Clayton County, Georgia - Community & Economic Development Department, Building Permits

Clayton County, Georgia

county

Jonesboro, GA

Not required

Required

Building Permits is at the P.K. Dixon Building Annex 2, 121 South McDonough Street, Jonesboro, GA 30236, open Monday to Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with walk-in customer service across those hours and a telephone number of 770-477-3569. Applications are made through the County's self-service portal, which also handles business licence and zoning matters; the County publishes a permit process overview, a fee schedule and separate residential and commercial permit fee calculators, and states that fees are verified after the application is submitted. Inspections are scheduled through the same portal. Under section 18-41 of the County Code the duty to apply falls on the owner, authorised agent or contractor. Certificates of Occupancy and Certificates of Completion are issued by the same section at the end of the job. Watch the abandonment rule if a job stalls: section 18-62 lets the director declare a site abandoned and the permit non-renewable where the owner does not respond within 30 days or does not keep to a reinstatement plan, and reinstatement then requires fresh applications for every expired permit, contractor licence information and a bond covering removal of the existing development. Appeals from a decision of the county official go to the County's construction board of adjustment and appeals under Article X of the chapter.

STATE-SET, LOCALLY ENFORCED. Georgia has no local code adoption to look up. The International Residential Code, 2024 Edition, with Georgia Amendments 2026 is a mandatory state minimum standard code adopted by the Department of Community Affairs and effective January 1, 2026, and under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) it binds any structure built in Georgia whether or not the local government chooses to enforce it locally. Compliance is therefore statewide and automatic; what is local is enforcement. Clayton County does enforce it. Section 18-1(a) of the County Code applies the building chapter to "the construction, alteration, movement, enlargement, replacement, repair, equipment, use and occupancy, location, removal, and demolition of any structure located in Clayton County", and to enforce "the latest edition of the following mandatory Georgia State Minimum Standard Codes, as adopted and amended by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs", listing seven, the International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings among them. That is a floating adoption, so the County moved to the 2024 editions on January 1, 2026 without passing an ordinance of its own. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED: section 18-1(b) is the County's permissive-code provision and it names exactly two, adopting "the 2018 edition of the International Property Maintenance Code and the 2018 edition of the Existing Building Code, as adopted and amended by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs". The Department of Community Affairs lists the Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix - Appendix U - among the permissive codes a local government may adopt, and Clayton County's enumeration does not include it, so its enhanced roof-deck sealing and shingle fastening do not apply here. Note that the two permissive codes are frozen at their 2018 editions while the mandatory ones float. Section 18-22(c) adds that "Appendices referenced in the text of the construction codes shall be considered an integral part of the construction codes", which is about appendices an adopted code's own text calls up, not about which permissive codes the County has taken. Section 18-22(a)(8) restates the residential scope: the International Residential Code as adopted and amended by the state department of community affairs applies to every one- or two-family dwelling in the county and its appurtenances. The building chapter derives from Ordinance No. 2010-122 of June 8, 2010 and was last amended on this point by Ordinance No. 2021-265, adopted December 7, 2021; the Code of Ordinances is codified through Ordinance No. 2025-250, enacted November 18, 2025.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT COUNTY-SET, and it applies in Clayton County exactly as it applies everywhere else in Georgia. The International Residential Code is one of the codes Georgia designates as a mandatory state minimum standard, so under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) it binds construction in Clayton County whether or not the County elects to enforce it locally, and the County's own Code says the same thing from the local side: section 18-1(a) applies the building chapter to construction, alteration, replacement and repair of any structure in the county and enforces "the latest edition of the following mandatory Georgia State Minimum Standard Codes, as adopted and amended by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs", listing the International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings among them. The Georgia Department of Community Affairs amendment packet for the 2024 IRC carries no amendment to Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies: the packet's full text is archived in this project and was measured rather than skimmed, at zero occurrences of any R9-hundred section number and zero of the phrase "Chapter 9". So the Chapter 9 drip-edge provision at Section R905.2.8.5 stands as written, neither deleted nor rewritten for Georgia. Clayton County's own building instrument was re-opened in full for this entry, not taken from an earlier report: Chapter 18, Buildings and Building Code Regulations, all fifty-six documents and 109,134 characters of it, Articles I through XI, sections 18-1 through 18-105, searched on anchored terms with zero hits for "drip", zero for "R905", zero for "Chapter 9" and zero for "shingle". Its one code-amendment article, Article VII, amends only the International Plumbing Code and the International Property Maintenance Code, and its one local construction-standards section, 18-61, imposes County requirements on exterior siding sheathing, interior amenities and retaining walls while saying nothing at all about roof covering. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED: section 18-1(b) is the County's permissive-code provision and it names exactly two, "the 2018 edition of the International Property Maintenance Code and the 2018 edition of the Existing Building Code", so the Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix and its enhanced deck sealing and shingle fastening do not apply here. The operative ICC text of R905.2.8.5, which sets the extent, lap and fastening specifics, sits behind the ICC paywall; this record does not restate it and does not rely on any third-party republication of it. What is recorded is the sourced fact that the requirement is in force in Clayton County unamended. One practical warning for a roofer: section 18-41(a) lists "Roof re-covering and replacement" among the works for which a building permit is not required, unless the existing roof or covering "is water-soaked or has deteriorated to the point that the existing roof or roof covering is not adequate as a base for additional roofing", the existing covering "is wood shake, slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile", or "the roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering". So an ordinary Clayton County re-roof will usually never be inspected by the County. The exemption removes the inspection, not the requirement: under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) the mandatory code binds the work whether or not the local government chooses to enforce it locally. About drip edge

