WHO MAY SEAL YOUR PLANS — AND WHERE.
There is no national engineering license. There are fifty-plus licensing jurisdictions, each with its own board, its own firm rules, and its own definition of the responsible charge that makes a seal legal.
A professional engineer may only seal work in a jurisdiction where they hold a license, and in most states the firm offering the engineering must also be registered or authorized there. The seal is lawful when three things line up: the individual PE is licensed in the project jurisdiction, the firm is properly registered to practice there, and the sealing engineer exercised responsible charge over the work — meaning a genuine, independent review or direct supervision, never a signature rented by the hour.
Gate one: the individual license
Every state licenses professional engineers through its own board of registration, and a license in one state confers zero authority in another. Engineers extend their footprint through comity — licensure by endorsement based on an existing license, education and examination record (the NCEES Record exists to make that portable). Some jurisdictions add their own wrinkles: certain states license structural engineering as a separate profession with its own exam, and some restrict which license class may seal which building types — schools, hospitals and high-rises are the classic examples. The practical rule never changes: the person who seals your plans must hold the right license, of the right class, in the state where the structure stands.
This is why 'we stamp nationally' claims deserve scrutiny. What a legitimate national practice actually holds is a bench — multiple engineers whose licenses, between them, cover the jurisdictions served, assigned project by project against the license map. That is how SEALANVIL operates: services are provided by Apex Grid Engineering PLLC, and every engagement is matched to a professional engineer licensed in the project jurisdiction before any review begins.
Gate two: the firm's registration
In most states, it is not enough for the engineer to be licensed — the business offering engineering services to the public must hold a firm registration, certificate of authorization, or the state's equivalent, naming a licensed engineer in responsible charge of the firm's practice there. Boards publish rosters of registered firms, and sophisticated owners and jurisdictions check them. This gate is also where marketing names meet the law: a brand or trade name a firm practices under has to be squared with the firm's board record, because the public is entitled to know which licensed entity stands behind the seal.
You will never find a firm registration number on this site — not ours, not anyone's. Numbers get mis-copied, applications get confused with registrations, and a number printed on a web page is not proof of anything. The proof standard is the board's own roster, checked live against the firm's legal name. We hold our public claims to the pattern the boards themselves use: the firm's legal name, and the statement that work is reviewed and sealed by a professional engineer licensed in the project jurisdiction.
Gate three: responsible charge
The gate that matters most is the one money can't shortcut. State rules — every state's — prohibit 'plan stamping': applying a seal to work the engineer did not prepare or genuinely review. Responsible charge means the sealing engineer had direct control over, or performed a review thorough enough to take professional responsibility for, the engineering decisions in the documents. A reviewer must be free to demand corrections, to require calculations, and to refuse the seal — and must actually exercise that freedom, or the seal is a forgery with a license number under it.
This is the line between a review service and a stamp mill, and it is the entire operating standard here: review first, seal only when approved. When you send us a set, the engagement is structured so the responsible PE can do the real work — scope confirmed up front, calculations requested where they're missing, corrections issued where they're needed. If a jurisdiction cannot be lawfully served for your project, we say so at scoping instead of discovering it at the permit counter.
Seals, signatures and the digital question
Boards also govern the seal's form: most jurisdictions now authorize electronic or digital seals and signatures, each under its own rules — image requirements, digital-certificate standards, and statements that must accompany an electronic seal. A set sealed digitally in one state may need a different execution in the next, and jurisdictions increasingly ask how the sealed record copy is secured. None of this is exotic; it is the routine compliance layer a multi-state practice handles engagement by engagement, and one more reason the jurisdiction on the title sheet drives everything downstream of it.