Permitting Authorities / Indiana / City of Fishers, Indiana - Community Development Department
Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Fishers, IN?
Adopted codeCity of Fishers, Indiana - Community Development Department
The building and planning office for the City of Fishers, one of the nine planning jurisdictions that make up Hamilton County, Indiana, north-east of Indianapolis. Hamilton County publishes a map of those nine areas and a sheet for each one naming the office that serves it; the sheet for the City of Fishers area names the Fishers Community Development Department at 1 Municipal Drive and gives its telephone number. The County Plan Commission does not permit inside this area, and note that the nine areas are drawn on township lines rather than corporate limits, so a rural address near Fishers is not automatically a County address. This record is deliberately thin on the City's own rules. The City's website (fishersin.gov) answers automated requests with a bot-challenge page rather than its content. The City's Code of Ordinances is published by American Legal Publishing, and a single chapter fetch succeeded and named the City's own building-permit structure - Chapter 154 (Building Code) is organized into General Provisions, Regulatory Codes (adoption of building rules by reference), Permit Requirements, and Administration and Enforcement, and its own cross-reference line states "Registration of building contractors, see Ch. 115" - so Fishers does register building contractors locally. Those sections have now been read. Section 154.15(A) requires a permit "before beginning construction, alteration, repair, or demolition of any building or structure", with fees set in Chapter 35, and none of the Chapter 154 sections read carries a repair or re-roof exemption or mentions roofing at all. Chapter 115 requires a contractor "seeking to perform work on residences and businesses" in the City to register for a one-year term at a $100 fee, with a general liability certificate of at least $500,000 per occurrence for bodily injury and $100,000 for property damage (or a $500,000 combined single limit); only a homeowner doing all of the work themselves, and change-of-use applicants, are excepted. What is stated is the part Indiana settles for every jurisdiction in the state, because the residential code is written by the state and a city may not vary it.
Roof code checklist: Fishers, IN
| Item | Answer | Code cite | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Permit to replace a roof | Not published | |||
| Repair permit threshold | Not published | |||
| Layer limit / roof-over | Published | R908.3.1.1 | iar.iga.in.gov | 2026-09-11 |
| Deck & sheathing | Not published | |||
| Drip edge | Yes | R905.2.8.5 | Ice-and-Water-Shield-Update-2020-... | 2026-09-04 |
| Ice & water shield | No | iar.iga.in.gov | 2026-09-04 | |
| Mid-roof inspection | Not published | |||
| Impact-resistant (Class 4) roofing | No | iar.iga.in.gov | 2026-09-04 | |
| Wind design criteria | Published | iar.iga.in.gov | 2026-09-04 | |
| Adopted code | Published | iar.iga.in.gov | 2026-09-04 | |
| Contractor license / registration | Yes | codelibrary.amlegal.com | 2026-09-10 | |
| Sales & use tax | Published | in.gov | 2026-09-04 |
Each row comes from the sourced record on this page; full wording is in the table below. "Not published" means no official source for that item was found when the record was last verified.
Jurisdiction
City of Fishers, Indiana
Jurisdiction type
city
Address
1 Municipal Drive, Fishers, IN 46038
Contact
- phone: 317-595-3155
- url: https://fishersin.gov/
Contractor registration required
Required
Registration details
- state_level: Indiana issues no state roofing, general-contractor or home-improvement credential. The Indiana Professional Licensing Agency's published directory of the professions it regulates names none of them; the construction-adjacent entries it does carry are Architects and Landscape Architects, Engineering, Surveyors, Home Inspectors, Manufactured Home Installers, Interior Design Registry and Plumbing. So there is no Indiana roofing licence to hold, and the contractor credential a roofer needs in Fishers is the City's own registration.
