Hurricane shutter and roof permits — Palm Bay, Florida

Yes: re-roofing, window replacement, door and garage door replacement all need a Palm Bay building permit, and the July 2026 small-project exemption does not cover roofing, exterior windows or exterior doors.

The Palm Bay Building Permits FAQ names re-roofing, window replacement, door replacement and garage door replacement among jobs that owners often learn too late require a permit (Palm Bay Building Permits FAQs). The FAQ gives work that must meet wind load requirements, including all types of aluminum construction, as an example of plans to be prepared by a design professional and digitally signed and sealed. The department publishes a separate checklist for each exterior job on its residential requirements page: roof, shutter, window, siding, garage or exterior door, and screen room (Palm Bay residential requirements).

Florida HB 803 took effect on July 1, 2026, and the Palm Bay Building Department now accepts written exemption requests for some home improvements under $7,500 on single family homes, duplexes and townhomes (City of Palm Bay Building page). The city lists structural work, including exterior doors, exterior windows and roofing, among projects that need a permit regardless of the value of the work, and it asks owners to contact the Building Department about other exterior projects, which leaves shutters as a case to confirm before work starts. A Palm Bay home in a flood zone does not qualify for the exemption at all.

After a hurricane, the Palm Bay Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan sorts common repairs into two lists (Palm Bay Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan). The table below follows it.

A Palm Bay re-roof application includes product approvals for the roof covering and the underlayment, a product approval for any replaced skylight, proof of ownership, and a recorded Notice of Commencement when the job is valued above $5,000.

That list comes from the Palm Bay Roof Permit Requirements sheet (Palm Bay Roof Permit Requirements). A product approval affidavit may stand in for each product approval, and an owner applying as the contractor adds the Owner/Builder affidavit form. For the ownership proof the sheet accepts a copy of the warranty deed or the County tax bill. In place of the recorded Notice of Commencement, an affidavit of filing for the NOC is also accepted.

Everything is filed electronically in the Palm Bay iMS portal. The roof sheet notes that the Requested Files slot accepts one PDF, with any other files going under Additional Uploads, and that approvals from other City of Palm Bay departments must be in hand before the permit is issued (Palm Bay Roof Permit Requirements). The Building Official may ask for more documents.

Roof inspections in Palm Bay depend on who pulled the permit. On a single-family re-roof by a licensed contractor, the sheathing and dry-in stages are documented with 4 to 6 photos each and an affidavit uploaded to the permit record in iMS, under a procedure effective April 14, 2024, and only the final is an on-site visit (Palm Bay roof inspection procedures for contractors). An owner-builder gets four inspections at the property, with no affidavits or photos accepted in their place (Palm Bay roof inspection procedures for owner-builders).

Palm Bay handles windows, doors, shutters and garage doors on one exterior submittal that asks for a product approval, a floor plan marking each opening and any sleeping room, proof of ownership, and a Notice of Commencement above $5,000.

The Residential Building Exterior Permit Submittal from the Palm Bay Building Department lists those four items for windows, doors, shutters and garage doors (Palm Bay residential exterior permit submittal). A product approval affidavit can replace the product approval. Proof of ownership is a copy of the warranty deed or the property appraiser record. The floor plan shows where each replacement window, door or shutter goes and identifies the rooms used for sleeping.

Stucco and siding sit on the same Palm Bay form but need a plan with elevations and details of the wall covering, including the water barrier, instead of the floor plan (Palm Bay residential exterior permit submittal). Like the roof sheet, the exterior submittal goes in through the iMS portal, and other City of Palm Bay departments sign off before the permit is issued.

The Palm Bay Building Department applies the 2023 Florida Building Code, 8th Edition, to every application filed on or after December 31, 2023 (City of Palm Bay Building page).

Not for newer roofs: Florida law says that if 25 percent or more of a Palm Bay roof that complied with the 2007 Florida Building Code or a later edition is repaired, replaced or recovered, the current code applies only to that portion.

Section 553.844(5) of the Florida Statutes sets that rule notwithstanding any contrary provision of the Florida Building Code, and it bars a local government such as the City of Palm Bay from adopting by ordinance an administrative or technical amendment to the exception (Florida Statutes 553.844). The section history lists chapter 2022-269 as its most recent amendment.

The same statute shapes Palm Bay re-roofs on older homes. For site-built, single-family homes, it directs the Florida Building Commission to require that a roof replacement incorporate the listed windstorm mitigation techniques (Florida Statutes 553.844). The Palm Bay roof checklist asks for a separate product approval for the underlayment as well as the roof covering (Palm Bay Roof Permit Requirements).

Small storm patches have their own threshold in Palm Bay. The Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan lists 100 square feet of roof among repairs that do not require a permit, while roof replacements and substantial repairs do (Palm Bay Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan).

After a major storm, Palm Bay expedites permits and reviews for roof repair or replacement, window and door replacement and other storm work, and lets emergency tarping and board-up proceed before a full permit.

The Palm Bay Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan lists expedited permits for roof repair or replacement, window and door replacements, electrical service restoration, HVAC replacements and residential water heaters (Palm Bay Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan). Its recovery support adds expedited plan reviews for emergency repairs, extended inspection hours, virtual inspections, extended office hours, an Early Start Request Application and a dedicated storm recovery hotline.

Emergency work in Palm Bay can begin without a full permit: tarping roofs, boarding windows, removing dangerous debris and drying out against mold. The plan says that emergency work must be converted to full permits within a defined period, typically 30 to 90 days (Palm Bay Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan). Applications go through the city's online portal, and if internet service is down the Building Department is at 110 Malabar Rd., Building E.

Flood zones change the rebuild. In a Palm Bay special flood hazard area, a substantially damaged home needs a substantial damage inspection and an elevation certificate before permitting and must meet the FEMA Base Flood Elevation plus 1 foot of freeboard under the Florida Building Code and city floodplain Chapter 179 (Palm Bay Post-Storm Recovery Permitting Plan). The plan treats damage of 50 percent or more of structure value as substantial, and it warns owners to use licensed contractors and to beware of post-storm fraud.

A single-family roof replacement permit in Palm Bay is a flat $150.00 and a roof repair permit is $100.00, while window, door and shutter permits are priced on the value of the job under Resolution 2025-32.

The roofing lines in Exhibit A of Resolution 2025-32 apply to single-family homes and also cover siding; with a private provider doing the inspections they drop to $75.00 and $50.00 (Palm Bay Resolution 2025-32, page A-2). For a shutter or window job, the Palm Bay fee starts at $30.00 for the first $1,000 of value and adds $6.00 for every additional $1,000 or fraction up to $50,000, on top of a $30.00 building permit administrative fee (Palm Bay Resolution 2025-32, page A-1).

As arithmetic from those lines, a $12,000 Palm Bay shutter installation carries a $96.00 permit fee ($30.00 for the first $1,000 plus 11 times $6.00), before the administrative fee, any plan review and the two surcharges listed on page A-3 (Palm Bay Resolution 2025-32, page A-3). Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the City of Palm Bay Building Department roof, exterior and post-storm pages.