On May 7, 2026, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 803 — a permitting reform law aimed at speeding up small home-improvement projects. The headline is real: starting July 1, 2026, Florida homeowners can do many single-family residential projects valued under $7,500 without pulling a building permit. We've already had a handful of South Florida property owners and contractors call us this week assuming this means they can rip out a bathroom and reroute drain lines on a weekend without paperwork. They can't, and the law is very clear about why.
What HB 803 actually does
HB 803 amends Florida Statute Chapter 553 to require local enforcement agencies — that's your city or county building department — to grant a permit exemption for any work valued at less than $7,500 performed on an existing single-family residence. Effective July 1, 2026, if your project qualifies, the city has to grant the exemption when you submit a written request plus documentation of the work's value (a contract or estimate). The intent, per the bill's legislative analysis and the news coverage of the signing, is to cut red tape on small cosmetic improvements that don't touch building systems.
The trade-work carve-out is in the statute itself
Buried in the text of HB 803 is the sentence that matters most to us as licensed plumbers, and to every South Florida homeowner planning a renovation: a local government may still require a permit for any electrical, plumbing, mechanical, gas, or structural work performed on a residential property, regardless of the appraised value of such work. In other words, the $7,500 threshold does not apply to trade work at all. A $400 toilet relocation that involves cutting into the slab and rerouting a drain line still requires a permit if Miami-Dade, Broward, or Palm Beach decides to require one — and they all do.
Why the legislature wrote it that way
Plumbing, electrical, and gas work aren't expensive because the materials cost a lot. They're expensive because mistakes are dangerous and hidden. A cross-connected drain that lets sewage backflow into a kitchen supply line, a gas line installed without a pressure test, a copper-to-PEX transition done with the wrong fittings — none of these fail on day one. They fail months or years later, sometimes catastrophically, and by then the work is buried behind drywall. Permits and inspections exist so that a second set of eyes — a code official — verifies the work before it's covered up. That protection is exactly why the legislature explicitly preserved local permit authority over trade work in HB 803, even as it loosened the rules elsewhere.
What this means for a South Florida homeowner
If you're planning a project this summer, the practical test is simple: does any part of the work involve the plumbing, electrical, mechanical, gas, or structural systems of the house? If yes, plan on a permit — HB 803 changes nothing for you. If no, and the total project value is under $7,500, you'll be able to skip the building permit starting July 1, 2026, by submitting a written exemption request with a copy of the contract or estimate to the local building department.
- Repainting a bathroom — exempt under HB 803 (no trade work).
- Replacing a vanity with one that uses the existing supply and drain stub-outs and connects with flexible supply lines — usually exempt under HB 803, but check with your local building department because some cities still want a plumbing permit any time a fixture is replaced.
- Moving the vanity to a different wall, requiring new supply and drain rough-in — plumbing permit required, period. HB 803 does not change this.
- Adding a second sink, a pot filler, or a wet bar — plumbing permit required.
- Replacing a water heater — plumbing permit (and usually electrical or gas) required in all three counties. Not affected by HB 803.
- Repiping the house — plumbing permit required. Not affected by HB 803.
- Replacing a section of drain line under the slab — plumbing permit required. Not affected by HB 803.
Three specific risks of unpermitted plumbing work
1. Insurance denials when the failure happens
Homeowner insurance policies in Florida — already among the most expensive in the country — almost universally exclude damage caused by unpermitted work. We've been on jobs where a homeowner had a slab drain rerouted by an unlicensed handyman, it failed two years later, soaked the master bedroom, and the carrier denied the entire claim once they reviewed the permit history on the property. The repair was paid out of pocket, and the homeowner also lost coverage continuity on their policy.
2. Resale problems that surface at closing
Every South Florida county records issued permits against the parcel. When a buyer's title company pulls a permit history during due diligence, anything visible in the home that doesn't match the permit record becomes a negotiation point at best and a deal-killer at worst. Buyers' inspectors are good at spotting a moved fixture, a relocated drain, or a water heater that doesn't match the permitted location. The fix at that point is either a retroactive permit (with the city potentially requiring you to open walls for inspection) or a price reduction.
3. Code violations that compound over time
Unpermitted plumbing work that violates the Florida Building Code — improper venting, wrong slope on drains, missing backflow protection, lead solder on copper, no expansion tank on a closed system with a PRV — keeps causing trouble long after the original install. We see homes where one bad rough-in from a 1990s flip is still generating warranty calls and code-correction costs three decades later. A permit and an inspection at the time of the work would have caught it before the wall closed up.
How we handle permits on tri-county projects
On every job we do across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach — emergency work excepted in the obvious cases — we pull the permit, schedule the inspections, and walk it through to final. Each county has its own quirks. Miami-Dade uses an online ePlan portal for most residential permits and is strict about backflow prevention on irrigation and pool fills. Broward enforces the rough-in/top-out/final inspection sequence with no skipping. Palm Beach has municipality-by-municipality variation — Boca Raton and West Palm Beach have very different turn-around times and document requirements. We know the path through each one. That's part of what you're paying a licensed CFC-holding plumber for, and HB 803 doesn't change any of it.
What's still unsettled about HB 803
Two pieces of HB 803 are going to need a few months of real-world interpretation before they're fully clear. First, the law leaves it up to each local enforcement agency whether to require permits for trade work — meaning the city of Miami may decide differently than unincorporated Miami-Dade, and Boca Raton may differ from Coral Springs. We don't expect any South Florida municipality to relax their plumbing-permit requirements, but until each one publishes its post-July-1 guidance, individual cities may temporarily under-enforce or send mixed signals. Second, the law's interaction with HB 589 — the companion bill on onsite sewage treatment (septic) permits, which DeSantis also signed in early May — will matter for any property in the parts of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach that are still on septic, particularly in western Broward and rural Palm Beach. We'll be tracking both as guidance comes out.
Need a Plumber Now?
24/7 service across Miami-Dade, Broward & Palm Beach. Same-day availability.
