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Durham County

Durham City-County Building & Safety Department

In short

Durham City-County Building & Safety Department issues 4 permits we publish for Durham County, last verified 2026-09-30. Each carries the fee as the agency publishes it, with a link to the schedule it was read from.

What this agency issues

Permits required, with issuing agency, fee, renewal term and the date each record was last verified against its source
Nonresidential Building Permit and Plan Reviewonly if it applies to youDurham City-County Building & Safety DepartmentCharged per project on Schedule E, by construction value based on construction contracts unless a reason is identified to base cost on other information — building permit fee then plan review fee: $0-$5,000 $104.00 and $104.00; $5,001-$50,000 $104.00 plus $7.80 per thousand or fraction over $5,000, and $104.00; $50,001-$100,000 $456.00 plus $6.60 per thousand or fraction over $50,000, and $230.00; $100,001-$500,000 $786.00 plus $4.32 per thousand or fraction over $100,000, and $400.00; over $500,000 $2,513.00 plus $1.25 per thousand or fraction over $500,000, and $1,300.00. As published on the Durham City-County Building & Safety Department Building Permit Fee Schedule, effective July 1, 2018 and including the technology surcharge.per project; the schedule prices voiding of permits at 15% of permit cost with no maximum, and charges a double fee where work is begun without a permit2026-09-30
Occupancy and Miscellaneous Building Permitsonly if it applies to youDurham City-County Building & Safety DepartmentCharged per permit on Schedule F: Change of Occupancy Permit where no building permit is otherwise required and no construction is necessary $50.00; Stocking Permit $100.00; Partial Occupancy $200.00; Posting of Occupancy not associated with a permit $50.00; Commercial Roofing or Reroofing $100.00 for $0-$20,000 or $150.00 over $20,000; Demolition Permit $75.00 up to 5,000 sq ft or $150.00 over 5,000 sq ft, and $75.00 where associated with a forthcoming permit; Mobile Home unit installation and foundation $150.00; Modular Units $200.00; Moving Permit including new foundation $125.00; Change of impervious surface on a permit $250.00; Floodplain Development Permit $150.00 small or $500.00 large; Homeowner's Recovery Fund $10.00; Re-Stamp Plans or replacement copy of digital plans $20.00 per plan; Change of address, PIN or PID on permits $10.00 per trade (building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical and/or fire); duplicate placard $5.00. As published on the Durham City-County Building & Safety Department Building Permit Fee Schedule, effective July 1, 2018.per permit; a stocking permit and a partial occupancy permit each cover a stated stage of occupancy before the full occupancy posting, and a floodplain development permit attaches to the development it authorises2026-09-30
Building Re-Inspection and Plan Re-Reviewonly if it applies to youDurham City-County Building & Safety DepartmentRe-inspection, charged per occurrence: not ready for inspection $100.00; 8 or more code violations found $100.00; second re-inspection $100.00; third $200.00; fourth $300.00. Plan re-review: first no charge; second $200.00; each thereafter $300.00. Work begun without a permit is charged a double fee, and voiding of permits is 15% of permit cost with no maximum. As published on the Durham City-County Building & Safety Department Building Permit Fee Schedule, effective July 1, 2018.per occurrence, rising with each further re-inspection or re-review on the same project rather than resetting; the first plan re-review carries no charge2026-09-30
Commercial Kitchen Hood Mechanical Permitonly if it applies to youDurham City-County Building & Safety Department$150 per hood for commercial type cooking equipment, from the mechanical schedule effective July 1, 2018; the minimum fee for any heating, cooling or ventilation permit is $65.00, nonresidential heating and cooling upfits are $0.058 per square foot, and a $5.00 surcharge applies to each plumbing, electrical or mechanical application submitted on paper rather than electronicallyper permit, for the installation of the hood; the fire suppression system serving the same hood is permitted separately by the county fire marshal as an Alternative Fire Extinguishing System2026-09-30

