Permitting Authorities / North Dakota / City of Grand Forks, North Dakota - Department of Building Safety
Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Grand Forks, ND?
Adopted codeCity of Grand Forks, North Dakota - Department of Building Safety
The permitting authority for the City of Grand Forks, North Dakota, the state's third-largest city and the seat of Grand Forks County. Its Department of Building Safety is created by the City's own enacted code rather than only by a web page: Grand Forks City Code Chapter XIX renames the model code's code compliance agency to the "DEPARTMENT OF BUILDING SAFETY" and directs that the printed copies of the adopted codes be filed in that department's office. Grand Forks is a heavier regulator than most North Dakota jurisdictions of its size, and a roofer should plan for three things: the City adopts the International Residential Code with a long list of its own amendments, it fills in its own wind, seismic and roof snow load figures rather than leaving them to the state, and before any permitted work it requires a contractor's licence from BOTH the city and the state plus a $5,000 performance bond that is not fully released until a year after the certificate of occupancy.
Roof code checklist: Grand Forks, ND
| Item | Answer | Code cite | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Permit to replace a roof | Not published | |||
| Repair permit threshold | Published | R105.2 | library.municode.com | 2026-09-05 |
| Layer limit / roof-over | Published | R908.3.1.1 | library.municode.com | 2026-09-10 |
| Deck & sheathing | Published | library.municode.com | 2026-09-05 | |
| Drip edge | Yes | R905.2.8.5 | library.municode.com | 2026-09-05 |
| Ice & water shield | Not published | |||
| Mid-roof inspection | Not published | |||
| Impact-resistant (Class 4) roofing | No | library.municode.com | 2026-09-05 | |
| Wind design criteria | Published | R301.2.1 | library.municode.com | 2026-09-05 |
| Adopted code | Published | Sec. 19-0121 | library.municode.com | 2026-09-05 |
| Contractor license / registration | Yes | library.municode.com | 2026-09-05 | |
| Sales & use tax | Published | local-taxes-by-location.pdf | 2026-09-05 |
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.
- city_level: CITY LEVEL. Grand Forks City Code Section 19-0103(1): "No person, firm, or corporation shall erect, construct, enlarge, alter, demolish, repair, improve or convert any building or structure for which a building permit is required until such person, firm, or corporation engaged in the business of construction, repair, alteration, dismantling, or demolition shall have obtained a contractor's license from the city and the state and shall have furnished and filed a performance bond in the sum of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) made payable to the city with good and sufficient sureties to be approved by the city auditor, conditioned that such person, firm, or corporation will faithfully comply with all city building codes, zoning regulations and ordinances governing the work necessary as set forth in said building permit(s)." The bond has a long tail: "As a guarantee that the workmanship and materials will continue to meet with all applicable city code, said bond shall not be fully released until one (1) year following the date of a certificate of occupancy on all such construction commenced in the calendar year said bond was issued." Section 19-0103(2) exempts governmental entities that do not pay a permit fee, and "any individual working on said individual's own residence" - so a homeowner doing their own roof needs neither the city licence nor the bond, while anyone hired to do it needs both.
- state_level: STATE LEVEL - a threshold, not a flat requirement, and the threshold is per job. NDCC 43-07-02(1) provides that "A person may not engage in the business nor act in the capacity of a contractor within this state when the cost, value, or price per job exceeds the sum of four thousand dollars nor may that person maintain any claim, action, suit, or proceeding in any court of this state related to the person's business or capacity as a contractor without first having a license as provided in this chapter." Roofing is not named in the chapter, but it falls inside the definition of contractor at 43-07-01(1), which covers "any person engaged in the business of construction, repair, alteration, dismantling, or demolition of ... buildings" and expressly "includes subcontractor." The classes are VALUE TIERS rather than trades - class D is capped at one hundred thousand dollars on a single contract project, class C at three hundred thousand, class B at five hundred thousand, and a class A licence "is subject to no limitation as to the value of any single contract project" - so there is no roofing classification. The state licence year runs "March second through March first" under 43-07-01(2), and working unlicensed above the state threshold is a class A misdemeanour that also bars the contractor from suing to be paid. Electrical and plumbing work in Grand Forks runs under separate city licensing schemes with their own boards, set out in Articles 2 and 3 of the same chapter.
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Hail reports near Grand Forks, ND
- Reports, last 24 months
- 4
- Largest, last 24 months
- 1.00 in Jul 7, 2025
- Most recent
- Jul 7, 2025 1.00 in
- Reports, last 5 years
- 10
| Date | Hail size | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 7, 2025 | 1.00 in | 1 mi NE |
| Jul 7, 2025 | 1.00 in | 9 mi NNE |
| Jul 7, 2025 | 1.00 in | 7 mi SSW |
| Jul 7, 2025 | 1.00 in | 7 mi SSW |
| Jul 13, 2023 | 1.00 in | 4 mi ENE |
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 Grand Forks, ND (Census point). Data through Oct 7, 2026, not updated since. A report is an observation, not a damage record.
Working an insurance claim in Grand Forks, ND? Everything on this page (drip edge, ice & water shield, inspections, Class 4 rules) formatted as a claim-ready evidence pack: verbatim ordinance quotes, code section cites, verification dates, and official source links, ready to attach to a supplement. See a real sample pack (PDF, 4 pages, free).
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Sources
- library.municode.com verified 2026-09-10
- medialibrary.nd.gov verified 2026-09-10
- ndlegis.gov verified 2026-09-05
- ndlegis.gov verified 2026-09-05
- commerce.nd.gov verified 2026-09-05
- tax.nd.gov verified 2026-09-05
- tax.nd.gov verified 2026-09-05