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Your rights

Nebraska

Nebraska · home improvement

Your rights in Nebraska

Information, not legal adviceRules checked Oct 4, 2026

3 business days to cancel

If you agree at home or away from their office ($25+)

Mail a written notice before midnight of the third business day. Money back within 10 days, down payment included.

Some sales are excepted, such as emergency work you ask for in a signed waiver.

The 5 exceptions, in the rule's words
  • Sales made under negotiations you had earlier, during your visit to a store or other business with a fixed, permanent location where the goods are displayed or the services are offered for sale on a continuing basis.
  • A bona fide immediate personal emergency where you made the first contact and gave the seller a separate, dated, signed statement in your own handwriting describing the emergency and waiving the right to cancel.
  • Transactions where you already have a federal right to cancel (rescind) under the Consumer Credit Protection Act (15 U.S.C. 1635).
  • Sales made entirely by mail or telephone with no other contact before the goods are delivered or the services performed.
  • A visit you asked for to repair or maintain your personal property; anything extra sold on that visit, beyond replacement parts used in the repair, can still be canceled.
Read the full rule

When it applies

A sale of goods or services of $25 or more that the seller personally solicited (even if you invited the seller), where you agreed to buy somewhere other than the seller's place of business, such as your home.

If the seller came to you and you agreed to buy at your home or another place that is not the seller's business, you can cancel by mailing a written notice before midnight of the third business day after you signed. The seller must return your money, including any down payment, within 10 days. If the contract is missing the required cancellation notice, the 3 days have not started. A separate law lets you cancel a job paid from your home insurance (such as a storm roof repair) until midnight of the third business day after signing or after your insurer tells you in writing that all or part of the claim is not covered, whichever is later.

Nebraska AG: Three-day right to cancel · read on protectthegoodlife.nebraska.gov · checked Oct 4, 2026 (official source, opens in a new tab)

Registration number

Check it before you sign

Nebraska contractors must register with the Department of Labor before doing construction work. Registration isn't a license.

Registration
Read the full rule

Nebraska contractors must register with the Department of Labor before doing construction work, and you can search the registered list on the Department's website. Registration is not a license: the Department says it does not ensure quality of work or protect against fraud.

Who needs one: Every contractor and subcontractor doing construction work in Nebraska, meaning work on real property including new work, additions, alterations, reconstruction, installations and repairs. A contractor must register before performing the work, and needs a separate registration number for each business name.

Who doesn't

  • A person who performs work, or has work performed, on his or her own property
  • A person who earns less than $5,000 a year for construction services
  • The state and its political subdivisions

Issued by: Nebraska Department of Labor (Labor Standards, Contractor Registration)

Nebraska AG: Three-day right to cancel · read on protectthegoodlife.nebraska.gov · checked Oct 4, 2026 (official source, opens in a new tab)

The contract must include

Source: NE law

An estimate isn't the contract. Ask for all 5 in writing before you sign.

  • Buyer's right to cancelIf sold away from their office: show the rule's own words

    In the rule's words

    If the sale was made at your home or anywhere other than the seller's place of business, the contract must contain a notice under the heading BUYER'S RIGHT TO CANCEL, in at least 10-point bold type, giving the seller's name and mailing address and saying you may cancel by mailing a written notice before midnight of the third business day after you signed. A contract that uses the Federal Trade Commission's cooling-off notice form instead also complies, as long as it tells you at least as much.

  • Notice in your language tooIf they sell in your main language: show the rule's own words

    In the rule's words

    If the seller regularly uses a language other than English in its ads, sales talks or forms and that is your main language, the cancellation notice must be given in both English and that language.

  • No deductible rebates noticeInsurance-paid roof or exterior work: show the rule's own words

    In the rule's words

    If the job is roof or other exterior work, or interior or exterior cleanup, on a home for one to four families and is to be paid from your property insurance, any written contract, estimate or work order must carry the state's notice, in capital letters in 14-point type, that rebating any part of your insurance deductible is illegal; you sign it and it is sent to your insurer before the insurance pays.

  • Itemized description firstBefore insurance-paid work starts: show the rule's own words

    In the rule's words

    Before insurance-paid repair work starts, the contractor must give you and your insurer an itemized description of the work, materials, labor and fees, with the total amount to be paid.

  • Assignment of benefits termsIf you assign insurance benefits: show the rule's own words

    In the rule's words

    If you assign your insurance benefits to the contractor after a loss, the assignment must state that the contractor has made no assurances the loss will be fully covered, carry the required capitalized 14-point warning, and be given to your insurer within five business days.