- city_level: Fishers registers contractors itself. Chapter 115 of the City's Code of Ordinances, "Building Contractors", establishes "registration requirements for contractors seeking to perform work on residences and businesses located in the City of Fishers" (Section 115.01). To register, a contractor completes the City's contractor registration application and provides a general liability insurance certificate showing at least $500,000 for each occurrence of death or bodily injury and at least $100,000 for each occurrence of property damage, or combined single limit coverage of at least $500,000 per occurrence. The certificate must show the policy number and the effective and expiration dates, name the sole proprietor, partnership or corporation as the insured, list the insurance agent's name, address and phone number, and must not limit coverage to a single job, and the City's Engineering Department must be notified in writing at least 15 days before the coverage is cancelled. A registration is valid for one year from the date of issue (Section 115.02). The fee is $100, due on issuance, with the fee schedule in Section 35.30 (Section 115.03). There are only two exceptions (Section 115.04): a homeowner applying for residential permits who will perform all of the work themselves, and applicants for change of use or occupancy permits. There is no exception for roofing or for small jobs, and both exceptions are written as relief from registering in order to obtain permits, so expect to be registered before the City will issue a permit to you. The Community Development Department is on (317) 595-3155.
Permit process note
READ THIS ONE FIRST, BECAUSE WHAT IS MISSING FROM THIS RECORD IS AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT IS IN IT. The City of Fishers runs its own building and planning office. Hamilton County publishes a map dividing the county into nine planning jurisdictions and a sheet for each one naming the office that serves it, and the sheet for the City of Fishers area names the Fishers Community Development Department, 1 Municipal Drive, Fishers, Indiana 46038, telephone (317) 595-3155. The City's own development ordinance names a Building Commissioner among the officials designated to enforce it. So the County Plan Commission is not your permitting authority on a Fishers job, and neither is the State. Work out which of the nine jurisdictions an address falls in before filing anything: the areas are drawn on township lines rather than corporate limits, so being outside a town is not the same as being in the County's area, and the City's own ordinance says the development ordinance "applies to all land, buildings, structures and uses located within corporate limits and the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the City of Fishers, Indiana, and any land within Townships that have entered joinder agreements with the City for the purposes of planning and zoning", naming Delaware and Fall Creek Townships elsewhere in the same section. WHAT THE CITY'S OWN CODE OF ORDINANCES ESTABLISHES. Fishers' Code of Ordinances is published by American Legal Publishing; Chapter 154, "Building Code," runs twenty sections, and its own cross-reference line points to Chapter 115 of Title XI (Business Regulations) for the "Registration of building contractors". WHAT THE BUILDING CODE CHAPTER AND CHAPTER 115 SAY. Section 154.15(A) requires a permit "before beginning construction, alteration, repair, or demolition of any building or structure", with application fees set in Chapter 35, and no section of Chapter 154 that was read carries a repair or re-roof exemption or a dollar threshold. Section 154.19 requires the inspections "as are necessary to insure full compliance" with the chapter and the permit, with reinspection fees under Chapter 35; it names no inspection stages, so no roof-specific stage is stated here. Section 154.20 requires permitted work to begin within one year of issue and to be completed within 24 months. Chapter 115 requires a contractor "seeking to perform work on residences and businesses" in the City to register: an application, a general liability insurance certificate, a one-year term and a $100 fee; only a homeowner doing all of the work themselves, and change-of-use applicants, are excepted. The Community Development Department is on (317) 595-3155. Indiana issues no state roofing, general contractor or home improvement credential - the Professional Licensing Agency's published list of the professions it regulates names none of them - so the registration requirement a roofer meets in Fishers is purely local. WHAT THE CITY'S DEVELOPMENT ORDINANCE DOES SAY ABOUT ROOFS, WHICH IS MORE THAN MOST. The Fishers Unified Development Ordinance was adopted July 19, 2018, took effect July 20, 2018 by Ordinance No. 071618F and carries amendments through ordinances dated April 20, 2026. It was read in full. Three provisions in it bear on roofing work. First, its defined term "Structural Alteration" means "Any change in the supporting members of a building or structure such as bearing walls, partitions, columns, beams or girders, or any change in the footprint or increase in the size of living space. Also, substantial roofing and siding work when repairs are made to the structure beneath." So in this city's own vocabulary a re-roof that includes repairs to the structure beneath is a structural alteration. Second, Section 6.1.2 subjects structural alterations made after the UDO took effect to the development standards of their zoning district. Third, the residential design standards in Section 6.3.4 include Roof Standards that are marked required for both single-family and multi-family development, among them that "Quality roof materials such as tile, slate, cedar shake with fire protection, 30-year asphalt shingles, dimensional asphalt or fiberglass shingles, high-quality standing seem metal roofing, or high-quality metal shingle roofing shall be used on all structures. All metal roofing shall be low-gloss and a base color", and that "Sloped roofs shall have a significant pitch, primary roof planes to be no less than 5/12." The word "seem" in that passage is the ordinance's own typo for seam and is quoted as printed. Whether the City applies those standards to a like-for-like re-roof, or only to work reviewed as a structural alteration, is for the Community Development Department; this record does not decide it. What a roofer should take from it is concrete: a 30-year or dimensional asphalt shingle is inside the City's stated material list, a builder-grade three-tab may not be, and a shiny or bright-coloured metal roof is outside it. One more definition, not to be over-read: the ordinance excludes from "Development" the maintenance of existing structures, naming reroofing among its examples. That keeps a plain re-roof out of the City's development-approval track; it is not a building permit exemption and must not be quoted as one.
Adopted code
STATE-SET, NOT CITY-SET, AND THERE IS NO FISHERS EDITION YEAR TO LOOK UP. One and two family dwellings in Fishers are built to the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates by reference "that certain document being titled the 2018 International Residential Code for One and Two Family Dwellings, first printing August 2017, published by the International Code Council ... save and except those revisions made in this rule", and which "shall be known as the 2020 Indiana Residential Code" (675 IAC 14-4.4-1). The rule was filed November 26, 2019 and formally readopted November 18, 2025, and it is the newest rule in Article 14 of Title 675; there is no later Indiana residential rule and no 2024 International Residential Code adoption in either the 2026 or the 2027 edition of the Indiana Administrative Code. No Indiana city may put itself on a different residential code: IC 22-13-2-3(a)(2) gives the state commission's rules precedence over any local ordinance covering the same subject matter, and (c) provides that "A city, town, or county may not adopt an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or detailed requirements than the commission's rules." One Indiana-specific point worth knowing if you ever do read a local ordinance that cites the code: under IC 22-13-2-3(b) a local reference to the Indiana Administrative Code "shall be construed to include all amendments as of the date that the reference is written and any later amendments to that provision, unless accompanied by a reference to a specific edition or supplement", so an Indiana ordinance citing 675 IAC 14-4.4 tracks the current rule rather than freezing at its adoption date. Whether the City of Fishers has its own building-code ordinance, and what it says, could not be established, because the City's website refuses automated requests. That does not change the edition, which the state sets.
