Durham City-County Building & Safety Department

City of Durham and Durham County, North Carolina

district

101 City Hall Plaza, Ground Floor, Durham, NC 27701

Not required

A single-family re-roof in Durham that meets the conditions of North Carolina's statutory exemption requires no building permit. G.S. 160D-1110(c) says "No permit issued under Article 9 of Chapter 143 of the General Statutes is required for any construction, installation, repair, replacement, or alteration costing forty thousand dollars ($40,000) or less and performed in accordance with the current edition of the North Carolina State Building Code in any single-family residence, farm building, or commercial building unless the work involves any of the following: (1) The addition, repair, or replacement of load-bearing structures. ... (4) The use of materials not permitted by the North Carolina State Building Code. (5) The addition of roofing, excluding replacement." NC Residential Code R908.3 as amended: "Roof replacement shall include the removal of existing layers of roof coverings down to the roof deck and replacement of up to 15% of the total existing roof deck. Replacement of up to 15% of the total roof deck shall not be considered structural work." The exemption names single-family residences; a duplex or multi-family building is not among the building types it names. Work outside the exemption, or not done to the State Building Code, is permit work, and the department's own page says a building permit is "Required for any project that includes load bearing work or any project exceeding $40K in market value." The cost of guessing wrong: the department's fee schedule charges "Double Fee" for "Work begun without a permit", and G.S. 160D-1110(i) makes violating the permit section a Class 1 misdemeanor. Where a permit is needed on an existing single-family house, the department uses its Residential Small Project Review Building Application, which "is to be submitted with all single-family building permit requests that are not new construction", filed through the Dplans portal with the Renovations checklist; fees are paid and inspections requested through the Land Development Office (LDO) portal. The application asks for the contractor's Durham Contractor ID (CID) and state licence number, and for projects costing $40,000 or more the checklist requires a lien agent designation (or owner release), a general contractor licence "with adequate classification" or a notarized Owner Exemption Affidavit, and proof of workers' compensation coverage. Exempt work must still meet the State Building Code.

The North Carolina State Building Code applies in Durham as it does statewide. The 2018 North Carolina Residential Code, with the State's approved amendments, is the edition in force; the 2024 edition has been adopted but has no effective date. The department describes its work as "administration and enforcement of the North Carolina State Building Code", its Current Codes & Ordinances page sends readers to the State Fire Marshal's code page ("Review the current North Carolina Codes."), and its Required Building Inspections sheet for single-family residences, duplexes and townhouses (Doc. 22136, dated 02.20.2026) states: "In addition to the specific items listed above, all requirements of the 2018 North Carolina Residential Code and Administrative Code will be enforced." Neither the City of Durham's Code Chapter 10 (Buildings and Building Regulations) nor Durham County's Code Chapter 6 (Buildings and Building Regulations), each read in full, adopts a building code of its own or contains a technical roofing provision; the City's housing code, Sec. 10-234, sets a maintenance standard for existing dwellings ("Roofing shall be provided to prevent the entrance of moisture and shall be maintained by renewal, repair, waterproofing or other suitable means."). Two North Carolina amendments shape every re-roof: R905.2.8.5 "Drip Edge. Deleted. Not required unless required by the roof covering manufacturer installation instructions." and R908.3, which counts replacing up to 15% of the roof deck as part of a roof replacement and not as structural work.

Not required — Durham adds no roof-covering rule to the State code: neither City Code Chapter 10 nor County Code Chapter 6, each read in full, contains a UL 2218 or Class 4 impact requirement, and the North Carolina Residential Code applies here as the State publishes it. North Carolina's approved amendments to its 2018 Residential Code contain no UL 2218 or Class 4 impact-rating requirement for roof coverings, and none appears in the State's 2024 edition either.

