Portland
City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department
In short
City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department issues 9 permits we publish for Portland, last verified 2026-09-12. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporary Food Service Establishment Licenseonly if it applies to you | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | $93 per temporary license: unopened prepackaged food (license period up to three months) or opened/nonprepackaged food (per event, up to fourteen days) | one-time, per temporary event or transitory gathering | 2026-09-12 |
| Building Permit | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | $25.00 for the first $1,000.00 of estimated construction cost plus $15.00 for each additional $1,000.00 (or part thereof) of cost. Demolition is instead priced at $30.00 for the first $1,000.00 plus $10.00 per additional $1,000.00, and HVAC work the same way. A party who begins work before obtaining the permit is subject to double the fee, per § 6-92(d). Effective July 1, 2026, a commercial permit that also requires a delegated State Fire Marshal's Office Construction permit carries an additional Fire Prevention Cost Recovery Fee of 1% of 1/10 the cost of construction (cost × 0.001) plus a $0.04-per-square-foot delegated-review fee. | one-time, per project — not stated in the published fee schedule | 2026-09-12 |
| Sign Permitonly if it applies to you | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | $30.00 plus $2.00 per square foot of sign area for a standard sign; a sidewalk or portable sign is instead $25.00 plus $0.20 per square foot; a further $94.00 Historic Review fee applies to any sign located inside a Historic District (a plain building or window sign outside a Historic District needs no separate Historic Review fee). | one-time, per sign — not stated in the published fee schedule | 2026-09-12 |
| Municipal Business License — Chapter 15 Activity List (Portland, ME)only if it applies to you | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-12 |
| Street Vendor's License (Food Truck / Pushcart) | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | $322–$546 annual: $546.00 for a food truck, $322.00 for a pushcart (both expire March 31); a separate $38.00-per-3.5-sq-ft add-on license covers up to 7 sq ft of sidewalk cooler-storage space | annual — expires March 31 | 2026-09-12 |
| Certificate of Occupancy | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | $100 flat, per Certificate of Occupancy inspection | one-time — issued for a new occupancy or a change of business use | 2026-09-12 |
| Home Occupation Permit (Home-Based Child Care)only if it applies to you | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | $150 flat | not stated in the published fee schedule | 2026-09-12 |
| General Contractor Registration (not found)only if it applies to you | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-12 |
| Food Service Establishment License | City of Portland, Permitting and Inspections Department | $181–$459 annual, banded by what is prepared on-site (non-liquor tiers): $181.00 with no food preparation on the premises, $230.00 where preparation is limited to non-alcoholic beverages only, $415.00 with beer and wine take-out, $459.00 for full food preparation on the premises or a commissary; expires January 31 | annual — expires January 31 for the non-liquor tiers | 2026-09-12 |
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
Temporary Food Service Establishment License
Covers a food service establishment that operates only temporarily in connection with a fair, carnival, circus, public exhibition, or similar transitory gathering, per Chapter 11's own definition — a separate, one-time credential from the standing annual Food Service Establishment License or Mobile Food Vendor license listed elsewhere for this jurisdiction, and required in addition to them for a one-off event outside the normal course of business.
Building Permit
Required for construction, alteration, repair, moving, converting, demolishing, or changing the use of a building or structure. The $15.00-per-$1,000.00 marginal rate is taken from the City's own current (7/2026) fee schedule; an older secondary aggregator page reports a lower $5.00-per-$1,000.00 figure, which is not used here. Electrical and plumbing permits are separately priced on the same current fee schedule with their own itemized fixture/device/service tables.
Sign Permit
Required for any new or altered sign; administered by Permitting and Inspections alongside the building permit. The fee is itemized on the City's current Building Permits and Inspections Fee Schedule (revised 7/2026), the same schedule that prices the commercial building permit.
Municipal Business License — Chapter 15 Activity List (Portland, ME)
No fee applies. Under Chapter 15, § 15-12, the City's license fee table lists a fixed set of licensable activities — Food Service Establishments (including mobile/temporary), Massage Establishments/Therapists, Taxicabs/Liveries and related vehicles-for-hire, Marijuana licenses, Secondhand Dealers/Junk Dealers/Pawnbrokers/Flea Markets, Farmers' Markets, Street Vendors/Transient Sellers, Entertainment/Amusement Devices/Gaming/Bowling/Billiards/Motion Picture Theatres/Roller Skating Rinks/Circuses, Bottle Clubs and Brewery/Winery/Distillery licenses, Wreckers and Vehicle Towing, Valet Parking, and Booting of Motor Vehicles — and that table names no license for an ordinary retail store, auto repair shop, veterinary practice, fitness studio, hair/nail salon, or (beyond the Home Occupation permit recorded separately) a child care business. An auto repair shop that also runs a wrecker or towing service falls under the Chapter 28 wreckers and vehicle towing license in the same table. Massage Establishment and Massage Therapist are locally licensed by name ($65.00/$55.00/$38.00), but the table does not extend that to ordinary hair/nail salons, which are licensed by Maine's own state Office of Professional and Occupational Regulation (recorded at the state layer). Each of these industries' Portland-specific obligations are instead the same commercial building permit, Certificate of Occupancy, sign permit (where applicable), and zoning/site-plan approvals listed elsewhere for this jurisdiction.