Drip edge
Required — REQUIRED AT EAVES AND RAKES, STATEWIDE, AND FISHERS HAS NO SAY IN IT EITHER WAY. The Indiana State Building Commissioner reproduces the governing provision in full, on Indiana Department of Homeland Security letterhead, in the guidance document "ICE/WATER SHIELD & METAL DRIP EDGE IN CLASS 2 CONSTRUCTION with ASPHALT SHINGLES", signed by Craig E. Burgess, Indiana State Building Commissioner, February 25, 2020. It reads: "R905.2.8.5 Drip edge. A drip edge shall be provided at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs. Adjacent segments of drip edge shall be overlapped not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall extend not less than 1/4 inch (6.4 mm) below the roof sheathing and extend up back onto the roof deck not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall be mechanically fastened to the rood deck at not more than 12 inches (305 mm) o.c. with fasteners as specified in Section R905.2.5 Underlayment shall be installed over the drip edge along eaves and under the drip edge along rake edges." Two oddities in that passage are the published document's own typography and not a transcription slip at this end. "rood deck" is a typo in the State's document for the roof deck, and the document runs the last two sentences together with no full stop after "Section R905.2.5". The same document states the reach of the code in terms: "The 2020 Indiana Residential Code is in full force and effect statewide. Regardless of any established local enforcement policies or practices to the contrary, or whether a local building authority even exists in any particular jurisdiction or location in the state, the 2020 Indiana Residential Code governs all Class 2 residential construction, and its requirements, by law, must be followed. Local units of government are statutorily mandated to require compliance with the code." A city cannot go the other way either, because IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance more stringent or more detailed than the state rules. So the drip edge is required on a Fishers shingle roof whatever the City's own paperwork does or does not say about it. About drip edge
Ice & water shield
Not required — NOT AUTOMATICALLY REQUIRED IN FISHERS, BECAUSE IN INDIANA THIS IS A COUNTY BY COUNTY ANSWER AND HAMILTON COUNTY IS ONE OF THE COUNTIES THAT IS NOT ON THE LIST. Indiana deletes the model climatic table and substitutes its own: 675 IAC 14-4.4-5 directs "Delete TABLE R301.2(1) and the corresponding footnotes and substitute to read as follows", and the substituted table then runs one row per county for all 92. One of its columns is headed "Ice Shield Underlayment Required". Fishers is in Hamilton County, which is row 29, and the entry in that column on the Hamilton County row is No. Only 27 of the 92 counties carry Yes there, and they are the northern tier, so a habit brought down from a Fort Wayne or a Lake County job is wrong here - and so is any assumption that Indiana has one statewide answer. An ice barrier can still be mandatory on a particular Fishers roof by a second and completely independent route, and the Indiana State Building Commissioner spells that route out on Department of Homeland Security letterhead. Because Sections R903.1, R904.1 and R905.1 require roofing materials to be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's installation instructions, "there are specific counties in which it is always required (per Table R301.2(1)), and specific counties in which it is required only when the roofing manufacturer's written installation instructions require it (per Sections R903.1, R904.1 and R905.1)." Hamilton County is in that second group. So on a Fishers job the question is not answered by the table alone: read the printed installation instructions for the shingle you are actually installing, because if they call for an ice barrier the code makes those instructions binding. What the barrier must be made of and how far up the slope it must run comes from the adopted 2018 International Residential Code itself, which Indiana does not modify on that point. About ice & water barrier
Impact-resistant roofing
Not required — NO IMPACT-RESISTANCE MANDATE REACHES A FISHERS ROOF, AND THE CITY HAS NO POWER TO CREATE ONE. The 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, was read in full - all 245 sections - and contains no occurrence of UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473, the four designations that answer this question. Its only roof-assemblies amendments are word deletions: 675 IAC 14-4.4-84 deletes the last sentence of Section R902.4 on rooftop-mounted photovoltaic panel systems, 14-4.4-85 deletes "approved" from Section R905.2.6 Attachment, 14-4.4-86 deletes "approved" from Section R905.2.8 Flashing, and 14-4.4-87 deletes "printed" from Section R905.2.8.4 Other flashing. None of the four is about impact. The City of Fishers Unified Development Ordinance was also read in full and contains none of the four designations and no reference to hail; every one of its many uses of the word "impact" is a land-use or stormwater usage, such as low impact development, impact fees and the Commercial Low Impact overlay district, and not one is a roof rating. On top of that, IC 22-13-2-3(a)(2) gives the state commission's rules precedence over any local ordinance covering the same subject matter and (c) provides that "A city, town, or county may not adopt an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or detailed requirements than the commission's rules", so an Indiana city cannot impose a roof-covering standard the state has not set. An insurance discount for a Class 4 shingle is a matter between the homeowner and their carrier and is not a code requirement in Fishers or anywhere else in Indiana; never quote it as one. One piece of Indiana vocabulary that trips people up: "Class 2" in Indiana building law is a STRUCTURE class under IC 22-12-1-5, meaning a one or two family dwelling, and has nothing to do with a hail or fire rating - the State's own roofing guidance document is titled for Class 2 construction and is about ordinary houses.
