City of Rapid City, South Dakota - Community Planning & Development Services, Building Services Division

City of Rapid City, South Dakota

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Required

Required

Permit administration in Rapid City runs off RCMC Chapter 15.04 (Administration), not off IRC/IBC Chapter 1 - both the 2018 IRC and 2018 IBC adoptions delete the model codes' Chapter 1 and substitute RCMC 15.04. The two operative sections are RCMC 15.04.150 (Building permit required) and RCMC 15.04.160 (Building permit - Exceptions); a roofer should read 15.04.160's exemption list directly, because that is where any small-repair carve-out for roofing would live. The City's Building Services Division (605-394-4120) publicly reminds residents to check out roofing contractors and obtain permits for roofing work. Note that South Dakota state law requires a seller of residential property to disclose substandard work or the absence of permits and inspection approvals, which raises the practical cost to a homeowner of an unpermitted re-roof.

CITY-SET, NOT STATE-SET. South Dakota does not impose a mandatory statewide building code: under SDCL chapter 11-10 a municipality MAY enact a construction ordinance (SDCL 11-10-12 for residential structures, titled "Enactment of standards of International Residential Code--Sprinkler system--Not Required"; SDCL 11-10-5 for non-residential), and a city that never adopts one has no building-code-based roofing requirement at all. Rapid City is a city that HAS adopted. Rapid City Municipal Code Title 15 (Buildings and Construction) adopts, at Chapter 15.13, the International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings, 2018 edition (Chapters 1-11, Chapter 44, and Appendices E, J, H and K), applicable to 1- and 2-family dwellings only, enacted by Ordinance No. 6270 (2019); and at Chapter 15.12 the International Building Code, 2018 edition (Chapters 1-27, 29-35 and Appendices C, I and J), applicable to all occupancies EXCEPT 1- and 2-family dwellings, enacted by Ordinance No. 6285 (2019). In both adoptions the model code's Chapter 1 (administration) provisions are deleted and replaced by the comparable provisions of RCMC Chapter 15.04 (Administration), which is therefore the operative permit-administration text rather than IRC/IBC Chapter 1. Rapid City separately adopted the 2024 International Fire Code at RCMC Chapter 8.24 - a different code family on a newer edition, and not the roofing-governing code. The published municipal code was current through Ordinance No. 6701, passed December 23, 2025. EDITION NOTE: the residential roofing text that governs in Rapid City is the 2018 IRC as amended by RCMC Chapter 15.13, not the newer IRC edition named in current SDCL 11-10; the state statute only constrains the edition a city must track when it enacts or re-enacts an ordinance, and Rapid City's standing Title 15 adoption is the 2018 edition.

Required — Locally amended, not left to the baseline model-code trigger. Rapid City Municipal Code 15.13.270 is titled "IRC Chapter 9, Section R905.1.2 Ice barrier--Amended" and amends that section of the adopted 2018 IRC in its entirety; the amendment entered the code by Ordinance No. 5891. As amended, an ice barrier consisting of not fewer than two layers of underlayment cemented together, or a self-adhering polymer-modified bitumen sheet, is used in lieu of normal underlayment and must extend from the lowest edges of all roof surfaces to a point not less than 24 inches inside the exterior wall line of the building; on roofs with a slope of 8 units vertical in 12 units horizontal or greater, the ice barrier is also applied not less than 36 inches measured along the roof slope from the eave edge. The covered roof coverings are asphalt shingles, metal roof shingles, mineral-surfaced roll roofing, slate and slate-type shingles, wood shingles and wood shakes. Rapid City's re-roof amendment at RCMC 15.13.280 separately assumes ice barrier membrane is present in existing assemblies, permitting an adhered existing ice barrier to remain and be covered with an additional ice barrier layer. The exact amended wording of 15.13.270 is not quoted here. About ice & water barrier

ZERO LAYERS - full tear-off. This is a genuine Rapid City local amendment, not baseline model-code text: RCMC 15.13.280 ("IRC Chapter 9, Section R908.3 Roof replacement--Amended") amends the adopted 2018 IRC so that new roof coverings shall not be installed without first removing all existing layers of roof coverings so that the bare wood can be viewed. Recover/overlay over an existing roof covering is therefore not an option in Rapid City for the covered roof types. The amended section carries these exceptions: (1) complete and separate roofing systems, such as standing-seam metal roof systems, that are designed to transmit the roof loads directly to the building's structural system and that do not rely on existing roofs and roof coverings for support do not require removal of the existing roof coverings; (2) installation of metal panel, metal shingle, and concrete and clay tile roof coverings over existing wood shake roofs is permitted where the application is in accordance with Section R908.4; (3) application of new protective coating over an existing spray polyurethane foam roofing system is permitted without tear-off of the existing roof covering; and (4) where the existing roof assembly includes an ice barrier membrane adhered to the roof deck, that existing ice barrier membrane may remain in place and be covered with an additional layer of ice barrier membrane in accordance with Section R905.

Rapid City does not publish a separate sheathing-material specification beyond the adopted 2018 IRC, but it does impose a locally-amended deck-exposure rule that a roofer must plan for: RCMC 15.13.280, the city's amendment of IRC Section R908.3 (Roof replacement), requires that all existing layers of roof covering be removed so that the BARE WOOD DECK CAN BE VIEWED before the new roof covering is installed. The deck must therefore be fully exposed on every re-roof, rather than covered over, on all roofs that do not fall within the four exceptions listed in roof_layer_limit. The underlying material/attachment provisions are the unamended 2018 IRC Chapter 9 text as adopted at RCMC Chapter 15.13; that model-code text is behind the ICC paywall and is not restated here.

South Dakota's state sales and use tax rate is 4.2%, per the South Dakota Department of Revenue's Sales & Use Tax page. The City of Rapid City also imposes its own municipal sales/use tax of 2.00% (DOR municipal tax code 298-2), on top of the state rate, for a combined general sales and use tax rate of 6.2% on retail purchases such as roofing materials bought in Rapid City. Rapid City separately imposes a 1.00% municipal gross receipts tax (MGRT, DOR code 298-1), but the Department of Revenue's own municipal tax chart shows MGRT applies only to lodging, eating establishments, alcoholic beverages, and admissions to places of amusement - it is not applied to construction or roofing work. Roofing contract revenue itself is separately subject to the statewide 2% contractors' excise tax under SDCL chapter 10-46A, which every contractor must hold a Contractor's Excise Tax License to remit, regardless of which South Dakota city the work occurs in.