Are Home Inspectors Licensed in Mississippi?

The office that runs the licence changed in 2024

Administration of home inspector licensing in Mississippi moved to the Mississippi Real Estate Appraisal Board effective 1 July 2024, and now operates as the Mississippi Home Inspection Division, advised by a Home Inspector Regulatory Board. The licence itself did not change. Where the records live, and where a complaint goes, did.

This creates a practical problem that shows up constantly in search results. Older pages hosted by the Real Estate Commission, and directories that copied them, still present the Commission as the home inspector regulator. The Commission's licensee search covers real estate brokers, salespersons, companies and branch offices, and a home inspector will not appear in it. A buyer who searches there, finds nothing and concludes the inspector is unlicensed has drawn the wrong conclusion from the wrong register. Use the division's own licensee search, which is linked from this page.

Two policies, and both must name the inspector

Mississippi is unusually specific about insurance. Miss. Code Ann. s. 73-60-13 requires a minimum of $250,000 in general liability cover and a minimum of $250,000 in errors and omissions cover, per occurrence. Those are two separate policies doing two different jobs, and the statute requires both.

The detail that matters most to a buyer is whose name appears on the certificate. Both coverages must be shown separately, in the individual inspector's name, rather than only in the employer's. That closes a familiar gap: an inspector working under a company banner whose personal exposure sits outside the firm's policy. The statute also requires the carrier to give the board at least 10 days' written notice before cancelling or non-renewing, which means a lapse in cover is something the regulator learns about rather than something that quietly happens.

Sixty hours, and an exam result with a shelf life

The education requirement is at least 60 hours in an approved course of study, from a provider recognised by a state home inspector board, certified by a professional inspection society or association, or approved by the United States Department of Education. That is a wider set of acceptable providers than some states allow, and it is the reason two Mississippi licensees may have trained in quite different settings.

The examination is the National Home Inspector Examination, and Mississippi attaches a condition that many states do not: the exam must have been passed within three years of the licence application. A ten-year-old pass will not support a new application. That freshness rule is easy to miss and worth understanding for what it signals, which is that the state treats the exam as evidence of current knowledge rather than a permanent qualification.

The state runs on an adopted national standard

Rather than writing its own scope of work, the Mississippi board adopts the ASHI Standard of Practice and Code of Ethics, with the currently approved version posted by the division. The version in force was approved on 8 January 2026.

The consequence is structural and easy to overlook. Because the standard is adopted rather than written into statute, it can be updated when the association revises it and the board approves the revision, without the legislature touching the Home Inspector Regulation Act. If you are comparing a report against the standard, compare it against the version in force on the date of your inspection, not against whatever copy turns up first. For most buyers the practical value is simpler: there is a published, identifiable document that defines the minimum a Mississippi inspection must cover, and you are entitled to read it.

Background investigation has applied since 2021

Applicants for a Mississippi home inspector licence undergo a criminal background investigation under Miss. Code Ann. s. 73-60-47, a requirement effective 1 July 2021. It is one of the few parts of the licence that speaks to the person rather than the technical qualification.

Keep its scope in proportion. A background investigation is a screening step at application. It is not a continuing character reference, it does not measure competence, and it says nothing about the quality of a report. It does mean that a Mississippi licence issued after mid-2021 reflects a check that a licence issued before that date did not involve, which is the kind of date-dependent detail that generic guidance flattens away.

A separate designation for new construction

Mississippi maintains a distinct new home designation on top of the ordinary inspector licence. It requires an active residential builder's licence together with an active inspector certification in one of eleven specified categories, which is a materially higher bar than the general licence.

For a buyer of a newly built house, that is a question worth asking directly, because a new-construction walkthrough and a resale inspection are different exercises: one is largely about workmanship against a builder's obligations, the other about condition and remaining service life. Ask whether the inspector holds the new home designation before assuming a general licence covers what you need.

Renewals, continuing education, and a complaint on paper

A Mississippi licence runs for two years from the date of issuance under Miss. Code Ann. s. 73-60-21, and 20 hours of board-approved continuing education are required every two years under s. 73-60-23. Because the cycle runs from the issue date rather than a fixed calendar date, renewal dates are spread across the year and no seasonal pattern helps you guess.

Complaints work differently from most states, and the difference is procedural rather than trivial: a complaint must be notarised and mailed to the division. If you intend to file one, allow time for the notarisation and for postal delivery, and keep a copy of what you send. A complaint is also not a substitute for acting inside your contract deadlines, since the division's process addresses the licensee's conduct rather than your position in the transaction.

Frequently Asked Questions