Boston, MA Building Safety: Plumbing Permits (2026)

" The provision dates to Ord. 1976 c. 11 and was most recently amended by Ord. 2010 c. 5, with intermediate amendments in Ord. 1981 c. 28 and Ord. 1990 c. 5, Ch. 7, § 16. Boston does not write its own technical plumbing code in this chapter: the permit requirement itself flows from 780 CMR 105, the statewide Building Code that Massachusetts requires every municipality to enforce, which displaces any conflicting local plumbing standard. What Boston's own ordinance contributes is narrower but concrete: it names the Commissioner of Inspectional Services as the local official who receives plumbing-permit applications, and it sets the local application fee on a per-fixture sliding scale rather than a flat charge, so a job touching more fixtures costs proportionally more to permit.

A simple single-fixture repair carries a $25 total fee ($20 primary plus $5 for the one fixture), while a larger renovation altering ten fixtures would carry a $70 fee ($20 plus $50). No other Boston ordinance section in this code separately restates plumbing permit procedure; this fee entry is the only local-code text on the subject.