Not required — No mid-roof, dry-in or in-progress roofing inspection is required. Clayton County Code section 18-48 lists the minimum inspections the county official will make, by trade, and the building list has three stages and no roofing stage: a foundation inspection "To be made after trenches are excavated and forms erected and prior to placement of concrete", a frame inspection "To be made after the roof, all framing, fire blocking, and bracing are in place, all concealed wiring, all pipes, chimneys, ducts and vents are complete", and a final inspection "To be made after the building is completed and ready for occupancy". The electrical, plumbing and mechanical rough-in inspections are each likewise made only after the roof is in place, so the roof is a precondition of other stages rather than a stage of its own. The same section reserves to the county official the power to make "such other inspections as necessary". On a reroof that falls inside the section 18-41 permit exception there is no County inspection at all. Inspections are requested through the County's self-service portal or on 770-477-3569.

Not required — No impact-resistant or hail-rated roof covering is required in Clayton County. Neither the Georgia State Amendments packet to the 2024 International Residential Code nor Chapter 18 of the Clayton County Code contains any UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473 impact requirement; the Georgia packet does not amend the Code's roofing chapter at all, and the County's building chapter, read in full across all ten articles, mentions roof coverings only in the permit-exception list and in fee schedules calculated per square foot under the roof line. Clayton County has not adopted Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose roofing content is about fastening and water barriers rather than impact in any event. An insurer may still offer a premium credit for an impact-rated shingle in the Atlanta hail belt, but that is an insurance matter and not a code requirement here.

THE TEST IS NOT SIZE OR COST - IT IS WHAT IS ALREADY ON THE ROOF. Clayton County Code section 18-41 is headed "Permit application" and its subsection (a), "When required", requires anyone who desires to "construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish, or change the occupancy of a building or structure" to apply for and obtain a permit. It then sets out Exceptions by trade, and item 12 of the Building list is "Roof re-covering and replacement when none of the following conditions exist:", followed by three conditions verbatim: "a. The existing roof or roof covering is water-soaked or has deteriorated to the point that the existing roof or roof covering is not adequate as a base for additional roofing. b. The existing roof covering is wood shake, slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile. c. The roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering." PRACTICAL EFFECT: a re-cover or replacement over a sound single layer of a material that is not on that list needs no Clayton County building permit, whatever the job costs and however large the roof. If any one of the three is true - a soaked or deteriorated deck or covering, an existing wood shake, slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile roof, or two or more layers already up there - the exception drops away and a permit is required. Two of those three are answerable from the ground before the tear-off and the third is answerable the moment the first course comes off, so decide which side of the line the job is on at survey rather than mid-job. Note that this is a permit rule, and it is not the same question as how many layers the construction code itself allows to remain. Whichever way it falls, the code still applies to the work: the exception removes the permit, not the standard.

