Starting January 1, 2027, every building permit in North Carolina will carry a new state charge on top of whatever the local permit office already charges. The 2026 state budget, Session Law 2026-41, creates a State Building Code regulatory fee that local governments collect with each permit and send to the state Department of Labor. It pays for a new Building Codes and Interpretations Bureau there, which takes over running the Building Code Council, the Residential Code Council and the state's code interpretations from the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
$100
Per permit for work under the NC Building Code (commercial and other non-residential buildings)
$25
Per permit for work under the NC Residential Code (one- and two-family homes and townhomes)
$10
Per permit for other work under the State Building Code
$4.2M–$5.6M
Estimated yearly total on the permits in the offices TarSignal reads
What the law says
The fee is in a new section of state law, G.S. 95-281, added by Part XIII of the budget. In addition to local permit fees, "each building permit applicant shall pay" it, in one of three amounts: $100 with building permits for buildings and structures under the North Carolina Building Code, $25 with building permits for buildings and structures under the North Carolina Residential Code, and $10 with building permits for any other work under the State Building Code. Local governments collect it, send it to the Department of Labor every quarter, and report how many permits they issued in each of the three groups.
The section takes effect January 1, 2027, so the fee applies to permits issued from that date, not before. Whoever applies for the permit pays it: the contractor in most cases, or the homeowner who pulls their own.
The law doesn't change the code itself. It says the State Building Code in effect on January 1, 2027 isn't affected by the move to the Department of Labor, and the two councils keep their own powers to adopt and amend it. The 2024 edition of the code is on its own, separate schedule: under Session Law 2025-2 it takes effect 12 months after the State Fire Marshal certifies that it has been published and is available to buy. Until then the 2018 edition governs.
What a year of permits adds up to
When this was written, TarSignal read the permit records of 21 permit offices across Charlotte, the Triangle, the Triad, Wilmington, Asheville and the coast. In the 12 months to October 20, 2026, they issued about 262,000 permits: about 185,000 electrical, mechanical, plumbing and other trade permits, about 53,000 residential building permits, about 8,300 commercial building permits, and about 15,600 that don't say clearly enough which group they'd fall in. At $10, $25 and $100, that comes to about $4.2 million a year if the unclear ones fall in the $10 group, and about $5.6 million if they're all $100.
| Permit office | Permits, 12 months | Trade permits | Estimated fee per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mecklenburg County | 127,985 | 105,812 | $1.69M–$2.12M |
| Cabarrus County (by filing date) | 23,527 | 16,316 | $375K–$589K |
| Durham City-County | 5,439 | 342 | $289K–$306K |
| City of Greensboro | 22,971 | 18,948 | $286K–$407K |
| Brunswick County | 19,366 | 13,051 | $281K–$354K |
| Wake County | 11,557 | 6,192 | $231K–$246K |
| Gaston County | 9,138 | 5,591 | $172K–$198K |
| Guilford County | 5,839 | 3,724 | $143K–$154K |
| Johnston County | 7,325 | 3,550 | $142K–$246K |
| Onslow County | 5,824 | 3,369 | $106K–$110K |
| City of Raleigh | 5,292 | 292 | $101K–$267K |
| Union County | 3,734 | 1,362 | $73K–$87K |
| Alamance County | 3,162 | 1,717 | $55K–$93K |
| Eight town and county offices: New Hanover, Asheville, Cary, Morrisville, Garner, Apex, Fuquay-Varina, Wake Forest | 10,728 | 4,941 | $217K–$388K |
Mecklenburg County is about 40 percent of the total because it issues each electrical, mechanical and plumbing job as a permit of its own: over 100,000 trade permits a year. Statewide the total is higher again; these offices are a large share of North Carolina's permits, not all of them.
What it means for a contractor
For most businesses the fee is a line item, not a crisis. The amounts below are each business's own permits over the last 12 months, priced the same way.
- A typical active contractor: of the 1,606 businesses that pulled 20 or more permits, the median would pay about $570 a year. One in ten would pay about $2,800 or more.
- A busy trade contractor: the 193 HVAC, electrical and plumbing businesses with 100 or more permits, mostly trade permits, pulled a median of about 200 permits, or about $2,000 a year at $10 each. The busiest HVAC company in the records pulled over 7,000 permits: about $72,000 a year.
- A production home builder: the 89 builders with 50 or more new-home permits pulled a median of about 110, and would pay about $4,100 a year on their own permits. Their trade subcontractors' permits are counted under the subs.
- A single new house: $25 on the building permit, plus $10 for each separate trade permit where the office issues them (electrical, mechanical and plumbing in Mecklenburg, for example), or about $55. If an office counts a trade permit on a house as a Residential Code permit instead, each is $25 and the house is about $100.
Two practical points. First, the fee applies to permits issued from January 1, so a job that's ready to permit in December avoids it. Second, bids and fixed-price contracts written now for work permitted in 2027 should carry it: it's small per permit, but a builder or trade contractor quoting hundreds of jobs a year will feel it if it comes out of margin.
What isn't settled yet
The law names the three amounts but leaves each office to decide which group a permit falls in, and permit types don't map neatly onto it. The open question is trade permits. A stand-alone electrical, mechanical or plumbing permit reads most naturally as "other work" at $10, which is how the estimates here count it. But a trade permit issued for a new house or a new commercial building could be counted as part of that building, at $25 or $100. The state hasn't published guidance yet, so check with your permit office as it updates its fee schedule this winter.
To see what the fee means for your own business, use TarSignal's free permit fee calculator at tarsignal.com/tools/permit-fee-calculator: price one job, a year of permits, or look up any contractor's last 12 months. Permit Search's Contractors tab has the permits themselves, by type and month, over up to three years.
How these numbers were counted
- Permits are those issued in the last 12 months, to October 20, 2026, in the 21 permit offices TarSignal read at the time. Cabarrus County's records carry no issue date, so its permits are counted by the date they were filed. The law's three groups don't appear on permits, so each permit was placed by its type: electrical, mechanical, plumbing, equipment change-out, temporary power, EV charger, generator and other trade permits at $10; new homes, residential alterations, additions, decks, pools, garages and accessory buildings at $25; commercial, non-residential, multifamily and upfit permits at $100. About 15,600 permits, mostly listed as a generic type, couldn't be placed and are counted at $10 for the low estimate and $100 for the high one.
- Contractor figures use the business named on each permit, with spellings of the same name merged. Placeholders such as "owner" are counted as written.
- Offices publish their permits differently. Raleigh and Durham file little trade work as separate permits in the records we read, so their trade counts, and their estimates, are lower than what they'll collect.
- The fee amounts, the January 1, 2027 start, the quarterly remittance and the move of the code councils are from Session Law 2026-41, Part XIII. The 2024 code's start date is from Session Law 2025-2, as described by the Office of the State Fire Marshal.