Providence, RI Building Safety: Plumbing Permits (2026)

Section 5-7 begins by tying the city's fee table to R.I.G.L. tit. 23-27.3, § 118.0, the fee provision of the Rhode Island State Building Code, which is where Providence takes its authority to charge. It then states the reach of that table: it applies to all permits issued for the construction, alterations, maintenance, or repair of any building, sign, marquee, or other structure. The section goes on to name the trades that ride on the same schedule, including the installation of plumbing, electrical, heating ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, or any other mechanical equipment under the purview of the state building code. A Providence plumbing permit is therefore priced the same way a permit for an addition or a marquee is priced.

The practical effect is that the fee follows the declared value of the job, not the number of fixtures, the length of pipe, or the type of trade. Work valued at $500 or less pays the $44 minimum. As declared cost rises the fee steps up through the schedule's cost bands, and at the top the table reaches $1,358.90 plus $21.60 for each additional thousand dollars of value on work over $50,000. Because all the trades sit on the same table, a project pulled as separate plumbing, electrical and mechanical permits has each one priced against its own share of the cost rather than against the project total.

Two qualifiers in the text matter when you are deciding whether a fee is owed. First, maintenance and repair appear alongside construction and alterations, so a like-for-like replacement is inside the schedule rather than outside it. Second, the mechanical trades are covered only where the equipment is "under the purview of the state building code," which is the boundary the section itself draws.

Fees are collected by the department of inspection and standards, and the permit is taken out before the plumbing work proceeds.