.

Contact

Operational questions about participation should go to [email protected]. Privacy and data-access requests should go to [email protected].

The law belongs to the people. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 590 U.S. (2020)