Who Permits Your Roof: Your City or Miami-Dade County?

Before any roofing work starts in Miami-Dade, one question has to be answered correctly: which office issues the permit for this address? Get it wrong and the application goes to the wrong desk, the work waits, or worse, the work goes ahead without the permit it needed.

The answer is not always obvious. A Miami mailing address does not mean the City of Miami issues your permit, and a community name on a map does not always tell you who governs it. This guide explains how permitting is split in Miami-Dade and how to find the office for your home.

Two Kinds of Address

Miami-Dade County has 34 municipalities, according to the County's municipalities page. Each one has its own building official who oversees permits and inspections inside its limits. Everything outside those limits is unincorporated Miami-Dade, where the County itself, through its Regulatory and Economic Resources department, handles permits.

The County notes that it serves properties whose folio numbers begin with 30, which are unincorporated. That folio number appears on your property tax records, so it is a quick first check.

Why Mailing Addresses Mislead

Our own office shows how this works. It sits at 22510 SW 172nd Ct with a Miami mailing address and ZIP code 33170, but it is in unincorporated Miami-Dade, not the City of Miami. A roof at our address is permitted by the County.

The same is true across much of South Miami-Dade. Princeton, Richmond West, Naranja, Goulds, Leisure City, South Miami Heights, Country Walk, The Hammocks, Kendall West, Kendale Lakes and several other communities are unincorporated. Despite its name, South Miami Heights is not part of the City of South Miami; the County permits roofs there.

When a City Issues the Permit

Inside a municipality, the city, town or village building department issues roofing permits. Near our office, that means:

• Homestead: the City of Homestead.
• Cutler Bay: the Town of Cutler Bay. County GIS boundaries place most of the former Cutler Ridge and Lakes by the Bay areas inside the town.
• Florida City: the City of Florida City.
• Palmetto Bay: the Village of Palmetto Bay, which now contains most of the former Cutler and East Perrine areas.
• The City of Miami: for addresses inside city limits, the City of Miami states that a building permit is required for all roofing work, residential and commercial, and that materials must have a Miami-Dade NOA or Florida Product Approval.

Our service areas page groups every community we serve by permit office.

What the County Requires

For unincorporated addresses, roofing is a trade permit. It can stand alone or be combined with a master building permit, and roofing is one of the County's inspection categories. A few County requirements are worth knowing in advance:

• The Uniform Roofing Permit Application. The County uses this one form for every roofing permit it issues.
• The Owner's Notification Form. In the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, the owner signs this and it goes in alongside the permit application.
• Product approval. Roofing and other building envelope products used in Miami-Dade must be approved by the County, and homeowners can check each material for the County's approval mark.
• Inspection access. The County asks that an OSHA-approved ladder be on site for roofing inspections.

Municipalities set their own processes, but the County's product approval requirement applies across Miami-Dade.

A Date Worth Knowing

A new edition of the Florida Building Code, the 9th, starts applying on the last day of 2026. The County has stated that anything filed through its online permit portal later than 4 PM on December 30, 2026 will be reviewed under that new edition. If your project is being filed around then, find out which edition will govern it. A city, town or village may draw its own line.

Repairs Need Permits Too

It is tempting to think a permit is only for a whole new roof. It is not. The City of Miami states plainly that a building permit is required for all roofing work, residential and commercial. We have not found a County or municipal page that sets a size below which a roof repair needs no permit, so the safe assumption anywhere in Miami-Dade is that a repair is permitted work until the office for your address tells you otherwise. Ask that office directly if you are unsure, and ask the roofer to put the answer in writing on the estimate.

What Happens at the Inspection

A permit is not the end of the paperwork; it starts a series of checks. In unincorporated Miami-Dade, roofing is one of the County's inspection categories, and the inspector compares the work on the roof against the permit and the approved products. The County asks that an OSHA-approved ladder be set up on site for a roofing inspection, so the roofer should have one ready before the inspector arrives. If something fails, it is corrected and inspected again before the job can move forward. Municipal inspectors follow their own procedures, but the principle is the same: what is on the roof has to match what was approved.

Keep the final inspection result with the permit. It is the record that the work was accepted, and anyone who later needs proof, whether a buyer, an insurance company or a mitigation inspector, will want a copy.

How to Find Your Office in Three Steps

1. Check your folio number. If it begins with 30, the County is your permit office.
2. Check the municipal boundary. If your folio suggests a municipality, confirm the address is inside its limits.
3. Ask the roofer to name the office on the estimate. Any roofer working in Miami-Dade should be able to tell you which office covers your address and why.

Why It Matters to You

The permit office decides whose rules, forms and inspectors apply. It also determines where your permit records live, and those records matter later. When you want to know whether your roof qualifies for Florida's 25% repair exemption, the date and code edition on your last roof permit is the answer, and it is held by the office that issued it.

What This Means for Your Project

• For a leak or storm repair, see our roof repair page. Even a repair needs the right permit.
• For a full replacement, see our roof replacement page, including the County mitigation rules for site-built single-family homes.
• For a new build or addition, see our new roof installation page.

Talk to Us

If you are not sure which office covers your address, call Roof Repair Miami at (786) 892-8191. The phone is answered 24/7. We work from 22510 SW 172nd Ct, Miami, FL 33170, and we can help you confirm the permit office before any work starts.