The reason this matters in Los Angeles is not customer service. It is that California law reaches the person who caused waste to be dumped, and the pile usually has that person's mail in it.
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Published · last checked · written by the crew at Los Angeles Junk Removal & Hauling
Look the business up in the California Secretary of State's bizfileOnline and confirm it is active, ask for a certificate of insurance naming you, and ask which transfer station or City-certified processor the load goes to. It matters because California Penal Code 374.3 reaches anyone who causes waste to be dumped.
Those three questions take about four minutes and they eliminate almost everyone you would regret hiring. The rest of this page is the other four checks, each with the actual lookup, and the statutes that explain why the liability does not stop at the tailgate. Before any of it: if you live in a house of one to four units in the City of Los Angeles, LA Sanitation will collect bulky items free, unlimited, with one business day's notice on 1-800-773-2489, and there is nothing to vet. Our city-by-city guide covers the surrounding cities.
Junk removal is one of the few trades in California where the obvious credential does not exist. There is no state junk hauling license. The Contractors State License Board publishes every classification it issues and not one of them is waste hauling, so “licensed and insured” in a junk removal advertisement is a sentence with no agency behind it unless the company tells you which license, from which body, and the number.
What does exist is a stack of things you can verify yourself in ten minutes: an entity record, a permit list, an insurance certificate, a certified processor list, and a statute that says the fine follows the waste back to whoever caused it to be dumped. Every check below applies to any hauler in Los Angeles, including us. That is the point. Run them on the company you are about to call, and run them on us.
California Penal Code 374.3 subdivision (a) makes it unlawful to “dump or cause to be dumped waste matter” on a public or private road, on private property without the owner's consent, or in a public park. Read the verb again. Causing it to be dumped is the offense, and the person who paid a truck to make a load disappear is squarely inside that phrase. The statute defines “person” to include an individual, a firm, a partnership or a corporation.
Volume is what turns a household job criminal. Subdivision (h)(5) defines commercial quantities as waste generated in the course of a trade, business, profession or occupation, or an amount equal to or more than one cubic yard, and states that the subdivision does not apply to household waste dumped at a person's own residence. A three-seat sofa is more than a cubic yard. Once the load leaves your address and lands in an alley, the household carve-out is gone.
There is a vehicle layer too. California Vehicle Code 23112(a) reaches not only the person who throws or deposits garbage on a highway but also “the registered owner or the driver, if such owner is not then present in the vehicle”, for aiding or abetting it. Subdivision (b) covers placing, depositing or dumping, or causing to be dumped, rocks, refuse, garbage or dirt on a highway without the consent of the agency with jurisdiction.
On top of the state law, the City of Los Angeles runs its own administrative track. The Los Angeles City Attorney told the City Council on January 27, 2026 that Municipal Code Section 66.25, Depositing Solid Waste on Streets or in the Los Angeles River Prohibited, sets administrative fines of $500 for a first violation, $750 for a second and $1,000 for a third and subsequent violations, and that where an ordinance is silent the catchall in Section 11.2.04(b) applies at $250, $500 and $1,000. The same report says that many, if not most, of the illegal dumping cases the City Attorney's Criminal Branch prosecutes rest on evidence obtained through video surveillance, because officers can rarely catch dumping in real time. Cameras and paperwork are how these cases are made, and paperwork is what is in your load.
| Penal Code 374.3(a) | Unlawful to dump “or cause to be dumped” waste matter on a road, on private property without consent, or in a public park |
|---|---|
| Penal Code 374.3(c) | An infraction, and each day the waste remains is a separate violation |
| Penal Code 374.3(e) | Mandatory fine of $250 to $1,000 on a first conviction, $500 to $1,500 on a second, $750 to $3,000 on a third or later, doubled for used tires |
| Penal Code 374.3(h) | Commercial quantities is a misdemeanor: up to six months in county jail plus a mandatory fine, rising to $10,000 on a third conviction and to $20,000 for a business with more than 10 full-time staff |
| Penal Code 374.3(h)(5) | “Commercial quantities” means waste from a trade or business, or one cubic yard or more. The household exemption covers only waste dumped at your own residence |
| Vehicle Code 23112(a) | Reaches the registered owner or the driver for aiding or abetting the deposit of garbage on a highway |
| LAMC 66.25, administrative fines | $500, then $750, then $1,000, per the City Attorney's January 27, 2026 report to the City Council |
| How the cases are proved | The City Attorney reports that many, if not most, prosecuted cases rest on video surveillance evidence |
Sources: California Penal Code 374.3, California Vehicle Code 23112 and the Los Angeles City Attorney report on Council File 25-0203, read September 11, 2026.
