Permitting Authorities / North Dakota / Morton County, North Dakota - Building Department
Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Morton County, ND?
Adopted codeMorton County, North Dakota - Building Department
The permitting authority for the unincorporated parts of Morton County, North Dakota, the county on the west bank of the Missouri opposite Bismarck whose seat is Mandan. Its Building Department sits at 210 2nd Ave NW in Mandan and runs building permits and inspections for the county, with permit payment online and inspections booked a day in advance. Morton County is worth reading closely for two reasons a roofer will care about. Its Land Use Code adopts the North Dakota State Building Code "in its most current version" and then says in terms that the state code "is not amended for application within Morton County in any way" - an unusually clean statement that there is no local overlay to hunt for. And its scope clause is narrower than most: the County exercises building code jurisdiction over the unincorporated areas "with the exception of extraterritorial areas of cities," so the two-mile fringe around Mandan and the county's other cities belongs to those cities rather than to the County.
Roof code checklist: Morton County, ND
| Item | Answer | Code cite | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Permit to replace a roof | Not published | |||
| Repair permit threshold | Published | mortonnd.gov | 2026-09-05 | |
| Layer limit / roof-over | Published | R908.3.1.1 | Morton_Co_Land_Use_Code_10_28_202... | 2026-09-10 |
| Deck & sheathing | Published | Morton_Co_Land_Use_Code_10_28_202... | 2026-09-05 | |
| Drip edge | Yes | R905.2.8.5 | Morton_Co_Land_Use_Code_10_28_202... | 2026-09-05 |
| Ice & water shield | Not published | |||
| Mid-roof inspection | No | BUILDING_PERMIT_APPLICATION.pdf | 2026-09-05 | |
| Impact-resistant (Class 4) roofing | No | Morton_Co_Land_Use_Code_10_28_202... | 2026-09-05 | |
| Wind design criteria | Not published | |||
| Adopted code | Published | Morton_Co_Land_Use_Code_10_28_202... | 2026-09-05 | |
| Contractor license / registration | Yes | t43c07.pdf | 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.
- url: https://www.mortonnd.gov/buildinginspector
- phone: 701-667-3325
- permit_portal_url: https://www.mortonnd.gov/applications
- 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." Read that as per job, not per year. 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," so a roofing sub is covered on its own account. The licence is issued by the Secretary of State as registrar, and the classes are VALUE TIERS rather than trades - under 43-07-07 a class D holder is capped at one hundred thousand dollars on a single contract project, class C at three hundred thousand and class B at five hundred thousand, while a class A licence "is subject to no limitation as to the value of any single contract project." There is no roofing classification. The licence year runs "March second through March first" under 43-07-01(2). Working unlicensed above the threshold is a class A misdemeanour under 43-07-02(2), and the unlicensed contractor cannot maintain a court claim arising from the work, including a claim to be paid.
- county_level: COUNTY LEVEL - Morton County runs no contractor registration of its own for building work. Its Building Permit Application asks for the building contractor's name and phone number but does not carry a licence-number field, so the state licence is not checked at the County counter here the way it is in some neighbouring counties. That is an administrative fact, not a relaxation: the state requirement applies to the work regardless. Plumbing, heating, electrical and gas work is separate and the application says so - those trades "MUST APPLY FOR SEPARATE APPLICATIONS TO STATE OF ND PLUMBING BOARD; 701-328-9979; STATE ELECTRICAL BOARD 701-328-9522 BEFORE ANY WORK BEING DONE."
More roof permit pages in North Dakota
Related guides
Hail reports near the center of Morton County, ND
- Reports, last 24 months
- 1
- Largest, last 24 months
- 2.00 in Aug 11, 2026
- Most recent
- Aug 11, 2026 2.00 in
- Reports, last 5 years
- 1
| Date | Hail size | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 11, 2026 | 2.00 in | 9 mi SSE |
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 the center of Morton County, ND. Data through Oct 7, 2026, not updated since. A report is an observation, not a damage record.
Working an insurance claim in Morton County, 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
- mortonnd.gov verified 2026-09-10
- medialibrary.nd.gov verified 2026-09-10
- mortonnd.gov verified 2026-09-05
- ndlegis.gov verified 2026-09-05
- mortonnd.gov verified 2026-09-05
- mortonnd.gov verified 2026-09-05
- mortonnd.gov verified 2026-09-05
- ndlegis.gov verified 2026-09-05
- tax.nd.gov verified 2026-09-05
- tax.nd.gov verified 2026-09-05