Wind design criteria
115 mph. Indiana deletes the model International Residential Code Table R301.2(1) outright and substitutes its own county-by-county table at 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, which opens "Delete TABLE R301.2(1) and the corresponding footnotes and substitute to read as follows". Fishers sits in Hamilton County, which is row 29 of that table, and the row reads across as: Wind Speed 115 MPH; Seismic Design Category A; Ground Snow 20 PSF; Foundation 30 inches; Winter Design Temp 2 degrees; Decay Slight to Moderate; Termite Moderate to Heavy; Weathering Severe; Ice Shield Underlayment Required No; Air Freezing Index 1500 or less; Mean Annual Temp 51.5 degrees. All 92 Indiana counties carry the same 115 mph figure, so wind speed is not a local variable anywhere in the state and there is nothing in Fishers to look up. Exposure category is not a state or local lever either. It is a site-by-site determination under Section R301.2.1.4, and footnote a to the Indiana table says so in terms: "Wind exposure shall be determined on a site-specific basis in accordance with SECTION R301.2.1.4." Indiana does substitute the fourth sentence of that section, at 675 IAC 14-4.4-4, to provide that on a subdivision or master-planned site the exposure category for an individual structure is based on the conditions that will exist once all adjacent structures on the site have been constructed, where that construction is expected to begin within 2 years, which matters on a lot in a subdivision still being finished.
Roof layer limit / recover
NO INDIANA AMENDMENT AND NO FISHERS AMENDMENT FOUND, SO THE BASE CODE APPLIES UNMODIFIED - BUT READ IT OUT OF THE ADOPTED EDITION RATHER THAN FROM MEMORY. Roofing in Fishers runs on the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates the 2018 International Residential Code. That rule was read in full, all 245 sections. The International Residential Code reroofing section, R908, does not appear in it at any point, so Indiana leaves reroofing and recovering an existing roof exactly as the base code writes them, and there is no Indiana layer count to quote. It is worth knowing that Indiana does amend four sections of the roof-assemblies chapter, because the state is sometimes described as leaving Chapter 9 untouched and that is not accurate: the four are Section R902.4 on rooftop-mounted photovoltaic panel systems and Sections R905.2.6, R905.2.8 and R905.2.8.4 on asphalt-shingle attachment and flashing, and every one of them is the deletion of a word or a sentence rather than a new rule. None touches layer counts, overlays or recovering. An older Indiana rule, 675 IAC 14-4.2, did once amend Section R907.3 on recovering versus replacement, but that section stands repealed and is not the law today. Nor could Fishers add a layer rule of its own: IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or more detailed requirements than the state rules. THE CITY'S OWN BUILDING CODE CHAPTER WAS READ AT THE TABLE-OF-CONTENTS LEVEL THIS SESSION, AND IT HAS NO SUCH SECTION. Fishers Code of Ordinances Chapter 154, "Building Code," runs twenty operative sections in four groups - General Provisions (154.01 Title, 154.02 Purpose, 154.03 Scope), Regulatory Codes (154.10 Adoption of building rules by reference), Permit Requirements (154.15 through 154.20, covering the permit itself, compliance with other regulations, the application, its review, inspections, and the time period to start work), and Administration and Enforcement (154.25 through 154.31, plus 154.98 Violations and 154.99 Penalty) - and none of those twenty section titles is a roof-covering, layer or recover provision; the chapter's own structure leaves that subject entirely to the state rule adopted by reference in 154.10. The City of Fishers Unified Development Ordinance was also read in full and contains no roof covering or layer provision. THE OPERATIVE TEXT HAS SINCE BEEN READ. Section 154.10 incorporates the Commission's Title 675 rules "and shall include later amendments to that code", and the permit, application, review, inspection and time-period sections, 154.15 through 154.20, carry no roof-covering, layer or recover provision; the word roof does not appear in any section of the chapter that was read. So the state rule applies to the layer question in Fishers unmodified, and Indiana's ceiling would bar a local layer rule regardless. Base-code rule, read at 2018 International Residential Code Section R908.3.1.1, Roof recover not allowed, and quoted here rather than left behind the ICC paywall: a roof recover "shall not be permitted" where "the existing roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering." One existing layer may be recovered; a second existing layer means a tear-off to the deck.
