Three classes and what each one may build
Florida licenses building contractors by class, and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation publishes the list. A certified general contractor holds a CGC. A certified building contractor holds a CBC. A certified residential contractor holds a CRC. All three are real licenses and all three let someone pull a permit, but they do not cover the same work.
The short version is that the classes narrow as the letters change. If your job is a house, all three can be the right answer. If it is a commercial building or anything unusually tall, the class stops being a detail and starts being the question.
Registered is not the same as certified
Alongside the certified classes the state records registered ones, RG and RB and RR. A registered license is issued on the strength of a local authority's own licensing rather than the statewide examination, so it is valid where that authority licensed the holder and not automatically across Florida.
Neither kind is a problem. It is worth knowing which one you are looking at before you assume a contractor can work in the next county.
The license belongs to a person
The record names a qualifier, the licensed individual who takes responsibility for what a company builds. A company can be perfectly real and have no qualifier attached to it, and a company whose qualifier has left cannot pull a permit until it finds another one.
Write the qualifier's name down from the state record and ask on the call whether that person is still with the business. It is the single most common reason a license looks fine on paper and the permit application stalls.
Running the check yourself
Open the DBPR licensee search, put the company name in the business-name field and read the status line. Active is the only status that lets someone pull a permit for your job.
If the company name returns nothing, search the owner's name instead. Small builders often hold the license personally and trade under a name that was never attached to the license record.
Questions about this
What is the difference between a CGC and a CRC
Both are certified Florida contractor licenses. The classes cover different kinds of building, and the state's own occupation table is what settles which is which. Read the class on the license before you assume the scope.
Who pulls the permit on a remodel
The licensed contractor does, on their own license. If you are asked to pull it as the homeowner, stop there and ask why.