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

Nonresidential Building Permit and Plan Review

Building permits and plan review for a commercial project in Durham County are handled by the merged Durham City-County Building & Safety Department, which the county's FY 2026-27 budget describes as 'a merged City and County department that administers and enforces the North Carolina State Building Codes and Durham City-County Zoning Ordinances' and which 'receives permit applications for all construction trades (building, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical), reviews plans and specifications, issues permits for all building construction activity, and follows up with field inspections'. The schedule published here is dated: it carries the stamp 'Effective 7/1/18—Includes Technology Surcharge', and all four trade schedules on the department's Fee Schedules page — building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing — carry the identical stamp. It is nonetheless the current one, because the Planning & Development Department's Development Services Fees and Payment Menu effective July 1, 2026 states that 'Fees for building permits, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and multi-trade permits are on the Inspections Department web page' and points at the same page, and because Durham County Code § 6-1 keeps the county schedule 'on file in the office of the county building official' rather than printing it in the code. Two clauses on the schedule change the arithmetic on a badly managed job: work begun without a permit is charged a double fee, and voiding a permit costs 15% of the permit cost with no maximum. Enhanced Plan Review under Schedule H is $600.00 per hour with a one-hour minimum and a $600.00 booking fee, and after-hours inspections under Schedule I are $125.00 per hour with a two-hour minimum. A contractor undertaking work costing forty thousand dollars ($40,000) or more is a general contractor under G.S. 87-1(a) and must hold a license from the NC Licensing Board for General Contractors; that threshold was last amended by S.L. 2023-108, s. 2(a). Planning and development review fees for the same project are adopted by the City of Durham rather than by the county and are not published here as county fees.

Occupancy and Miscellaneous Building Permits

Schedule F of the Durham City-County building fee schedule is where a business that is not building anything still pays, and the $50.00 Change of Occupancy Permit is the line most new tenants meet: it applies where no building permit is otherwise required and no construction is necessary, which is exactly the case of a retail unit becoming a salon or a clinic taking over a finished suite. Opening in stages costs more: a Stocking Permit is $100.00, a Partial Occupancy permit $200.00, and Posting of Occupancy not associated with a permit a further $50.00. A restaurant or shop fitting out an existing building often meets the roofing line at $100.00 up to $20,000 of work or $150.00 above it, the demolition line at $75.00 up to 5,000 square feet or $150.00 above, and the $250.00 charge for changing impervious surface on a permit; a site in the floodplain pays $150.00 or $500.00 for a Floodplain Development Permit depending on scale. Two small lines are worth knowing because they catch paperwork rather than work: changing the address, PIN or PID on permits is $10.00 per trade, and the schedule spells the trades out as 'building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, and/or fire', and a re-stamped or replacement plan set is $20.00 per plan. Every amount here comes from the schedule stamped 'Effective 7/1/18—Includes Technology Surcharge', which remains the schedule the July 2026 Development Services fee menu points applicants to, and the merged department is funded entirely by permit user fees with no impact on the City's or County's General Fund.

Building Re-Inspection and Plan Re-Review

Durham's merged building department charges for wasted visits and for repeated plan submittals, and the structure rewards getting the first submittal right. On plan review the first re-review carries no charge, the second is $200.00 and every one after that is $300.00, so a design that goes back three times costs $500.00 in re-review alone. On inspections the ladder is $100.00 for a second re-inspection, $200.00 for a third and $300.00 for a fourth, with a separate $100.00 charge simply for calling an inspection when the work is not ready and another $100.00 where eight or more code violations are found at one visit. Two clauses sit alongside these and dwarf them: work begun without a permit is charged at double the permit fee, and voiding a permit costs 15% of the permit cost with no maximum, which on a large commercial permit is a substantial sum. All of these amounts come from the schedule stamped 'Effective 7/1/18—Includes Technology Surcharge', the same schedule the Planning & Development Department's July 2026 Development Services fee menu still directs applicants to for building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing and multi-trade permit fees. For a business on a fixed opening date the timing matters as much as the money, because each failed visit is another scheduling cycle; the county fire marshal runs a separate re-inspection ladder of $50.00, $150.00 and $300.00 on its own schedule, listed separately, so a project can be paying both at once.

