What permits do you need to open a auto repair shop in Montgomery County Oh?

Commercial Demolition Permit

Taking a commercial building down in a county-served jurisdiction is a $350 permit with two inspections, and the schedule scopes it to complete removal including slabs, foundations and footings — a partial demolition inside a building being remodelled is part of the alteration permit instead. Demolition has a second, separate obligation that is easy to miss and expensive to miss: RAPCA takes asbestos and demolition notifications for Montgomery County and charges $75 for a demolition-only notification, rising to $200 or $350 where larger quantities of regulated asbestos-containing material are involved, under the schedule it publishes for this county. Budget both, and file the notification on RAPCA's timetable rather than the county's. The building fee is from the schedule adopted at the county's public meeting of 28 October 2025 after public hearings on 21 and 28 October 2025, effective 1 January 2026; the published PDF's page header still reads PROPOSED from the drafting stage. It applies only where the county does the building enforcement: all nine townships, the cities of Brookville, Huber Heights, Riverside, Trotwood and Union (commercial work only), the villages of Farmersville, New Lebanon and Phillipsburg, and WPAFB-PageManor.

Annual Air Maintenance Fee (RAPCA)

An auto body shop with a paint spray booth is the business in these ten industries most likely to meet RAPCA, and the ordinary case is the flat $100 a year: a facility subject only to the permit-by-rule regulations in OAC 3745-31-03 is charged per facility rather than per emissions unit. A facility that needs an actual permit is charged $125 for each air emissions unit instead, with surcharges above that for Title V and FEPTIO facilities. The permit itself is not a county document — RAPCA's own permitting page states that 'RAPCA reviews the air pollution permit applications and prepares air pollution permits that are issued by Ohio EPA' — so what is county-level here is the annual maintenance fee, assessed on the facility's status at 31 December and invoiced annually for the previous calendar year, with a 25 per cent penalty for late payment. Read the amounts with their date in mind: the schedule RAPCA publishes from its industrial-permitting page is headed 'SCHEDULE A - MAINTENANCE FEE SYSTEM' and dated 1 June 2019, and no successor schedule is published, so these are 2019 figures that RAPCA continues to publish as its Montgomery County schedule rather than figures set this year. Confirm the current invoice amount with RAPCA at 937-225-4435 before budgeting. Whether a body shop qualifies for permit-by-rule is a state test, not a county one: Ohio EPA's notification form for auto body refinishing facilities asks whether the facility uses 'less than 3,000 gallons of all paints, solvents and other coatings per year', does 'less than 50 jobs per week', uses 'HVLP or electrostatic spray equipment for all paints and coatings applied by spraying' and has 'two or less spray booths for painting', and states that 'answering No to any question disqualifies the facility from the PBR.' RAPCA covers six counties; the schedule cited here is the Montgomery County one, and the schedule also states that 'No fee shall be demanded or collected for any church, public or parochial school.'

Shared with other businesses in Montgomery County Oh

• Type I Exhaust Hood / Paint Spray Booth Permit (mechanical) — Montgomery County Building Regulations, $400 per hood, including three inspections (line M.2); the schedule states the line is 'For hoods that require fire suppression' and that the 'Fee is per hood, which is defined as that served by a single exhaust fan', per permit, per project. Also required for restaurants and coffee shops; what it involves is set out on the restaurants page.
• Hood Suppression System Permit (kitchen hood, paint booth) — Montgomery County Building Regulations, $250 per hood, including one inspection (line B.6); the schedule states that the 'Fee is per hood, which is defined as that served by a single exhaust fan', per permit, per project. Also required for restaurants and coffee shops; what it involves is set out on the coffee shops page.
• Vendor's License — Ohio Department of Taxation, $50 one-time, per fixed location, no renewal — stays in effect until cancelled. Also required for restaurants, coffee shops, retail stores, salons and barbers, fitness studios and veterinary clinics; what it involves is set out on the retail stores page.