On signing day

  • Keep a signed copy
  • Find the cancel notice
Sources50 official pages · checked Oct 4, 2026

Notes from our check

  • Independent verification on 2026-10-04: every cited statute was re-read on nebraskalegislature.gov, and the Attorney General pages (protectthegoodlife.nebraska.gov) and the Department of Labor overview, contractor search page and fact sheet PDF (dol.nebraska.gov) were fetched and read directly. Web search was unavailable. The Legislature's own keyword search of the Revised Statutes was used to look for roofing, plumber, home inspection, radon and down-payment provisions.
  • No deposit or down-payment limit was found. The Contractor Registration Act (48-2101 to 48-2117), the Home Solicitation Sales Act (69-1601 to 69-1607), the Insured Homeowners Protection Act (44-8601 to 44-8608) and the AG's contractor page contain none, and a keyword search of the Revised Statutes for 'down payment' found no home improvement provision. depositCap is null: the app must not state a Nebraska cap or borrow one from another state.
  • Related money rules that are not caps: after a home solicitation sale is canceled, money paid (including a down payment) must be returned within 10 days, and a seller who performed services before cancellation is not entitled to be paid for them (69-1605(1), 69-1606(5)). After an insurance-paid contract is canceled, the contractor must return payments and deposits within 10 days, except the reasonable value of goods or services you agreed in writing were needed to prevent damage to the premises (44-8603(2)).
  • Cancellation is Nebraska's own Home Solicitation Sales Act, not the federal FTC rule. Notice of cancellation must be by mail and counts as given when mailed (69-1603(2)); the AG suggests certified mail, return receipt requested. 'Business day' is not defined in the statute. The annotation on the Legislature's 69-1603 page cites Flodman v. Robinson, 22 Neb. App. 943 (2015): any calendar day except Sunday or a federal holiday. The app should say 'business day' and not count days for the homeowner.
  • The exceptions list leaves out two statutory exclusions that do not bear on home improvement work: sales of securities or commodities by a registered broker-dealer, and consumer rental-purchase agreements (69-1601(1)(f) and (g); both also on the AG page). Separately, 69-1604(6) lets a seller skip the cancellation notice for a one-time delivery of goods ordered on a sales ticket that itself states you may cancel, refuse delivery or return the goods for a full refund.
  • A seller may use the FTC cooling-off notice form instead of the BUYER'S RIGHT TO CANCEL wording (69-1604(2) and the Flodman annotation), so a contract with the FTC form is not missing the notice.
  • Wording difference on the repair exception: the statute (69-1601(1)(e)) excludes buyer-requested visits to repair or maintain 'the buyer's personal property', while the AG page says 'sales involving home repair or home maintenance when the homeowner initiated the sales call'. The statute wording is used here. Whether a given home repair falls within the exclusion was not determined.
  • Insured Homeowners Protection Act (44-8601 to 44-8608): applies to residential contractors doing roof or other exterior repair, replacement or construction, or interior or exterior cleanup, on homes for one to four families (44-8602). Deductible rebates are prohibited (44-8604), and a contract is void if the contractor violates the Act (44-8608).
  • Registration number placement: the Contractor Registration Act and the DOL pages read do not require the registration number to appear on contracts, bids or ads. numberMustAppearOn is empty because no such requirement was found, not because one was verified to be absent. The number format is a five-digit number followed by a two-digit year of issue (48-2108).
  • Registration threshold wording differs: the statute (48-2104) says a person earning less than $5,000 a year for construction services is not a contractor; the DOL fact sheet (version 7/17/2026) says businesses earning more than $5,000 must register. The app should say 'about $5,000 a year' or avoid the figure.
  • The DOL removes a contractor from the registered list when its workers' compensation insurance coverage has expired (DOL Contractor Registration page; see also 48-2117(6)), so a contractor missing from the search may have let insurance lapse.
  • Nebraska law sets no general list of required contents for home improvement contracts beyond the items in contractMust. The AG advises (not a legal requirement) insisting on a written contract with a detailed description of the work, the materials and a proposed completion date.
  • A notice of the right to assert a construction lien on a homeowner's residence is optional for the lien claimant, not required (52-135 and its annotation), so it is not listed in contractMust.
  • environmental-testing was left out of both trade lists: residential lead-based paint inspection, risk assessment and abatement in target housing require a Department of Health and Human Services license (71-6318.01, 71-6319.27, 71-6326; department defined in 71-6319.15), and radon measurement and mitigation services also require a DHHS license (71-3507(3); department defined in 71-3503), but no statewide credential for mold testing was found, so the slug as a whole was not determined.

General information from official Nebraska sources. For your situation, ask the state's consumer protection office or a lawyer.

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