Do these in order. The first two are free public databases, the next two are things you ask for and read, and the last three are things you listen for on the phone. None of them requires you to know anything about waste law.
If a company clears all seven, you have a real business with a real receiving facility behind it. If it stalls on the fourth, you already have your answer.
Search the legal name in the California Secretary of State's bizfileOnline. The free search covers corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships and returns the entity name and number, the formation or registration date, the status, standing with the Franchise Tax Board, the street and mailing addresses, and the name and address of the agent for service of process. A company that cannot be found under any spelling of its name is either a sole proprietorship or nothing at all.
If the job includes taking something apart rather than carrying it out, look the contractor up on the CSLB license check. You can search by license number, business name or a person's name, and the record includes complaint disclosure.
Not a photograph of a policy jacket. A certificate listing the insured business name, the insurer, the policy number, the effective and expiration dates, an authorized signature, and you as certificate holder.
A legitimate hauler answers with a transfer station or a processor, not with “we handle it.” Then check the name in the CalRecycle Solid Waste Information System.
Inside the City of Los Angeles, a private company collecting solid waste or construction and demolition debris needs an AB 939 Compliance Permit from LA Sanitation. The current list of permitted haulers is published as a PDF with each company's address, phone and permit number.
A business name that matches the entity record, a phone number that a human answers, a service area or address consistent with Google's own rules, and reviews that describe specific jobs rather than adjectives.
A written number for the whole job, sent by text or email, before the first item leaves the ground. No wired deposit, no cash before work, no “we will tell you when it is on the truck.”
| Entity and status | bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov, California Secretary of State, free |
|---|---|
| Contractor license and complaint history | cslb.ca.gov check a license, by number, business name or personal name |
| Is the insurer real | California Department of Insurance Company Profile, which returns location, complaint history and financial strength |
| Is the receiving facility real | CalRecycle SWIS: landfills, transfer stations, composting sites and closed disposal sites, with regulatory and operational status and inspection records |
| Is the hauler permitted in the City of LA | LASAN permitted hauler list (PDF), name, address, phone and permit number |
| Is the processor City-certified | LASAN certified processor list, 12 facilities for calendar year 2026 with published mixed C&D recycling rates |
Sources: California Secretary of State, Business Entities Information Requests, CSLB Check a License, CalRecycle SWIS and LASAN, Apply for a Commercial Waste Hauler Permit, read September 11, 2026.
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Free upfront quote, no obligation. If your city will haul it free instead, we will tell you that first.
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Our own crews on Los Angeles County jobs. Side yards, narrow walkways and the back of the property is where most of the work actually happens.
This is the part most guides get wrong, so here it is plainly. The Contractors State License Board publishes the full list of classifications it issues under Business and Professions Code 7055: the general engineering and general building classifications, a residential remodeling classification, and roughly forty specialty classifications from C-2 insulation to C-61 limited specialty. There is no classification for waste hauling, junk removal or debris collection. Carrying an existing sofa out of an existing house is not a CSLB-licensed trade, and a junk removal company that holds no CSLB license is not, by that fact alone, doing anything wrong.
The moment the work becomes construction, that changes. CSLB states that it is illegal for an unlicensed person to perform contracting work on any project which requires a building permit, or where employee labor is used, or where the project is valued at $1,000 or more in combined labor and material costs. Demolition is its own classification: C-21, Building Moving/Demolition, described by CSLB as a contractor who “raises, lowers, cribs, underpins, demolishes and moves or removes structures, including their foundations.” Pulling out kitchen cabinets, taking down a shed, breaking up a patio or removing a deck is work in that direction. Hauling away the pile afterward is not.
