In roughly 40 states, the only people who can legally perform a home inspection for pay are state-licensed home inspectors, licensed professional engineers, and registered architects. The other states have no licensing law at all, so anyone can take the work — which makes certification from a recognized national body the next-best signal of competence. Whoever you hire, two things stay constant: they need professional liability insurance, and they cannot have any financial interest in whether your sale closes.
Licensed Home Inspectors
Most states treat home inspection as a licensed profession. To get a license, a candidate completes classroom training, passes a standardized exam, often performs supervised field inspections, and carries insurance. Required classroom hours range from 35 in some states to 180 in New Jersey. The coursework covers the systems the inspector will evaluate on the job: structure, roofing, electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling, insulation, and the exterior.
The vast majority of licensing states require the National Home Inspector Examination. The NHIE is 200 multiple-choice questions over four hours, scored on a 200–800 scale with a passing score of 500. Twenty-five questions are unscored pretest items, so the real score comes from 175.1National Home Inspector Examination. Frequently Asked Questions The exam fee is $225 in most states, and anyone who fails has to wait 30 days to retake it.2American Society of Home Inspectors, Inc. National Home Inspection Exam
Licensing boards also require errors and omissions insurance, commonly in the $250,000 to $300,000 minimum coverage range, and continuing education of roughly 12 to 24 hours a year to renew. You can usually verify a license through the state board’s online lookup, and you should, before anything else.
Nationally Certified Inspectors
If you’re in one of the states without a licensing law, certification from a recognized industry body is the credential to look for. Even in licensed states, many inspectors carry one. The two main organizations are the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) and the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI).
ASHI Certified Inspector (ACI)
ASHI’s top credential requires passing the NHIE, completing a minimum of 250 fee-paid inspections performed under ASHI’s Standard of Practice, and submitting sample reports for review.3American Society of Home Inspectors, Inc. ASHI Certified Inspector ACIs follow ASHI’s Code of Ethics, which requires objective reporting that neither overstates nor understates what the inspector finds.4American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). The ASHI Standard of Practice for Home Inspections and Code of Ethics To stay certified, they earn at least 20 continuing education credits per year.
InterNACHI Certified Professional Inspector (CPI)
InterNACHI’s flagship CPI designation is earned through a six-step process that includes passing an online inspector exam, joining InterNACHI, and completing required coursework.5InterNACHI. Home Inspector Certification Requirements InterNACHI publishes its own Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics, and members must keep up continuing education to stay active.
In an unlicensed state, hiring an ACI or CPI is the closest equivalent to hiring a licensed inspector.
Licensed Engineers and Architects
A licensed professional engineer or a registered architect can inspect a home without a separate home inspector license. Their own licensing and professional oversight already exceed what home inspector licensing requires, and states generally exempt them on that basis.
In practice, most buyers don’t hire an engineer for a routine pre-purchase inspection. Engineers and architects are the right call for a specific deeper question: whether a foundation crack is cosmetic or structural, whether a load-bearing wall can be removed, whether a roof can carry a planned addition. A home inspector gives you broad coverage of visible conditions across every system; an engineer gives you a precise answer about one of them. The common sequence is to start with a general inspection and bring in an engineer only if something flagged needs expert analysis.
Who Cannot Perform Your Inspection
The whole point of an inspection is independence. If the person writing the report has a reason to want the sale to close, the report is compromised, and both state laws and industry ethics codes draw hard lines around who is disqualified.
Anyone with a Financial Interest in the Sale
A real estate agent cannot inspect a property involved in their own transaction. Their commission depends on closing, which makes objective assessment impossible. The same reasoning rules out the seller, the seller’s employees, and any company under common ownership with the listing brokerage.
You can walk through the house yourself and note concerns, but your own observations are not a formal inspection report. A lender won’t accept one, and it carries no weight in a post-closing dispute. The value of a professional inspection is that it comes from someone whose only interest is accuracy.
The Repair Prohibition
Most states and the major industry codes prohibit an inspector from performing or offering repairs on a property they’ve inspected, usually for at least 12 months after the inspection. An inspector who can profit from fixing what they find has an incentive to exaggerate defects, and the cooling-off period removes that conflict. Violations can trigger license suspension or revocation, and in states that treat the practice as an unfair business act, civil penalties on top.
So the person inspecting your home should not be the person who then wants to repair it. If an inspector offers to come back and do the work themselves, that is a reason to hire someone else.
When You Need a Specialist Instead
Several hazards are explicitly outside the scope of a general inspection. ASHI’s Standard of Practice states that inspectors are not required to identify mold, wood-destroying organisms, radon, or other environmental contaminants.4American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). The ASHI Standard of Practice for Home Inspections and Code of Ethics Septic systems are excluded from the plumbing evaluation. If any of those concern you, don’t assume your general inspector will catch them.
A wood-destroying organism inspection — looking for termites, carpenter ants, wood-boring beetles, and fungal damage — is performed by a licensed pest control professional, not a general home inspector. FHA and VA loans often require one, especially in regions with heavy termite activity.6HUD. Termite Treatment Exception Areas Radon testing is handled by a radon professional with calibrated monitoring equipment; the EPA recommends testing any home you’re considering buying. Mold assessment involves air and surface samples sent to a lab. Septic inspections require locating and pumping the tank and evaluating the drain field, which calls for its own equipment. Many general inspectors hold add-on certifications for radon or WDO work and can handle those during the same visit; mold and septic almost always mean a separate specialist.
How to Verify Before You Hire
Before you sign an inspection agreement, confirm four things about the person you’re hiring:
- In a licensing state, that their state license is active, checked through the state board’s online database.
- In a non-licensing state, that they hold ACI, CPI, or an equivalent credential from a recognized national body.
- That they carry current errors and omissions insurance. An inspector operating without it may owe you damages on paper and have no ability to pay.
- That they inspect under a published Standard of Practice, and that they have no financial relationship with your agent, the seller, or anyone else who gains from the sale closing.
Those four checks separate a legitimate inspector from someone who just owns a flashlight. In most states the license already covers them; everywhere else, you’re doing the vetting the state didn’t.