General building work permit checklist — Miami, Florida
Assembled from Miami’s own published permit rules. Every line below is quoted from a city document and linked to it. Nothing here is generated, estimated, or inferred from another jurisdiction.
Do you need a permit?
Miami requires a permit for general building work.
Small routine repairs can proceed without a permit if the Building Official approves, and only where the job leaves walls and partitions uncut, takes out or cuts no structural beam or load-bearing member, leaves any required means of egress as it is, and neither extends, changes, replaces nor moves piping, electrical wiring or mechanical equipment. City Code Sec. 10-5(b) then enumerates building work that needs no permit at all. Among the entries: wall covering and comparable finish treatment on interior vertical surfaces; painting a one- or two-family dwelling, and painting any building of three stories or fewer; floor finishes in one- and two-family dwellings; cabinetry and countertops in one- and two-family dwellings; shade cloth put up for nursery or agricultural growing and carrying no service systems; backyard play structures at a detached one- or two-family home; and interior fixtures, cases, racks, counters and partitions that are movable rather than fixed and stop below 5 feet 9 inches. None of this authorizes work that breaks another law or the local floodplain management ordinance. Florida added a further exemption on July 1, 2026. Under Fla. Stat. 553.79(1)(g), created by Chapter 2026-63, Laws of Florida, a local government must let the owner of a single-family dwelling, or the contractor that owner engages, proceed without a building permit where the work at the property comes to less than $7,500. The owner or contractor triggers it by submitting a written exemption request to the local enforcement agency with the contract or other paperwork evidencing the nature and value of the job. It reaches nothing that is electrical, plumbing, structural, mechanical or gas, and nothing on a property lying wholly or partly in a flood hazard area as the Florida Building Code defines it, so flood zone status should be confirmed before relying on it. Splitting a job across several projects to get beneath the figure is forbidden, and the local government carries no legal duty for work done under the exemption. The Building Department has posted a legislative update covering the review-timeframe portion of HB 803 under Fla. Stat. 553.792, but it has published no request form or intake procedure for the 553.79(1)(g) exemption, so the statutory requirement stands on its own and the department should be asked how it wants the request filed in iBuild.
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Sources
- building — permit rules ↗verified August 2026
Other permits Miami publishes rules for
Listed because the city publishes a separate rule for each type — not because this project necessarily triggers one. Whether it does depends on your scope of work.
- Fence permit checklist
- Shed permit checklist
- Water heater permit checklist
- Re-roof permit checklist
- Electrical work permit checklist
BuildSpec is a reference, not the authority having jurisdiction. Confirm requirements with Miami before you build.