Sales & use tax
7% statewide, with nothing added in Fishers or Hamilton County. Indiana levies a single state sales tax rate and no county or municipal sales tax sits on top of it. The Department of Revenue says so on the very page that enumerates the taxes Indiana does levy at county level: "The tax types displayed include: County Innkeeper's Tax (CIT) Food and Beverage Tax (FAB) Local Income Tax (LIT) ... The sales tax for the entire State of Indiana is 7%." Those three county taxes are an income tax, a lodging tax and a restaurant tax, and none of them reaches roofing materials, so there is no local percentage to add to a Fishers invoice. Where the 7% falls depends on the shape of the contract rather than on the trade. The Department's Sales Tax Information Bulletin #60, publication date March 2024, names roofing in its own list of examples of contractors, and turns on one definition: a "Time and Material Contract" is "a contract in which the cost of construction material and the cost of labor or other charges are stated separately." A roofer working under a time and material contract "is a retail merchant that is selling the construction material that it incorporates into real property, and must be registered with the department and collect sales tax on the material portion of their contracts", and may buy that material exempt under the sale for resale exemption. A roofer working under any other form of contract, a lump sum contract being the Department's own example, is not acting as a retail merchant: they "must pay sales or use tax on their construction material" and "do not collect sales tax from their customers" on the contract to convert it into real property. One line worth reading twice on a time and material job: "NOTE: Installation charges separately stated on an invoice are not included in gross retail income. Labor incurred as part of on-site installation may be exempt." Which form your own contracts take, and how to invoice them, is a question for your accountant rather than for this record; the bulletin itself is guidance and says it is not binding on the department or the taxpayer.
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Related guides
Hail reports near Fishers, IN
- Reports, last 24 months
- 2
- Largest, last 24 months
- 1.25 in Jul 27, 2026
- Most recent
- Jul 27, 2026 1.25 in
- Reports, last 5 years
- 7
| Date | Hail size | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 27, 2026 | 1.25 in | 8 mi SW |
| May 16, 2025 | 0.75 in | 6 mi WNW |
| Mar 14, 2024 | 1.75 in | 10 mi WNW |
| Mar 14, 2024 | 1.50 in | 6 mi NE |
| Jul 24, 2023 | 1.50 in | 5 mi S |
Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather database and daily storm reports (reports since the start of the current year are preliminary), within 10 miles of Fishers, IN (Census point). Data through Oct 7, 2026, not updated since. A report is an observation, not a damage record.
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Sources
- codelibrary.amlegal.com verified 2026-09-11
- online.encodeplus.com verified 2026-09-11
- iar.iga.in.gov verified 2026-09-11
- iga.in.gov verified 2026-09-11
- codelibrary.amlegal.com verified 2026-09-11
- codes.iccsafe.org verified 2026-09-11
- hamiltoncounty.in.gov verified 2026-09-10
- codelibrary.amlegal.com verified 2026-09-10
- in.gov verified 2026-09-10
- hamiltoncounty.in.gov verified 2026-09-10
- codelibrary.amlegal.com verified 2026-09-10
- in.gov verified 2026-09-04
- in.gov verified 2026-09-04
- in.gov verified 2026-09-04