Tuscaloosa County
Alabama Department of Public Health, Tuscaloosa County Health Department (West Central District field office)
In short
Alabama Department of Public Health, Tuscaloosa County Health Department (West Central District field office) issues 1 permit we publish for Tuscaloosa County, last verified 2026-09-28. Each carries the fee as the agency publishes it, with a link to the schedule it was read from.
What this agency issues
| Permit | Issuing agency | Fee | Renews | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food Establishment Permit | Alabama Department of Public Health, Tuscaloosa County Health Department (West Central District field office) | It is unlawful under Alabama Administrative Code Chapter 420-3-22 (the state's adoption of the FDA Food Code) to operate a food establishment without a valid permit from the Health Officer. ADPH is implementing a new statewide category-based fee system effective September 1, 2026, replacing revenue-based fees with Priority Category 1-4 pricing for food service establishments. Tuscaloosa County's own environmental-health fee page does not publish dollar figures for this new schedule. A comparable ADPH-district county's published 2026 figures — Category 1 $100, Category 2 $150, Category 3 $500, Category 4 $600, temporary/per-event permit $100, mobile food unit $200 — illustrate what the statewide restructuring charges elsewhere, but are not presented here as Tuscaloosa's own fee. | annual (exact renewal cycle for Tuscaloosa County not stated in the published fee schedule; confirm with ADPH West Central District) | 2026-09-28 |
Fees shown as a range or formula are set that way by the issuing agency — we do not average them into a single number.
About each permit
Food Establishment Permit
A restaurant, coffee shop, food truck or other food business in Tuscaloosa County needs a food establishment permit from the Tuscaloosa County Health Department, a field office of the statewide Alabama Department of Public Health, and this applies countywide — inside the City of Tuscaloosa and Northport exactly as it does in the unincorporated county — because food-safety permitting in Alabama is exclusively a state health-department function, not a municipal one. The base rule, Alabama Administrative Code Chapter 420-3-22, states the permit requirement in plain terms but leaves the dollar fee to be set by a separate fee schedule. ADPH is rolling out a new statewide fee system effective September 1, 2026 that prices food service establishments by Priority Category 1 through 4 rather than by revenue. Tuscaloosa County's own environmental-health fee page publishes no dollar figures for this new schedule; readers should contact ADPH's West Central District office (which oversees the Tuscaloosa County Health Department) directly for the fee that applies to their establishment's category. A food truck specifically falls under ADPH's Mobile Food Unit permit category rather than the general Food Service Establishment category.
Contact
- Jurisdiction
- Tuscaloosa County
- Phone
- Not verified — use the website
Contact details are taken from the agency’s own site or its published fee schedule. Where we have not verified a phone number we leave it blank rather than guess.
Sources
Every fee and term above was read from one of these government pages on the date shown.
- Alabama Administrative Code Chapter 420-3-22, Food Establishment Sanitation (adopts the FDA Food Code)Alabama Department of Public Health · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
- Etowah County environmental health fee schedule, Priority Category 1-4 food-service fees effective 9/1/2026 (a comparable ADPH-district county's own published figures, used only to illustrate the statewide fee structure; not Tuscaloosa's own fee page, which publishes no dollar figures)Alabama Department of Public Health · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
- Tuscaloosa County Health Department overviewAlabama Department of Public Health · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
Other offices serving Tuscaloosa County
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