Commercial Kitchen Hood Mechanical Permit

A Durham restaurant or coffee shop installing a commercial cooking hood pays $150.00 per hood on the mechanical permit schedule, and this is the single most commonly missed line in a food fit-out because the same hood attracts two permits from two different agencies: this mechanical permit from the merged Durham City-County Building & Safety Department for the hood and its ventilation, and the county fire marshal's Alternative Fire Extinguishing Systems permit at $150.00 for the suppression system inside it, listed separately. The mechanical schedule also sets a $65.00 minimum fee for any heating, cooling or ventilation permit, prices nonresidential heating and cooling upfits at $0.058 per square foot, and adds a $5.00 surcharge for each plumbing, electrical or mechanical application submitted on paper rather than electronically, so a paper submittal across three trades is $15.00 of avoidable cost. Like the other three trade schedules, the mechanical schedule carries the stamp 'Effective 7/1/18—Includes Technology Surcharge', and the Planning & Development Department's Development Services Fees and Payment Menu effective July 1, 2026 still sends applicants to that page for mechanical permit fees. Paying for the permit requires a contractor log-in with a Land Development Office account, or a call to 919-560-4144 to request one, as the same menu states. A restaurant on county sewer also faces the Engineering & Environmental Services restaurant or cafeteria plumbing plan review at $605.00, which is a different department again.

Contact

Jurisdiction
Durham County
Phone
919-560-4144

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.

  1. Durham City-County Building & Safety Department Building Permit Fee Schedule (Effective 7/1/18 — Includes Technology Surcharge) — Schedule E nonresidential permit and plan review bands, Schedule F miscellaneous and occupancy permits, the re-inspection and plan re-review ladders, the double fee for work begun without a permit, permit voiding at 15% of permit cost, Schedule H enhanced plan review and Schedule I after-hours inspectionsDurham City-County Building & Safety Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30
  2. Durham City-County Building & Safety Department Mechanical Permit Fee Schedule (Effective 7/1/18 — Includes Technology Surcharge) — $150.00 per hood for commercial type cooking equipment, a $65.00 minimum fee for any heating, cooling or ventilation permit, $0.058 per square foot for nonresidential heating and cooling upfits, and a $5.00 surcharge for each plumbing, electrical or mechanical application submitted on paperDurham City-County Building & Safety Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30
  3. Durham City-County Building & Safety Fee Schedules index — all four trade schedules (building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing) carrying the identical stamp '(Effective 7/1/18—Includes Technology Surcharge)'Durham City-County Building & Safety Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30
  4. Durham County Approved Budget, Fiscal Year 2026-2027 — Annual Budget Ordinance adopted June 8, 2026 for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30, 2027, whose Section 7 levies 'Charges for services and fees by county departments … in the amounts set forth in the attached Fee and Other Charges Schedules', with the Environmental Health, Animal Services, Fire Prevention and Protection Code, Sewer Utilities and Stormwater Erosion Control divisions of that scheduleDurham County Budget and Management Services · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30
  5. Durham County Code Chapter 6 (Buildings and Building Regulations) — § 6-1: 'The fee schedules for county building permits and inspections as required by article III, subsection 3-3 of the administrative provisions for the county and the state building codes is not printed herein but is on file in the office of the county building official' (Ord. of 9-25-85)Durham County, published by Municode · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30
  6. Durham Planning & Development Department Development Services Fees and Payment Menu, Form 34642, effective July 1, 2026 — 'Fees for building permits, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and multi-trade permits are on the Inspections Department web page', the split of street or alley closing into City Jurisdiction $2,441 and County Jurisdiction $3,065, and the instruction to use the County payment portal after confirming the fee with Planning staff for the county open space payment-in-lieuDurham Planning & Development Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30
  7. G.S. 153A-357 — repealed with the whole of G.S. 153A-320 through 153A-378 (county building inspection) by S.L. 2019-111, s. 2.2, as amended by S.L. 2020-3, s. 4.33(a) and S.L. 2020-25, s. 51, effective June 19, 2020; the live authority is Chapter 160DNorth Carolina General Assembly · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30
  8. G.S. 87-1(a) — a person undertaking work costing $40,000 or more is a general contractor licensed by the NC Licensing Board for General ContractorsNorth Carolina General Assembly · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-30

Other offices serving Durham County

The full permit list for this jurisdiction

Industry permit lists that include this agency

North Carolina jurisdictions

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