What is a DORA license number?
The short answer, then the part that trips people up: the same number belongs to several people.
The short answer
DORA is the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, the state body that licenses regulated professions. A DORA license number is the number it prints on a license — the one a nurse, an electrician or a cosmetologist gives you when you ask whether they are licensed. This site holds 597,451 active ones, collected 2026-08-20.
⚠️ The number alone does not identify a person
Colorado numbers run sequentially within a license type, not across the register. Number 1 exists dozens of times over: a pharmacy technician, an acupuncturist and a plumber can each hold it. 597,451 active licenses share only 349,843 distinct numbers.
What identifies a license is therefore the pair: license type plus number. Anyone joining two files on the number alone merges strangers into one record — and that is the single most common mistake made with this register. When you search here with a bare number, this site shows you every match rather than guessing which one you meant.
What the number tells you, and what it does not
- It does not encode the profession. The type is a separate code (92 of them), and DORA's own table translates 86 of them into plain English.
- It does not tell you the license is current. Only the status does. This site carries active licenses only, so absence here is not proof that someone never held one.
- It does not carry a discipline record. Where DORA records an action, this site counts it but never attaches it to a name.
How to check a number
Type it in the box above with the profession, or browse the 92 license types and the cities. For the official record, DORA's own lookup is here — it is live, it covers licenses this site does not, and it is what a formal check should cite.
Need it as a dated document? A license report. Checking a whole roster? Bulk checks and monitoring.
When the number has to be renewed
Each license type renews on its own cycle, in even or odd years, on a fixed date — which is why whole professions fall due together. The renewal calendar, month by month.