A construction non-compete is usually four restrictions in one document: on working for competitors, on soliciting clients, on recruiting colleagues, and on using confidential information. Enforceability depends on your state. Read it before you accept, negotiate the radius and the duration while the firm still wants you, and have an employment attorney review anything senior.
The offer arrives on a Friday with a start date, a truck allowance and a request to sign by Monday. Page six is headed “Restrictive Covenants,” and you skim it, because the president told you it was standard. A construction non-compete is easiest to change in the seventy-two hours before you sign it, when the contractor has stopped interviewing and told its estimating team you are coming. It is hardest to change three years later, when you want to leave and a lawyer is reading page six to you slowly.
What does a construction non-compete restrict?
Usually more than one thing. The clause people call a non-compete often bundles a ban on joining competitors with separate limits on soliciting the firm’s clients, recruiting its employees and using its confidential information. Each has its own duration and its own reach, and they are enforced differently.
| Covenant | What it stops | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Non-compete | Working for a competing contractor | Radius, duration, and how “competitor” is defined |
| Client non-solicitation | Pursuing the firm’s owners and developers | Whether it covers clients you brought with you |
| Employee non-solicitation | Recruiting former colleagues | Whether it covers people who approach you |
| Confidentiality | Using pricing, estimates and bid data | Whether it has an end date |
| Repayment terms | Keeping a signing bonus or relocation money | The schedule on which the obligation falls away |
For many readers the client clause is the one with teeth. A project executive’s value is partly the owners who ask for them by name. A clause that bars you from working with those owners for two years can matter more than a radius on a map, and it survives in states that will not enforce a true non-compete. The employee clause matters just as much if colleagues might follow you, a situation our note on hiring a team looks at from the contractor’s side.
Read the definition of “competitor” closely. “Any general contractor” within a hundred miles of Atlanta is a ban on your profession. “Commercial general contractors performing healthcare work over $20 million in the Atlanta metro” is a restriction you can plan around.
Whether any of it holds up depends on where you live, and that varies more than most people expect.
Is a construction non-compete enforceable in your state?
It depends on the state, and the range is wide. California refuses to enforce most employee non-competes, and Minnesota has barred new ones since 2023. Texas, Georgia and Florida will generally enforce a clause that is reasonable in duration, geography and scope, and their courts can narrow an overbroad one.
A national rule is not coming to simplify this. The Federal Trade Commission issued a rule in 2024 that would have banned most non-competes, a federal court set it aside before it took effect, and in 2025 the agency dropped its appeal. The history is on the commission’s rule page. State law governs, and state legislatures keep changing it.
Three practical points follow.
- An unenforceable clause still costs you. A new employer’s counsel may decline to hire someone with a signed non-compete, enforceable or not, to avoid a letter from your old firm. Our note on the non-compete from the hiring side explains why contractors hesitate.
- Courts can rewrite. In several states a judge may shrink an overbroad clause to something reasonable and then enforce it. Signing on the theory that “it would never stand up” is a gamble on a judge you have not met.
- Confidentiality stands apart. Estimates, unit costs and bid strategy can be protected as a trade secret whether or not you signed anything.
None of this is legal advice, and the answer for a chief estimator in Houston differs from the answer for one in Nashville. The clause also matters when a former boss asks you to follow them to a new contractor, and when a project owner makes you a job offer mid-project, where the owner’s own contract may carry a no-hire clause as well. An hour with an employment attorney in your state costs far less than a year out of your market.
What can you negotiate in a construction non-compete before you sign?
Radius, duration, the definition of competitor, and what happens if the firm lets you go. Contractors expect senior candidates to push back, and most will move on at least one term. Ask before you accept, in writing, and be specific about the change you want.
Radius is worth arguing about, because area grows with the square of the distance. A 50-mile radius covers about 7,850 square miles. A 25-mile radius covers about 1,960. A 10-mile radius covers about 314.
Requests that contractors often accept:
- A shorter duration. Twelve months where the draft says twenty-four.
- A defined market. Named sectors and a metro, in place of “any construction business.”
- A carve-out for termination without cause. If the firm ends your employment, the non-compete should fall away.
- A carve-out for prior relationships. Owners, architects and subs you knew before joining stay yours.
- Pay during the restricted period. If the firm wants you out of the market for a year, it can pay for the year.
- A narrower non-solicit. Limited to clients you worked with in your last twelve months.
Put the request to the person who made the offer: the role is right, the covenant is broader than the job, here is the wording that would let me sign. A firm that withdraws an offer over a reasonable request has shown you how it will behave when you leave.
Ask who else has signed it. If the president says everyone has and nobody has ever been held to it, ask for that in writing. The reaction is informative. The covenant is one term among several, and our note on the employment agreement lists what else should be in writing before you resign.
When to walk away
- The clause would bar you from your profession across your home metro, and the firm will not narrow it.
- It applies even if you are laid off in a slowdown.
- It was presented after you resigned from your last job, when you have no leverage left.
- The firm has a reputation for sending lawyers’ letters to people who leave.
Selah Talent Partners runs confidential executive search for mandates that cannot be publicly posted, for contractors across the United States. Existing covenants belong in the first conversation with a candidate, and in front of the client soon after, so nobody finds out at the offer stage. If you are bound by one and unsure what it allows, start at the candidates page, and bring the document to an attorney as well.
You would not sign a subcontract on the strength of “it’s our standard form.” Page six deserves the same reading.
Sources and further reading
- Dropped its appeal, Federal Trade Commission, September 2025
- Rule page, Federal Trade Commission, Non-Compete Clause Rule
- Trade secret, United States Patent and Trademark Office, trade secret policy