Licenses authorize the business or the individual to trade — a contractor's license, a professional registration, a local business license.
Permits authorize a specific piece of work — electrical, plumbing, structural, signage. They are usually priced per job and are frequently recoverable from the customer.
Why they belong in your cost thinking
Licenses are fixed: they cost the same whether you work or not, so they raise break-even.
Permits are variable and job-specific, which makes them a direct cost of the job rather than overhead — see job costs. Absorbing them rather than billing them is a quiet margin leak on permit-heavy trades.
Renewals are the risk
Licenses lapse quietly. Nothing announces it, and the consequences arrive at the worst moment: an inspection, an insurance claim, or a customer asking for proof.
An expired license can also void insurance cover, which turns an administrative slip into an uninsured event.
Track expiry dates where you will see them — see employee documents, which flags what is expiring rather than waiting for you to check.
Individual versus business
Both usually exist and both matter. A business license does not cover an unlicensed technician, and a licensed technician leaving can take the qualification the business depended on with them.
Knowing which licenses are held by people rather than by the company is worth doing before somebody resigns.
The qualifications behind a license, and tracking their expiry, is training and certification.