Construction companies in Boston: 14,628 contractors, the licensed builder rule and where the work is

This report is for property owners and developers hiring a contractor in Greater Boston, general contractors and construction managers looking for subcontractors, people weighing a job or acquisition, and B2B sellers whose customers are builders and trades. It covers the Census count, what the city checks on every permit, where the building is happening and how to prospect.

Greater Boston construction in numbers

US Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023, construction sector (NAICS 23), Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metro Area (CBSA 14460):

Average pay is almost $20,000 above the national construction figure of $76,580 (our calculation from the CBP state files). Firms are smaller than the national 9.4 employees per establishment, and the size table shows why: 10,228 of them have fewer than five people.

Suffolk County (Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop) has the fewest Massachusetts establishments in the metro but the largest crews (12.6 employees each) and the highest pay, which fits a core where most work is commercial, institutional and large residential buildings. The two New Hampshire counties are under New Hampshire's rules, not the Massachusetts licenses below.

Who does what

Mechanical and electrical contractors are the backbone of the market: 3,982 establishments with 43,514 employees, more than all builders of homes and commercial buildings combined (28,465). The 82 multifamily builders average 24 employees each, and the 543 commercial and institutional builders 21; both are the firms that hire most of the trades above.

The Census Bureau doesn't publish the 1,000-or-more cell for this metro; the 1 shown is the total less the published cells. In broader bands: 13,501 establishments (92.3%) have 1 to 19 employees, 924 have 20 to 99 and 203 have 100 or more.

What CBP counts: establishments (locations) with paid employees, not companies; a construction manager with a Boston office and a Woburn yard counts twice. Self-employed contractors with no payroll aren't included, and employment is for the pay period including March 12, 2023.

What a Boston permit tells you about a contractor

The City of Boston's Inspectional Services Department ties every building permit to a licensed builder, and Massachusetts law requires that builder to be "actively in charge" of the work. When a licensed builder changes on a permit, the city asks for:

1. A copy of the builder's Construction Supervisor License (CSL) or City of Boston Builders License.
2. A Home Improvement Contractor (HIC) registration where the work is on a home.
3. A certificate of liability insurance and a workers' compensation affidavit.
4. A Mattocks-Higgins Affidavit of Workplace Safety, a Boston requirement.
5. A signed contract between the owner and the new builder.

That's also a good hiring checklist. Ask for each document before you sign, check that the license holder named on the permit is the person who will run your job, and confirm insurance with the issuer.

Where the building is

The Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey counted 10,072 new housing units authorized in the Boston metro in 2025, down from 11,235 in 2024, with an estimated construction value of $3.34 billion. Of the 2025 units, 3,971 were single-family homes, 406 were in two- to four-unit buildings and 5,695 were in buildings of five or more units. More than half the new homes are apartments and condominiums, which keeps the 82 multifamily builders, and the drywall, finish carpentry and mechanical trades they hire, busy even when single-family starts fall.

For individual projects, the city's Approved Building Permits dataset on Analyze Boston lists permits back to 2009 with the applicant, permit type, declared valuation, description and address, updated daily. Its recent years hold far fewer records than earlier ones (2,901 permits issued in 2025 against 28,835 in 2011), so use it to research particular projects and applicants rather than to measure activity, and use the city's Permit Finder for a single address.

Public companies headquartered here

Two SEC-registered, listed construction companies have their principal executive offices in the metro. Ameresco of Framingham, which builds and runs energy efficiency, infrastructure upgrade and distributed energy projects, reported $1.93 billion in revenue for 2025 in its Form 10-K. ConnectM Technology Solutions of Marlborough, an electrification and clean energy company that trades over the counter, reported $35.8 million. The large general contractors and construction managers that dominate the city's commercial work are private and don't publish revenue.

Selling to Boston contractors

Most Boston contractors are owner-run remodelers and trades who decide quickly but have little time; the 203 large establishments buy through committees with set procurement calendars. Our guide on finding decision makers covers how to reach both.

Illustrative example. Fenway Interior Supply and its sales figures are fictional; the counts are from CBP 2023 and the Census Building Permits Survey.

Fenway Interior Supply (fenwayinterior.example) distributes drywall, acoustical ceilings and metal framing. Its targets are drywall and insulation contractors (437 establishments), finish carpenters (639) and multifamily builders (82): 1,158 accounts. If a quarter work on buildings of five or more units, that's about 290 accounts. Winning 15% (44) at $120,000 a year each is $5.3 million in annual sales. The research that matters is which of those 290 are on the 5,695 apartment and condo units authorized last year. Bebop turns a description like that into a list of matching firms, each with a playbook.

Where to find names

For the rest of the state, see Massachusetts construction companies; for the design side, the Boston architecture firms report.

Next step: use the construction companies industry guide to segment a Boston list by trade and size.