The consequence of getting that line wrong is not abstract. California Labor Code 2750.5 creates a rebuttable presumption that a worker performing services for which a contractor license is required, or performing them for a person required to hold one, is an employee rather than an independent contractor, and states that anyone performing a function for which a license is required must hold a valid contractor license as a condition of independent contractor status. Labor Code 3357 adds that any person rendering service for another, other than as an independent contractor, is presumed to be an employee. Hire an unlicensed person for licensed work and the question of whose employee they were is no longer a comfortable one.
One more body, because people confuse the two trades. The Bureau of Household Goods and Services licenses household movers, defined as a business paid to use motor vehicles to transport used household goods and personal effects over a public road in California. If a company is carrying your belongings to a new address, that is a household mover license question. The Bureau also states that a motor carrier using a commercial motor vehicle to transport property other than household goods must be permitted by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
| Is there a CSLB junk hauling license | No. CSLB's published classification list under Business and Professions Code 7055 contains no waste hauling or junk removal classification |
|---|---|
| When a CSLB license is required | CSLB: work on a project requiring a building permit, or where employee labor is used, or valued at $1,000 or more in combined labor and material |
| Demolition classification | C-21, Building Moving/Demolition Contractor, which raises, lowers, cribs, underpins, demolishes and moves or removes structures including foundations |
| Hiring unlicensed for licensed work | Labor Code 2750.5 presumes the worker is an employee, not an independent contractor, and requires a valid license as a condition of independent contractor status |
| Moving your belongings | A Household Mover license from the Bureau of Household Goods and Services covers transporting used household goods and personal effects for hire |
| Other commercial motor carriers | The Bureau states motor carriers hauling property other than household goods must be permitted by the Department of Motor Vehicles |
Sources: CSLB Licensing Classifications, CSLB C-21 description, CSLB, What is illegal contractor activity, Labor Code 2750.5 and the Bureau of Household Goods and Services, consumer information.
Two different policies do two different jobs, and people ask for the wrong one. General liability covers damage the crew does to your property: the banister, the drywall at the turn of the stairs, the car in the driveway. Workers' compensation covers the person who gets hurt carrying the thing. If a hauler carries only one of them, it is usually the first, and the second is the one that can reach you.
The workers' compensation requirement is not optional and it is not graduated. The Department of Industrial Relations states that California employers are required by law to have workers' compensation insurance, even if they have only one employee. CSLB repeats the same rule for the construction industry on its own workers' compensation page. Labor Code 3700 requires every employer to secure the payment of compensation, and Labor Code 3700.5 makes failing to do so a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in county jail or a fine of up to double the premium that would have been due, but not less than $10,000, or both.
We could not find a California statute that requires a junk removal company to carry general liability insurance at all, and we are not going to invent one. It is a commercial norm, not a state mandate, which is exactly why asking for the certificate matters rather than assuming. What you want is a certificate of insurance naming you as certificate holder, because a certificate issued to somebody else proves nothing about your job and may have lapsed since it was printed.
CSLB publishes what it considers an acceptable workers' compensation certificate, and the same anatomy works as a reading checklist for any certificate handed to you. It must be written by an insurance company licensed through the California Department of Insurance, name the contractor's business name and license number, show the policy number and the effective and expiration dates, carry the signature of an authorized representative of the insurer, and list the correct certificate holder. CSLB also notes that licensees with no employees may instead file a signed exemption certifying that fact, and that active C-8, C-20, C-22, C-39 and C-61/D-49 contractors must carry coverage whether or not they have employees. If a company tells you it is exempt, that is a specific claim with a specific form behind it.