North Carolina statute sets the line, and it names roofing. G.S. 160D-1110(c): "No permit issued under Article 9 of Chapter 143 of the General Statutes is required for any construction, installation, repair, replacement, or alteration costing forty thousand dollars ($40,000) or less and performed in accordance with the current edition of the North Carolina State Building Code in any single-family residence, farm building, or commercial building unless the work involves any of the following: (1) The addition, repair, or replacement of load-bearing structures. ... (4) The use of materials not permitted by the North Carolina State Building Code. (5) The addition of roofing, excluding replacement." G.S. 143-138(b5) repeats the same list and says "No permit shall be required under the Code or any local variance thereof" for that work. The $40,000 figure applies to permit applications submitted on or after October 1, 2023 (Session Law 2023-108); pages that give an earlier, lower figure are out of date. North Carolina's own reroofing text draws the structural line for a tear-off, NC Residential Code R908.3 as amended: "Roof replacement shall include the removal of existing layers of roof coverings down to the roof deck and replacement of up to 15% of the total existing roof deck. Replacement of up to 15% of the total roof deck shall not be considered structural work." So a re-roof of a single-family house costing $40,000 or less, done to the State Building Code, with no load-bearing work and no more than 15% of the deck replaced, requires no building permit; a re-roof over $40,000, one that adds roofing rather than replacing it, one that replaces load-bearing structure, or one on a duplex or multi-family building (not among the building types the statute names) does. The Durham City-County Building & Safety Department states the same line on its own page: "Building Permit: Required for any project that includes load bearing work or any project exceeding $40K in market value." Its fee schedule prices "Residential Reroofing (addition)" at $75.00, which is the non-exempt "addition of roofing" case, and charges "Double Fee" for "Work begun without a permit". The City's enacted permit section, City Code Sec. 10-48, requires a permit to "construct, enlarge, alter, repair" a building and adds: "Such permit shall not be required if the North Carolina Building Code specifically excuses obtaining a permit for such work." Its parenthetical example still cites a $5,000 figure, which the statute has since raised to $40,000.

Durham has no local reroofing rule: neither City Code Chapter 10 nor County Code Chapter 6, each read in full, contains a reroofing or roof-layer provision, so the North Carolina Residential Code's reroofing section, R908, applies as the State publishes it. In the 2018 North Carolina Residential Code, R908.3.1.1 does not allow a roof recover "Where the existing roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering." The same section also bars a recover "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" and "Where the existing roof covering is slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile." North Carolina has amended the reroofing section: its R908.3 reads "Roof replacement shall include the removal of existing layers of roof coverings down to the roof deck and replacement of up to 15% of the total existing roof deck. Replacement of up to 15% of the total roof deck shall not be considered structural work." The recover conditions above are unchanged in the State's 2024 edition, which has no effective date yet.

Neither the City of Durham's Code Chapter 10 nor Durham County's Code Chapter 6, each read in full, contains a roof-deck or roof-sheathing provision for new work, so roof sheathing follows the North Carolina Residential Code as the State publishes it (roof sheathing is in Chapter 8, Section R803). For a re-roof, North Carolina's amended R908.3 counts limited re-decking as part of the replacement: "Roof replacement shall include the removal of existing layers of roof coverings down to the roof deck and replacement of up to 15% of the total existing roof deck. Replacement of up to 15% of the total roof deck shall not be considered structural work." Replacing more than that is outside what R908.3 treats as non-structural, and load-bearing work takes a job outside the statutory permit exemption. The department's Residential Inspections Checklist (Doc. 37468) lists "Sheathing 503/604/803" and "Span of sheathing material 503/604/803" among the items checked at the framing inspection of a permitted dwelling. For existing homes, the City's housing code, Sec. 10-234, requires that "Sheathing shall not be rotted, loose or sagging excessively."

7.5% total in Durham County: the North Carolina Department of Revenue's current rate list gives each county's "total (4.75% state rate plus applicable local and transit rates)" and marks Durham's 7.5% as a rate "that includes the 0.50% transit tax rate", leaving 2.25% in county local rates. Whether a roofing job is taxed at that rate depends on whether it is a repair or a replacement, and NCDOR treats the two differently. Its Services to Real Property Taxability Chart, under "Roofs and Roofing Materials", lists "Complete replacement of roofing systems" as a capital improvement, while "Repair, maintain, or partially replace all types of roofing systems" is "Taxable" as a repair, maintenance and installation service. On a capital improvement (a real property contract) NCDOR says the tax "applies to the sales price or purchase price of an item sold to a real property contractor for use by the real property contractor to fulfill a real property contract" and that "The real property contractor is the consumer of the item", so the roofer pays tax on materials when buying them. On a repair, NCDOR says the gross receipts "are subject to the general state, applicable local, and applicable transit rates of sales and use tax unless exempt by statute", which in Durham County is 7.5% charged to the customer. This record does not decide which treatment a particular job falls in; NCDOR's chart and its bulletins on real property contracts are the place to check.