Florida's New $7,500 No-Permit Law: What It Means for Brevard Roof Repairs

As of July 1, 2026, Florida law says your city or county cannot require a building permit for most work on a single-family home valued under $7,500. House Bill 803 passed the legislature without a single no vote (37-0 in the Senate, 109-0 in the House), was signed on May 7, and took effect last week.

For a Brevard homeowner looking at a $4,000 roof repair quote, that sounds like less paperwork and a faster start. Before you tell your contractor to skip the permit, there are three problems. Whether the law even applies to roofing is unsettled. It does not apply at all to homes in flood hazard areas, which covers a lot of Brevard. And the permit paper trail is worth far more than the permit fee when your insurance claim, your insurance rate, or your home sale is on the line.

What HB 803 changed on July 1

The core provision is short. A local government that issues building permits may not require the owner of a single-family dwelling, or the owner's contractor, to pull a permit for work valued at less than $7,500 on the owner's property.

The carve-outs matter more than the headline:

• Local governments can still require permits for any electrical, plumbing, structural, mechanical, or gas work, regardless of the dollar value.

• The exemption does not apply to property partially or entirely located in a flood hazard area as defined by the Florida Building Code.

• A project cannot be split into smaller pieces to duck under the $7,500 threshold. The statute prohibits it outright.

• If anyone other than the property owner performs the work, that person must file a notice of permit exemption with the local building department within 30 days after work begins. The notice has to include the name and license number of whoever was hired, the scope of work, the property address, and the value of the work.

One more piece that matters in July: the bill also requires local governments to exempt temporary residential hurricane and flood protection walls and barriers that meet specified standards. Useful to know before the season peaks.

Nobody has settled whether roof repairs qualify

Here is the part most coverage of this law misses. Roofing is not named anywhere in the exemption or its carve-outs. The question is whether roof work counts as “structural.”

The Florida Roofing and Sheet Metal Contractors Association (FRSA) asked legislators during the session to add reroofing to the list of work that always needs a permit. They were told it was unnecessary because roofing was already covered by the word “structural.” FRSA's own technical director wrote in April that this answer surprised him, because roofing contractors have been told for decades that they could not perform structural work. His expectation: many building officials will not treat roof coverings as structural, which means some jurisdictions may stop requiring permits and inspections on sub-$7,500 roof jobs while others keep requiring them.

The practical takeaway for a Brevard homeowner is that this is now a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction question. Depending on where you live, your permit comes from your city or from the county, and each building department will make its own call on the structural question. Do not assume anything based on what a neighbor two towns over was told.

Full roof replacements are a different story. FRSA's position is that reroofing (a code-defined term covering replacement and recovering) should still require a permit everywhere, and replacement costs in most cases exceed $7,500 anyway. Expect replacements to keep getting permitted.

In a flood zone? The exemption does not apply to you

The statute excludes any property that is even partially located in a flood hazard area. In Brevard County, that exclusion has teeth. Barrier island communities, Merritt Island, and riverfront properties along the Indian and Banana Rivers frequently sit in mapped flood zones.

Before you assume your repair qualifies for the exemption, check your flood zone. If any part of your parcel is in a flood hazard area, the old permitting rules still apply to you, full stop.

The permit paper trail is worth more than the permit fee

Even where the exemption clearly applies, skipping the permit deletes documentation that Florida's insurance and building systems run on. Three examples:

The 25% rule.Under Florida's roof repair statute (FS 553.844), if your roof was built or replaced under the 2007 Florida Building Code or later (in practice, permitted on or after March 1, 2009), you can repair just the damaged portion instead of replacing the whole roof, no matter how large the damage. How do you prove your roof qualifies? Permit records. Every permitted repair extends your documented history. Every unpermitted repair creates a gap that an insurer or building official can hold against you later.

Insurance claims.Florida law (FS 627.70132) gives you 1 year from the date of loss to notice a claim and 18 months to file a supplemental claim. When an adjuster questions whether damage is storm-related or pre-existing, permit records and inspection sign-offs are third-party evidence of what condition your roof was in and when it was last worked on. A repair with no permit and no inspection is just your word.

Wind mitigation credits and resale.Wind mitigation inspection discounts depend on documented roof attributes. And when you sell, the buyer's inspector and the buyer's insurer will pull the permit history. Unpermitted roof work surfaces at underwriting as a question mark you will have to explain, usually at the worst possible time.

The permit fee on a small repair is a rounding error next to any one of these.

The 30-day notice is also a license check

Notice what the exemption filing requires: a license number. Roofing work in Florida still requires a state-licensed roofing contractor whether or not a permit is pulled. FRSA's technical director flagged the obvious abuse pattern before the bill even passed: unlicensed operators pricing every job at $7,499 and betting that no permit means no one ever checks.

So here is a simple filter. Ask any roofer bidding your repair two questions. Will you file the notice of permit exemption if it applies? And what is your license number? Hesitation on either one tells you what you need to know. You can verify any Florida contractor license in about 90 seconds at MyFloridaLicense.com. Ours is CCC1335645. Look it up.

How we handle sub-$7,500 repairs

Our approach does not change with this law. Where the building department requires a permit, we pull it. Where the exemption applies, we file the notice, and we document the job the same way regardless: photos before and after, written scope, materials used, and a detailed invoice. That file is yours. It protects your 25% rule position, your claim rights, and your resale.

If your roof needs a repair and you want it done by a licensed local crew that treats documentation as part of the job, call Local Roofing Experts at (321) 487-5424 or request an inspection. We serve Rockledge, Cocoa, Merritt Island, Titusville, Melbourne, and all of Brevard County from our office at 881 Barton Blvd in Rockledge. Licensed and insured, CCC1335645. See our roofing services, read our reviews, or learn more about us.