Dedicated AC line - Contractor wants to use BX instead of romex

Reason million and one to not live in one of those God forsaken over regulated over taxed places.

Well... since I'm a licensed electrician and I'm guessing from your uninformed comments you are not congratulations on knowing the acronym NEC. Only commercial construction and over populated densely packed & infested cities require conduit.  Single family homes that make up 98.4% (I looked up the statistic just for you) of all domestic construction across America do not require soft or hard conduit.  An yes those places where culture and art are sooooo very important but no one actually does anything meaningful or make their own way... but just complain and hold their hand out for "their fair share" is exactly what I am talking about.  We the people means THE INDIVIDUAL not as BoBo says ie: the government.

OK good times.  So Op in your situation and zip you do need conduit as same as vair68robert states for his zip BX is really intended for sub 10ft runs though some inspectors may interpret BX as flexible conduit.  As a result the most likely best path forward is to use the hi purity copper in conduit.  Cheers. and sorry for the disruption to the thread, the door was flung wide open and well I couldn't resist.