9 published records
Business licenses and permits in Cobb County, Georgia
Cobb County, Georgia, seat Marietta, runs its general business licensing, alcohol licensing, Health Spa licensing, and building-permit functions through its Business License Division and its Development & Inspections Division, each reaching unincorporated Cobb County only. Seven incorporated cities sit inside Cobb County — Acworth, Austell, Kennesaw, Mableton, Marietta, Powder Springs, and Smyrna — and a business located inside any of their city limits licenses with that city instead of the county; Mableton is the newest of the seven, having incorporated in November 2022 and begun operating its own Business License Division on December 13, 2023. Cobb & Douglas Public Health, a joint two-county health district separate from the county's own Business License Division, issues food-service, mobile-food, temporary-event, pop-up-vendor, swimming-pool, septic, and body-art/tattoo permits under its own Environmental Health fee schedule. Alcohol is dual-licensed: a state license from the Georgia Dept. of Revenue, Alcohol & Tobacco Division, plus a separate Cobb County license for an establishment in unincorporated Cobb. Contractor licensing is a state function under O.C.G.A. §43-41-17, which bars the county from imposing any additional contractor-specific license. Every new business or change of business address must first clear the Zoning Division's siting review before its Occupation Tax Certificate issues — a mandatory pre-application mechanism rather than a separate permit, confirmed from the county's own FAQ and repeated in both the alcohol and Health Spa application packets. The 2024 county population figure used here, 787,538, is the U.S. Census Bureau's own vintage-2024 county estimate.
What are you opening in Cobb County?
- RestaurantsFull-service restaurants carry the densest permit load of any small business: food, fire, occupancy, waste, and usually alcohol.See the full permit list
- Coffee shopsCafés are permitted as food service establishments even where no cooking happens, and the plan review step catches most operators by surprise.See the full permit list
- Retail storesRetail is the lightest common permit load, but the sales tax permit and the certificate of occupancy are non-negotiable in every jurisdiction.See the full permit list
- Salons and barbersPersonal care is licensed at state board level as well as locally, so the shop license and the practitioner licenses are separate obligations.See the full permit list
- Food trucksMobile food is the one category with no certificate of occupancy — but it gains a commissary agreement, and the unit itself is inspected rather than the premises.See the full permit list
- Fitness studiosPrepaid memberships trigger state registration and often a surety bond, which catches operators who budgeted only for the fit-out.See the full permit list
- Childcare centresThe heaviest permit load of any small business: state agency licensing, per-person background checks, and a stricter fire standard than ordinary commercial use.See the full permit list
- Contractors and tradesLicensed at state board level rather than locally, and the only common category with no premises permits at all — the bond is usually the long pole.See the full permit list
- Auto repair shopsOrdinary commercial permitting plus an environmental layer: waste oil, solvents and stormwater are each registered separately.See the full permit list
- Veterinary clinicsA state facility permit, controlled substances registration at both state and federal level, and a medical waste manifest — none of which a general business license covers.See the full permit list
Permits that apply to every type of business in Cobb County
| Permit | Issuing agency | Fee | Renews | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building Permit / Land Disturbance Permitonly if it applies to you | Cobb County Community Development, Development & Inspections Division | Residential: $6.00 per $1,000 of ICC Building Valuation Data construction cost over $75,000, with flat fees below that threshold (up to $15,000 $80; $15,001-25,000 $150; $25,001-50,000 $300; $50,001-75,000 $450). Commercial/multifamily: $7.00 per $1,000 of construction cost over $75,000, with flat fees below that threshold ($100/$175/$350/$525 across the same bands). Other fees applying across permit types: Certificate of Occupancy or Letter of Completion $50.00 (new homes); technology fee $15.00; site plan review $100.00; revision $50.00 (residential) or $150.00 minor/$500.00 major (commercial); permit renewal $100.00 (residential) or $250.00 (commercial, approval required); reinspection $50.00/$75.00/$100.00 for the first, second, and third-and-later reinspection; pools $250.00 minimum; trade permit (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, or gas) $80.00; demolition or retaining wall $100.00; demolition historical-review fee $50.00; power-reconnect-only $80.00; a temporary certificate of occupancy (subject to approval) $500.00, valid a maximum of 30 days; a double-permit-fee penalty, maximum $1,000.00, applies to construction begun before the permit issues. Land Disturbance Permit: single-family $50.00 per lot, minimum $250.00, plus $40.00 per disturbed acre under NPDES (charged once per project, only if over one acre is disturbed); commercial/townhome $200.00 per disturbed acre plus the same $40.00-per-acre NPDES charge; plat review $150.00; weekly plan review $250.00 per submittal; final plat revision review $80.00. | per project | 2026-10-02 |
| Occupation Tax Certificate / Business License | Cobb County Business License Division (Community Development Agency) | The exact dollar amount is not published in any public schedule. The county's own FAQ states that the cost is determined by the type of business activity, the business's projected total gross receipts for the calendar year, and its start date, with the county calculating and billing the specific figure after application is made; no dollar tiers are published anywhere on the county's site. The FAQ separately states the late-payment consequence in full: if a business fails to pay the tax or operates without a certificate, delinquent taxes going back up to three years may be collected with interest of 1.5% per month plus a 10% penalty per year, both mandated by the Cobb County Code of Ordinances and non-waivable. | annual, calendar year | 2026-10-02 |
| Onsite Sewage Management (Septic) Permitonly if it applies to you | Cobb & Douglas Public Health, Environmental Health | Residential: site review $110; re-review $85; inspection/permit $250; repair or modification review-permit-inspection $170; minor repair (non-field line) $85; pool-served-by-septic review $150; pool requiring septic relocation $170. Commercial: lot site review $280; site re-review $110; inspection/permit at or under 1,500 sq ft or 2,000 gallons per day $365; inspection/permit above that threshold $560; repair or modification review-permit-inspection $280. Other: existing-system evaluation with no permit issued (for example, for a loan letter or a remodel) $150; septic pumper inspection $100 plus $50 per truck; contractor certification exam $50 per module. | per project | 2026-10-02 |
Fees shown as a range or formula are set that way by the issuing agency — we do not average them into a single number.
