DFW Roofing Permits, City by City: Who Actually Requires One

The three DFW permit patterns

DFW's cities sort into three patterns. Always required: Grand Prairie ("a Residential Re-Roof Permit is required for any roof replacement/recovering or repair"), Plano ("a roof permit is required on all re-roof projects"), Denton (all residential roof projects since June 2022), McKinney, Mesquite ($65 re-roof fee line), Frisco (self-service same-material permit), and Lewisville ("re-roofs & re-decks" on its permit list).

Required above a threshold: Dallas exempts work of "two roofing squares or less" under its Chapter 52 administrative procedures but requires a permit and final inspection for everything larger; Arlington exempts replacements of 10% or less of the roof area; Irving exempts repairs of 100 square feet or less; Richardson draws its line at 25% of the roof area; and Garland uses a dollar threshold — permits kick in when the repair value reaches $2,000.

Covering-only work exempt: Fort Worth's roofing FAQ states no permit is needed to replace shingles on a one- or two-family home when no decking is replaced — the permit trigger is decking replacement. Carrollton is explicit: "replacement of the roofing system, such as shingles, shakes, tiles, metal panels, underlayment, membranes, cover boards, and insulation does not require a permit" — only structural deck or sheathing replacement triggers one.

Contractor registration: required everywhere but one city

Thirteen of the fourteen cities require contractors to register or hold a city license before pulling permits — Plano's General Contractor category explicitly includes "Roof… Companies" ($100/yr), Lewisville requires a $100,000 bond or liability policy under its registration ordinance, Fort Worth's Building Contractor registration runs $168.75/yr, and Carrollton's registration is free but mandatory. The outlier is McKinney: its contractor-registration page states plainly that "contractor registration is not required" — the program applies only to state-licensed electrical, mechanical, and plumbing trades.

Remember that Texas has no statewide roofing license (the TDLR's licensed-program list does not include roofing), so these city registrations are the only contractor vetting that exists in the metro — one reason storm-season door-knockers concentrate here. See the state-by-state hail-belt rules guide for how Texas compares to its neighbors.

Why the split matters after a hail storm

After a metro-wide hail event, the permit split changes how quickly work can start and what paper trail exists. In always-permit cities the permit file is itself evidence of when and how a roof was replaced — useful for the next insurance claim. In exempt cities (Fort Worth, Carrollton, and Garland below its threshold) a covering-only replacement can be legally invisible: no permit, no inspection, no record. Code requirements still apply in every city — the exemption is from the permit, not the code — and several cities (Arlington, Irving) publish specific flashing and drip-edge requirements that bind even exempt work.

Every city's full sourced record — permit portal, registration details, adopted code editions, and inspection requirements — is one click away in the directory: browse roofing permits by county and attribute or the per-city hubs under Roofing by City.