Street Vendor's License (Food Truck / Pushcart)
A genuinely separate authority from the fixed-premises Food Service Establishment License above: Chapter 19's own 'street vendor' license, required for anyone selling food or beverages from a pushcart or food truck, conditioned on a public liability insurance certificate naming the City as additional insured (§ 19-18) and restricted to zones where such use is a permitted or conditional use under the Land Use Code, with specific carve-outs and site limits near Hadlock Field (§ 19-19). This license is priced entirely differently from, and stands in place of, the fixed-premises FSE table for a mobile vendor.
Certificate of Occupancy
No building, structure, or property may be used or occupied without a Certificate of Occupancy, and § 6-93(c) requires the fire chief's own approval before any final Certificate of Occupancy issues — tying the Fire Prevention Division into every occupancy across all nine of these industries. A genuinely separate, flat $100.00 line item from the cost-of-work building-permit formula recorded above.
Home Occupation Permit (Home-Based Child Care)
This is not a childcare-specific ordinance category — it is the Land Use Code's general Home Occupation permit, applied here to a family child care provider operating a business out of a residential dwelling, as the local land-use permit closest to a childcare-specific local requirement beyond Maine OCFS's own state Child Care Facility License (recorded at the state layer). A stand-alone commercial child care center instead follows the ordinary Building Permit, Certificate of Occupancy, and Site Plan Review path listed elsewhere for this jurisdiction, not this fee.
General Contractor Registration (not found)
No fee applies. Maine has no statewide general contractor license (confirmed at this project's own state layer), and Portland's own Code of Ordinances Chapter 15 names no general-contracting category among its complete enumerated licensable activities either. A Portland contractor's local obligation is the same building, electrical, and plumbing permit process recorded elsewhere in this file, pulled per project, rather than a standing local contractor registration.
Food Service Establishment License
Portland is its own food-permitting authority: Chapter 11 designates the City's own health inspector — not Maine CDC — as the Maine Food Code's regulatory authority, a designation state law (22 M.R.S.A. § 2499) permits only once the Department has approved the municipality's own ordinance. That delegation replaces the state's $205.00-$300.00 banded Eating Establishment License fee (recorded at the state layer) with a flat $100.00 state administrative fee paid to Maine CDC, confirmed both by the statute itself and by the State of Maine Health Inspection Program's own current Administration Rule; this local Chapter 15 fee is a separate, additional charge paid to the City. A coffee shop that only brews coffee and serves pastries with no other food preparation is the plain-language fit for the $230.00 tier; a restaurant preparing meals on-site fits the $459.00 tier. An establishment that also holds a State of Maine liquor license concurrently instead pays a much higher, separate liquor-license track under the same § 15-12 table (FSE-Class A restaurant $1,873.00 up to FSE-Class A restaurant/lounge $2,326.00, or an Innholder tier up to $2,239.00) — disclosed here as real background, not the baseline fee every restaurant or coffee shop pays.
Contact
- Jurisdiction
- Portland
- Phone
- (207) 874-8703
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.
- 22 Maine Revised Statutes § 2499 (Municipal inspections) — the delegated-municipality mechanism and the $100 state fee that replaces the standard state license fee once a municipality is delegatedMaine Legislature · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
- Building Permits and Inspections Fee Schedule (revised 7/2026) — cost-of-work building permit formula, Certificate of Occupancy inspection fee, sign fees, and commercial fire alarm/sprinkler permit feesCity of Portland, Maine, Permitting and Inspections Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
- Business Licensing — the City's own current page describing the Business License Administrator, the complete list of licensable activities and their application PDFs/online forms, and the $45.00 application / $35.00 renewal feeCity of Portland, Maine, Permitting and Inspections Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
- City of Portland Code of Ordinances, Chapter 11 (Food and Food Handlers), revised 5-18-2020 — adoption of the Maine State Food Code and designation of the City's own health inspector as its regulatory authorityCity of Portland, Maine · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
- City of Portland Code of Ordinances, Chapter 15 (Licenses and Permits), revised 5-19-2025 — §§ 15-2 through 15-6 (applicability, license required, fees) and the complete § 15-12 fee table for every enumerated licensed activityCity of Portland, Maine · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
- City of Portland Code of Ordinances, Chapter 19 (Peddlers & Solicitors), §§ 19-16 through 19-19 — the Street Vendor's license required for food trucks and pushcartsCity of Portland, Maine · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
- City of Portland Code of Ordinances, Chapter 6 (Buildings and Building Regulations), Art. II (Building Code) — § 6-92 (Permits and permit fees) and § 6-93 (Certificate of Occupancy)City of Portland, Maine · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
- State of Maine Health Inspection Program Administration Rule (10-144 CMR Ch. 201, eff. 6-3-2024), Section 3 (Delegation of Inspection Duties to Municipalities) and Table 2 (Delegated Municipality Licenses, flat $100.00 fee per license type)Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-12
Other offices serving Portland
The full permit list for this jurisdiction
Industry permit lists that include this agency
Maine jurisdictions
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