The insurer named on the certificate is itself checkable. The California Department of Insurance runs a Company Profile search that returns a company's location, complaint history and financial strength from a partial or full company name.
| Workers' compensation requirement | Required of California employers even with only one employee, per the Department of Industrial Relations and CSLB |
|---|---|
| Statute | Labor Code 3700 requires every employer to secure the payment of compensation |
| Penalty for going without | Labor Code 3700.5: a misdemeanor, up to one year in county jail or a fine of up to double the premium that would have been due, not less than $10,000, or both |
| What a valid certificate shows | An insurer licensed through the California Department of Insurance, the business name and license number, the policy number, effective and expiration dates, an authorized signature and the correct certificate holder |
| The no-employee route | CSLB accepts a signed exemption certifying the licensee has no employees at this time |
| Trades that must carry it regardless | CSLB lists active C-8, C-20, C-22, C-39 and C-61/D-49 licensees as required to carry coverage whether or not they have employees |
| General liability | No California statute we could confirm requires it for junk hauling. Ask for the certificate rather than assuming, and ask to be named on it |
Sources: California Department of Industrial Relations, DWC employer information, CSLB Workers’ Compensation Requirements, Labor Code 3700 and 3700.5.
Every junk removal quote is really two jobs: carrying it out, and disposing of it. You watch the first one happen. The second one happens somewhere you will never see, and it is the half that generates the liability. So ask the question that has only one good answer: which facility does this load go to.
In the City of Los Angeles there is a permit behind that answer. LA Sanitation states that a private company collecting solid waste or construction and demolition debris within the city is required by law to hold an AB 939 Compliance Permit, also called a Waste Hauler Permit. Permitted haulers pay a compliance fee equal to 10 percent of gross receipts for the collection, transportation or disposal of 1,000 tons or more in a calendar year, file quarterly tonnage and gross receipt reports, renew annually, and deliver all mixed construction and demolition waste strictly to City-certified processing facilities.
LA Sanitation's Construction and Demolition Recycling Program sets out the rule and its history: on March 5, 2010 the City Council approved Council File 09-3029, establishing a citywide construction and demolition waste recycling ordinance under which all mixed C&D debris generated in the city must be transported by a permitted private waste hauler and processed at a City-certified facility. LA Sanitation states that non-compliance penalties of up to $5,000 are assessed for every load not taken to certified processors. The city publishes the certified processor list for calendar year 2026 with each facility's address, phone number and mixed C&D recycling rate, and an interactive map updated January 16, 2026.
Two consequences for a homeowner or a general contractor. First, the permit is checkable: the current list of permitted haulers is a public PDF. Second, the paper trail already runs through your property, because LA Sanitation says building permit applications require contractors to either identify their permitted private solid waste hauler or provide their own permit for self-hauling. Your building permit names the hauler. Ask for the weight or disposal receipt from the processor when the job is done; the city's own system runs on those reports, and any hauler working inside it can produce one. For household loads with no construction debris in them, the receipt is still the honest way to see where it went.
| Permit required in the City of LA | AB 939 Compliance Permit from LA Sanitation, for any private company collecting solid waste or C&D debris inside the city |
|---|---|
| Compliance fee | 10 percent of gross receipts for collecting, transporting or disposing of 1,000 tons or more in a calendar year, collected by LA Sanitation |
| Reporting | Quarterly tonnage and gross receipt reports, plus an annual renewal application |
| Where mixed C&D must go | A City-certified mixed C&D processing facility, and nowhere else |
| Penalty per load that goes elsewhere | Up to $5,000 per load, assessed by LA Sanitation under the citywide C&D ordinance |
| The ordinance | Ordinance 181519, Council File 09-3029, approved by the City Council March 5, 2010 |
| Certified processors, 2026 | 12 facilities listed by LA Sanitation with mixed C&D recycling rates from 70.00 percent to 89.96 percent, plus an interactive map updated January 16, 2026 |
| The building permit link | LADBS building permit applications require the contractor to name a permitted private hauler or show their own self-haul permit |
Sources: LASAN Waste Hauler Compliance Program, LASAN, Apply for a Commercial Waste Hauler Permit and LASAN Construction and Demolition Recycling Program, read September 11, 2026.
