The licence type is the whole check
The Arkansas Department of Health lists every onsite wastewater licensee in one roster — 1501 of them — across five different licence types. Only one of those, the septic tank cleaner truck licence, allows a company to pump a septic tank. There are 102 of them.
The other four are easy to mistake for it. Advanced septic installer licences build systems. Designated representatives are the engineers, surveyors, sanitarians and master plumbers who design and inspect. Certified monitoring personnel check systems. Septic tank manufacturers make tanks. None of them may pump. A company can appear on the ADH roster, be entirely legitimate, and still not hold the licence you need.
The licence is per truck
Arkansas issues the cleaner licence against a truck, not a company, so a firm running several trucks holds several licences. That also means the name on the roster is often an individual rather than a business — plenty of Arkansas holders are listed under a person's name.
The same cleaner licence also covers holding tanks, marine sanitation devices and portable toilets. We hold clearly boat-, marina-, yacht-, marine-, portable- and potty-first names unless the same name says septic or septage. For other ambiguous names, confirm household septic work before booking.
Verification steps
- Ask for the exact name the licence is held under and the name of the business.
- Open the ADH onsite wastewater licensee roster.
- Search the name and read the License Type column carefully.
- Confirm it says Septic Tank Cleaner Truck License, not an installer, monitoring or designated representative licence.
- Match the town and phone, then confirm the company serves your address.
What ADH does not publish
The roster gives a name, licence type, town, state and phone. There is no licence number, no street address and no expiration date, so this directory shows none of those rather than inventing them. Our snapshot was retrieved September 5, 2026 and a licence can lapse after that.
Why our Arkansas counties are worked out, not copied
This is the one state on the site where the county is not published by the regulator. ADH gives a business town. We map that town to every county it occupies using US Census place data, falling back to USGS place names for small unincorporated communities, and record which source answered for each town. Four towns on this roster — Alexander, Alpena, Humphrey and Springdale — cross a county line. Those listings appear on each possible county page and say that ADH does not publish enough address detail to choose one.
This mapping narrows a business town to one or more possible counties. It is not an exact address lookup or a service area. Ask whether the cleaner will travel to your address.
Start with the Arkansas county directory, then check the licence type on the ADH roster before you book.