Clayton County publishes no wind design criteria of its own, and neither does Georgia for one- and two-family dwellings. Chapter 18 of the Clayton County Code was read in full and states no design wind speed, no exposure category and no wind-borne debris region; the only occurrence of the word wind in the whole chapter is a rain-sensor provision about obstructions in the landscape-irrigation amendments. The County publishes no filled-in copy of the Residential Code's climatic and geographic criteria table. The Georgia State Amendments to the 2024 International Residential Code carry only one wind figure in the mandatory chapters and it is not a design value: an exception to the foundation-anchorage section that applies where the basic wind speed does not exceed 115 miles per hour and the seismic design category is A or B. Every other wind speed in the Georgia packet sits inside Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose Chapter AU4 offers an adopting jurisdiction a choice of minimum wind speeds, and Clayton County has not adopted that appendix, so none of those options applies. The governing figure is therefore the base Code's own wind map value read for the site. Ask Building Permits on 770-477-3569 for the wind speed and exposure category before designing fastening or uplift to a number.

Set by the state code, not by Clayton County - but Clayton County's permit rule turns on the layer count, so read both. The residential code in force is the 2024 International Residential Code with the Georgia Amendments 2026, and the Georgia amendment packet makes no change to the Code's roofing chapter, so the base International Residential Code reroofing and roof-recover provisions apply as published and Georgia adds no layer cap of its own. Chapter 18 of the Clayton County Code, Buildings and Building Code Regulations, was read in full - all ten articles and every one of their sections - and it imposes no limit of its own on how many layers of roof covering may remain. What it does do is make the layer count decide the permit: section 18-41(a) exempts roof re-covering and replacement from the permit requirement only where, among two other conditions, it is not the case that "The roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering." So in Clayton County a third layer is not forbidden by any local ordinance, but going over two existing applications takes the job out of the permit exception and into a permit, where the construction code's own recover rules will be applied by an inspector. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction is not adopted here, so nothing in that appendix bears on the question either.

Set by the state code, not by Clayton County, and one local sheathing rule here is about WALLS rather than roofs - do not carry it across. The Georgia amendment packet to the 2024 International Residential Code makes no change to the Code's roofing chapter, so the base International Residential Code provisions on the deck beneath a roof covering apply as published. Chapter 18 of the Clayton County Code, read in full, contains exactly one sheathing provision and it is section 18-61(b), "Exterior siding", which requires that "All buildings utilizing vinyl siding or stucco siding must have 7/16 OSB sheathing under the vinyl or stucco on all floors of the structure" and sets rules for Portland-cement stucco over wire lath with ten-pound felt. That is an exterior wall standard in the County's residential construction-standards article, not a roof-deck standard, and it says nothing about roof sheathing. Where the deck does matter to a roofer in Clayton County is the permit exception in section 18-41(a), which stops applying where "The existing roof or roof covering is water-soaked or has deteriorated to the point that the existing roof or roof covering is not adequate as a base for additional roofing" - so a bad deck turns a no-permit reroof into a permitted one. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which carries the enhanced deck-sealing and shingle-fastening provisions, is not adopted in Clayton County, so those do not apply here.

8% in Clayton County outside College Park, and 9% inside it. CLAYTON IS ONE OF THE THREE GEORGIA COUNTIES THAT SPLIT BY CITY, so do not carry one number across the whole county. The Georgia Department of Revenue's rate chart in force for July 1 through September 30, 2026 gives jurisdiction code 031 "Clayton (Not Clg Prk)" at 8%, combining the 4% Georgia state rate with the local components the chart marks MARTA, LOST, Educational and SPLOST, and a separate code 804 "Clayton (College Prk)" at 9% for the part of College Park that lies in Clayton County. College Park straddles the Clayton and Fulton county line and the chart carries a Fulton row for it as well, at 8.75%, so an address in College Park needs the county established before the rate is. The Department of Revenue has already published the chart taking effect on October 1, 2026 and the Clayton rows are unchanged in it, so both figures hold through that reissue. For the roofer, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-12-2-.26(1) makes anyone who contracts to furnish materials and perform services improving real property "the consumer of all tangible personal property used or consumed in performing such contract" and who "shall pay the tax thereon at the time of purchase, use, storage or consumption in this State, whichever occurs first" - so the tax on the shingles is the contractor's, paid at the supplier, and not a line the homeowner is charged as a resale item. The same rule requires every contractor improving real property in Georgia to file for a Certificate of Registration on Form CRF-002 before its first construction activity in the state, which is a tax registration and not a contractor credential.