There is a check that comes before all the others if your address is a business or an apartment building of five units or more inside the City of Los Angeles: whether a private hauler is permitted to collect from you at all.
LA Sanitation runs recycLA, an exclusive franchise system covering more than 66,000 commercial, industrial and multi-family properties of five units or more, organized into 11 citywide zones served by six exclusive recycLA Service Providers: Athens Services and Athens EDT, NASA Services, Republic Services, Universal Waste Systems, Ware Disposal and Waste Management. LA Sanitation states the consequence directly on its permit page: as of July 1, 2017, waste hauling permits issued to non-recycLA service providers do not grant the right to collect from regular recycLA system customers unless official alternative agreements are in place with that zone's provider.
So if you manage a thirty-unit building or a restaurant in the City of Los Angeles and a hauler offers to take your regular waste, the honest answer is that the franchise, not the hauler, decides. A company that knows this will tell you which zone you are in and what it can and cannot do. A company that has never heard of recycLA is telling you something about how much of the city's rulebook it has read. In a fourplex or a single-family house, none of this applies and the free LA Sanitation program is still the first call. Our dumpster comparison covers the other route, which carries its own permit questions when the container sits on a public street.
| What recycLA covers | Commercial, industrial and multi-family properties of 5 or more units in the City of Los Angeles |
|---|---|
| Scale | More than 66,000 customers across 11 citywide zones |
| Exclusive service providers | Athens Services and Athens EDT, NASA Services, Republic Services, Universal Waste Systems, Ware Disposal, Waste Management |
| Non-franchise haulers | Since July 1, 2017, a waste hauling permit does not grant the right to collect from regular recycLA customers without an alternative agreement with the zone's provider |
| Diversion obligation | Each service provider must cut landfill tonnage 65 percent below its 2019 baseline under its contract with the city |
| Houses of 1 to 4 units | Served by LA Sanitation directly, including free unlimited bulky-item collection on one business day's notice |
Sources: LASAN recycLA Program, LASAN, Apply for a Commercial Waste Hauler Permit and LASAN, Schedule a Bulky Item Pickup.
Here is the scenario this page exists for. A pickup with no lettering stops outside while you are dragging a mattress to the curb. The driver offers to take it for cash, right now, cheaper than anyone you called. Three days later it is in an alley a mile away with your gas bill in the wrapping, and under California Penal Code 374.3 the person who caused it to be dumped is in the frame, not just the person who drove it there.
The tell is never the price. It is that there is nothing to check: no entity name, no callback number that answers twice, no facility named, no paper at any point. Strip mailing labels, prescription labels and delivery stickers off anything leaving your house whoever takes it, and photograph the plate of the truck before it pulls away.
What an online listing does and does not prove. Google verifies Business Profiles by phone or text, by email, by live video call or by video recording, and says the available methods are determined by Google and cannot be chosen. Its guidelines state that a business renting a mailing address it does not operate from, a virtual office, is not eligible for a profile, that a co-working office does not qualify unless it has clear signage and is staffed by that business during business hours, and that businesses showing an address should maintain permanent fixed signage there. It also says service-area businesses should hide their address. So a missing address is normal and expected for a crew that comes to you; an address with no signage, no staff and no sign of the business ever being there is the thing worth noticing.
What accreditation does and does not prove. The Better Business Bureau's eight standards for trust are worth reading, and the BBB states plainly on the same page that it charges a fee for accreditation, based on factors including the size of the business. Accreditation is a paid membership against a code of conduct, not a government license, and it should be weighed as exactly that.
The quote is a document, not a mood. Get a written total for the whole job before anything is lifted. California sets a useful benchmark for the adjacent trade: Business and Professions Code 7159.5 requires home improvement contracts to be in writing with the contract amount in dollars and cents, caps any down payment at $1,000 or 10 percent of the contract amount, whichever is less, and bars a contractor from requesting or accepting payment exceeding the value of work performed. Junk removal is usually not a home improvement contract, so that statute will not always govern your job, but the shape of it is the right shape to insist on: a written number first, money against work done, nothing wired in advance.