What do these permits involve in Cobb County?
Building Permit / Land Disturbance Permit
This permit applies only inside unincorporated Cobb County; a project inside any of the county's seven incorporated cities is permitted by that city's own office instead. The $6.00/$1,000 (residential) and $7.00/$1,000 (commercial) valuation multipliers and the flat tiers above are current, effective July 1, 2024, with no newer standalone schedule superseding them. The schedule document's own illustrative heated- and unheated-square-foot dollar figures are not reproduced here, because the schedule's own text states that 'Building permit fees will be updated annually to reflect the current published ICC chart' — meaning the underlying International Code Council valuation table used to translate square footage into a dollar construction cost refreshes every January, and a newer vintage of that table may already be in use in October 2026. A permit applicant should obtain the current ICC valuation directly from Development & Inspections rather than rely on any older illustration of it.
Occupation Tax Certificate / Business License
Any business operating at a location in unincorporated Cobb County needs this certificate from the Business License Division, 1150 Powder Springs Street, Suite 400, Marietta. A business physically located inside Acworth, Austell, Kennesaw, Mableton, Marietta, Powder Springs, or Smyrna licenses with that city instead. Before applying, the county's own FAQ page states, word for word: 'All new businesses or those with a change of business address must contact the Cobb County Zoning Division at (770) 528-2035 for approval of the business activity at the specific business location and with questions pertaining to the limitations on activities in residential and all other zoning districts.' This zoning sign-off is how Cobb resolves industry-specific siting questions (childcare, auto-repair, salon, and similar uses) rather than through a separate industry license, and it carries no separately published fee of its own. The fee mechanism and the late-payment penalty above were both read directly from the FAQ page's own answer text, which is delivered as server-rendered data in the page's initial HTML rather than inside the visible rendered page.
Onsite Sewage Management (Septic) Permit
This permit applies only to a Cobb County business sited on a septic system rather than connected to public sewer. The Commercial tier is the one most relevant to a restaurant, retail store, auto-repair shop, childcare facility, veterinary clinic, or fitness studio located on a non-sewered unincorporated-Cobb parcel; a business already on public sewer has no obligation under this program. This page carries the same January 1, 2027 successor-schedule notice found on the agency's other Environmental Health pages, with no figures yet published for that later schedule as of October 2026, so every figure above is the current, in-effect schedule.
Sources
Every figure in the table above was read from one of these government pages on the date shown.
- Cobb County Development & Inspections, Building Permit Fee Schedule, effective July 1, 2024Cobb County Development & Inspections · primary source · retrieved 2026-10-02
- Cobb County Business License FAQs (includes the Occupation Tax Certificate fee mechanism, late-payment penalty, and Zoning Division sign-off requirement)Cobb County Community Development Agency · primary source · retrieved 2026-10-02
- Cobb County Community Development — Business License pageCobb County Community Development Agency · primary source · retrieved 2026-10-02
- Cobb & Douglas Public Health — Septic System Applications and RequirementsCobb & Douglas Public Health · primary source · retrieved 2026-10-02
Who issues business permits in Cobb County?
Permitting in Cobb County is split across 4 agencies we hold records for, with tax registration handled at state level. No single office issues everything, which is why an opening usually means filing in several places rather than one.
Cobb County issuing agencies
- Cobb & Douglas Public Health, Environmental HealthA joint city-county health district serving Cobb and Douglas Counties; issues food-service, mobile-food, temporary-event, and pop-up-vendor permits under its own Environmental Health fee schedule · Issues swimming-pool, onsite-sewage (septic), and body-art/tattoo permits under the same fee schedule4 permits
- Cobb County Business License Division (Community Development Agency)Issues the Occupation Tax Certificate / Business License for unincorporated Cobb County · Issues the County Alcoholic Beverage License for unincorporated Cobb County · Issues the Health Spa license under Cobb County Code §§78-271–78-3013 permits
- Cobb County Community Development, Development & Inspections DivisionIssues building permits and Land Disturbance Permits for unincorporated Cobb County under its own Building Permit Fee Schedule, effective July 1, 20241 permit
- Georgia State Licensing Board for Residential and General ContractorsLicenses residential and general contractors statewide under O.C.G.A. §43-41-17, which bars a county or municipality from imposing an additional contractor-specific license on a state-licensed contractor1 permit
Other Georgia jurisdictions we cover
Commercial Compliance Hub publishes information, not legal advice. Requirements change — confirm anything you rely on with the issuing agency before you file.