How to Fill Out a Building Permit Application

Do you need a permit at all?

The model codes start from yes. Anyone who intends to build, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish or change the occupancy of a building, or to install, alter or replace an electrical, gas, mechanical or plumbing system, "shall first make application to the building official and obtain the required permit" IRC R105.1 IBC 105.1.

The 2024 International Residential Code covers detached one- and two-family homes and townhouses up to three stories R101.2. Its list of work exempt from a permit is short. The main items R105.2:

Ordinary repairs need no application, but the line is tight. Cutting away a wall, cutting or removing a beam or bearing support, changing a required exit, or adding, altering, replacing or moving piping, wiring or mechanical work is not an ordinary repair R105.2.2.

If a water heater fails on a Saturday and you replace it that day, the application is due the next working business day R105.2.1.

What the application asks for

The model code wording is the same in the IRC and the IBC. The application goes on the department’s own form, and it must R105.3 IBC 105.3:

1. Identify and describe the work.
2. Describe the land by legal description, street address or similar description that definitely locates the work.
3. Indicate the use and occupancy the work is for.
4. Come with construction documents (plans) and other information the code requires.
5. State the valuation of the work.
6. Be signed by the applicant or the applicant’s authorized agent.
7. Give any other data the building official asks for.

Item 7 is where building permit application forms get long. Broward County’s countywide uniform application, revised in January 2026, shows how far it goes Broward form:

• One trade per application: building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical or other
• Whether a private provider is used, and whether the fee owner authorized that in writing
• Job address, tax folio number, flood zone, base flood elevation, floor area and job value
• Building use, construction type and occupancy group; present and proposed use
• Description of work, and new, addition, repair, alteration, demolition or revision
• Legal description, or an attachment
• Property owner, contracting company, qualifier and license number (or owner-builder, or a license exemption with a business tax receipt number)
• Architect or engineer, bonding company, fee simple titleholder if not the owner, mortgage lender
• Two sworn signatures, one for the owner or agent and one for the qualifier or agent, each with its own notary block

Your department’s form will look different. Our worksheet has a box for each of those facts, plus the trade details that electrical, plumbing and mechanical applications ask for: service size, fixture count, equipment tonnage, gas appliance BTUs.

Where applications get stuck

Florida: the statutory form and the notice of commencement

Florida writes the permit application into its statutes. Section 713.135(7) says the application "must be in substantially the following form" and prints it: tax folio number, owner, fee simple titleholder, contractor, job address, legal description, bonding company, architect or engineer and mortgage lender, then a certification, the owner’s affidavit, notarized signatures of the owner or agent and of the contractor, and the contractor’s state and local license numbers 713.135(7)(a). Every application must at least carry the owner’s and contractor’s names and addresses and a description that identifies the property 713.135(5).

Notice of commencement

• The owner records it with the clerk before work starts and posts a certified copy, or a notarized statement that it was filed plus a copy, at the job 713.13(1)(a). It lists the legal description, street address and tax folio number, the owner’s interest, the contractor, any surety and lender, and a person in Florida who can receive notices.
• Only the owner signs it: "no one else may be permitted to sign in his or her stead" 713.13(1)(g). An owner authorization letter does not change that.
• The building department cannot make a recorded notice a condition of issuing the permit. When the direct contract is over $5,000, it needs a copy before the first inspection and will not do later inspections without one 713.135(1)(e)-(f). That subsection does not apply to repairing or replacing an existing heating or air-conditioning system for less than $15,000.
• Jobs with a direct contract of $2,500 or less are exempt from most of the lien law 713.02(5). A notice is void if work does not start within 90 days of recording 713.13(2), and it expires 1 year after recording unless it states another date 713.13(1)(d).

Two more Florida rules contractors run into

Workers’ comp. An employer must show proof of coverage every time it applies for a building permit: a certificate from the carrier, an exemption certificate, or its authority to self-insure 440.103.

Owner-builders. The owner must personally appear and sign the application, and the department hands over a disclosure statement explaining the owner’s obligations 489.103(7). An agent cannot do it for them, apart from certain solar projects.

When you apply for the owner

Some departments have their own form for this, such as Grass Valley, California’s agent authorization letter. If yours does, use it. If it just asks for a letter from the owner, ours covers what those forms ask for: the property and parcel number, the owner, the agent, the work, a signature and a notary block. The other direction, a license holder naming the employees who may sign for and pick up permits under the license, is a separate document, such as Largo, Florida’s contractor letter of authorization.

Questions contractors ask