And about us. Run every check on this page against us too. We are a service-area business with no storefront, which is why you will not find an address on our listings, and the number is (323) 230-0777. We give a written total before anything is lifted. If your city will take the item free, we will tell you so first. That is the whole of what we claim; our pricing page explains how the quote is built and our service areas list where we go.
There is no way to check anything about a truck that stopped at random, and the load is traceable to you, not to it.
In the City of Los Angeles, LA Sanitation collects bulky items free and unlimited on your regular trash day with at least one business day's notice, through MyLA311 or on 1-800-773-2489.
Secretary of State entity status, then the LA Sanitation permitted hauler list if you are inside the city. Both are free and take about four minutes.
“Which transfer station or processor does this go to?” Write the answer down and check it in CalRecycle's SWIS database.
A certificate of insurance naming you, and one number for the whole job in writing, before the first item moves.
Remove anything with your name on it, and ask for the disposal or weight receipt afterward. It is the only proof of where the load ended up.
Sources: Google Business Profile Help, Verify your business on Google, Google, Guidelines for representing your business on Google, BBB Accreditation Standards and California Business and Professions Code 7159.5.
Every rule, fee, limit and deadline on this page is from the body that sets it. Checked on the date above; if a city changes its program we change the page.
Same crew, one visit, one number agreed before anything is lifted.
The whole garage in one visit. We sort, donate what is usable and sweep the slab.
Drywall, lumber, tile and concrete, hauled to a certified C&D processor.
A full property cleared with care, on probate or move-out timelines.
COIs, after-hours dock slots and property-manager invoicing.
The rest of the LA disposal manual.
The state and city penalties, why liability follows the waste back to whoever produced it, and how to get a pile cleared off your street.
A dumpster on an LA street needs a permit and a hauler permit behind it. Which one is right depends on four things, not on price alone.
How volume pricing works, the disposal fees that sit underneath every quote, and the questions that stop a price changing on the day.
The follow-up questions people ask after this one.
There is no state junk removal license. CSLB publishes every classification it issues under Business and Professions Code 7055 and none of them covers waste hauling. A CSLB license does apply once the work becomes construction: demolition is classification C-21, and CSLB says unlicensed contracting is illegal on any project needing a building permit, using employee labor, or valued at $1,000 or more in combined labor and material.
The statutes reach the person who caused the dumping, not only the driver. California Penal Code 374.3 makes it unlawful to dump waste matter or to cause it to be dumped, and Vehicle Code 23112 reaches a registered owner who aids or abets it. Whether any individual is charged depends on evidence and prosecutorial discretion, and investigators work from whatever in the pile carries a name.
General liability for damage to your property, and workers' compensation for the crew. California requires employers to carry workers' compensation even with a single employee, and Labor Code 3700.5 makes going without it a misdemeanor fined at not less than $10,000. Ask for a certificate of insurance naming you as certificate holder rather than a generic copy.
LA Sanitation requires an AB 939 Compliance Permit from any private company collecting solid waste or construction and demolition debris inside the city, and publishes the current list of permitted haulers as a PDF with each company's name, address, phone number and permit number. If the company is not on that list, ask why before the truck arrives.
Ask which transfer station or processor the load goes to, by name, then check that name in CalRecycle's Solid Waste Information System, which lists regulatory and operational status. For mixed construction and demolition debris generated in the City of Los Angeles, the answer has to be a City-certified processor, and LA Sanitation assesses up to $5,000 per load that goes elsewhere.
There is nothing to verify: no entity record to search, no permit number, no insurance certificate, no named facility and no receipt. If that load is dumped and anything in it carries your name, the law reaches back to whoever caused it to be dumped. In the City of Los Angeles the free bulky pickup costs nothing and needs one business day's notice.
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We needed a last min mattress removal and called these guys up and hunter came by to pick up the mattress and haul it away for a fair price and had great communication. Very friendly and quick. Callem up for any junk removal they got you 👍the rest is on Google
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