Ada County, ID Ordinances (2026)

Ada County has no private-tree-removal permit, but Idaho law requires every landowner to control designated noxious weeds on their land. Ada County's weed superintendent (Chapter 8)…

Idaho Code 22-2407 makes it every landowner's duty to control noxious weeds, enforced in unincorporated Ada County by the county weed superintendent under Title 22, Chapter 24. Ada…

Ada County Code 8-3-5(E)(4)(a) requires rainwater harvesting on any commercial or industrial building over 10,000 square feet and any single-family home over 25,000 square feet…

Ada County's zoning code caps traditional bluegrass lawn at 50% of any landscape area and directs developers toward native, low-water plant material on projects that require master…

Ada County Code 5-2-4-2(E) allows composting on any parcel as long as it never becomes a public nuisance by attracting flies, harboring rodents, or creating noxious odors. Private…

Ada County limits inoperable, dismantled or unregistered vehicles: no more than two may be visible from any street or private road, and the rest must be behind a 6-foot sight-obscuring…

Ada County caps how long a recreational vehicle can sit on a residential street in the unincorporated county. Motor homes, travel trailers and camp trailers get 72 hours under Code…

In unincorporated Ada County, off-street parking areas must generally be built with a compacted gravel base at least 4 inches thick surfaced with asphalt or a comparable all-weather…

In Ada County's Spring Rock planned community, apartment and fourplex developments with more than 20 units must install an electric vehicle charging station as a required site amenity…

In unincorporated Ada County, commercial or industrial uses of 5,000 sq ft or more must provide at least one off-street loading space, with an added space per each 20,000 sq ft…

Unincorporated Ada County limits how long vehicles can sit on residential streets. Trailers, mobile homes, farm equipment, and vehicles over 12,000 pounds cannot park longer than two…

Ada County bars leaving heavy vehicles, trailers, farm equipment or mobile homes on a residential street for more than two hours, and no vehicle of any kind can sit on that street for…

Abandoned vehicles are governed by Idaho Code Title 49, Chapter 18. Abandonment on any highway or on public/private property without consent is prohibited (IC 49-1801). A property…

Ada County counts cats toward the four-animal household limit and requires rabies vaccination. An unaltered cat allowed outdoors off its owner's control is deemed a nuisance and may be…

In unincorporated Ada County it is an infraction to let a dog run at large. "At large" means off the owner's premises and not restrained by a leash, cord, or chain not exceeding 6…

Ada County Code 5-7-4 makes it unlawful to keep a long list of exotic and wild animals - including big cats, wild canids, primates, bears, venomous snakes, crocodilians, and marine…

On the Boise River and surrounding Ada County parks and waterways property, it is unlawful to hunt, harm, or molest any animal, or to collect the nest or eggs of any wild bird or…

In unincorporated Ada County, pet grooming is regulated as an accessory use tied to a licensed commercial kennel, not as a stand-alone shop. County Code 8-4-36(B)(4)(b) caps a grooming…

Ada County's zoning Use Table treats veterinary clinics and animal hospitals as a conditional use in the county's rural and residential districts, requiring Board or Hearings Examiner…

Ada County sets minimum standards of care and lets Animal Control act against neglect and hoarding. Beyond the four-animal household cap, a "habitual violator" with three convictions…

Ada County does not ban any dog breed. Instead of breed labels, county code regulates individual dogs by behavior, designating a dog "at-risk" or "dangerous" after a bite or attack and…

Ada County's animal chapter does not set a blanket wildlife-feeding ban, but harboring or feeding an animal for 24 hours makes you its "owner," and you may not take a stray animal into…

Ada County does not microchip every dog. Chipping only becomes mandatory once an Animal Control Officer formally designates a dog Dangerous or At-Risk under Code section 5-7-19: at…

Ada County requires anyone buying used jewelry, silverware, or precious metals for resale to hold a county license, keep a bound transaction ledger for three years, and hold every…

Ada County Code 8-4-3 keeps adult entertainment establishments at least 1,000 feet from any other adult entertainment establishment and 2,500 feet from any school or religious land…

Non-consent law enforcement towing in unincorporated Ada County requires an annual license from the Ada County Sheriff under Code section 6-4-8. Only one license per company owner, no…

A building permit in unincorporated Ada County stays alive for three years from issuance. If the work isn't finished and the final inspection isn't performed and the project approved…

Ada County deletes the 2018 International Residential Code's automatic fire sprinkler mandate for one- and two-family homes outright, so new detached houses and duplexes built in the…

Ada County's building code lets a home-based daycare for 12 or fewer children operate as an ordinary single-family home (Group R-3) instead of triggering a commercial day-care…

Any Ada County property owner who wants to build, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish or change the occupancy of a building, or add or change a gas or mechanical system, has to…

New homes in unincorporated Ada County with an attached garage or any fuel-fired appliance must have an approved carbon monoxide alarm outside each sleeping area under Ada County Code…

In unincorporated Ada County, loud or offensive noise is prohibited between 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM. Noise is 'loud or unusual' if plainly audible in another residence or 100 feet away on…

Ada County has no separate construction-hours ordinance; construction noise falls under the general 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM prohibition in chapter 13. In June, July and August, landscape…

The Ada County Noise Ordinance, Code 5-13-3(A), bans loud or unusual noise from voices, musical instruments, horns, radios, loudspeakers, sound amplifying equipment and machinery…

Ada County makes habitual barking a criminal public nuisance under Code section 5-7-14. A dog crossing the 30-minutes-incessant or 60-minutes-in-24-hours noise threshold, audible…

Aircraft and other FAA-regulated planes are expressly exempted from Ada County's general noise ordinance, so residents cannot cite Chapter 13 to stop overflight noise near Boise Air…

Ada County adopts Idaho's vehicle noise law wholesale for the unincorporated area under Code section 6-1-1, so Idaho Code 49-937's muffler and exhaust-noise rules are enforced as…

Ada County does not set a decibel number for everyday noise complaints. Under Code 5-13-3(A), a sound source violates the noise ordinance once it is plainly audible inside another home…

Idaho law bars Ada County and its cities from requiring a short-term-rental permit or conditional use permit in a residential zone. STRs are treated as ordinary residential uses, so no…

Ada County may set STR occupancy limits, but only up to the same maximum that building code allows for any non-transient residence. Idaho Code 67-6539 bars stricter guest caps aimed…

Ada County cannot limit how many nights per year a short-term rental operates. Idaho Code 67-6539 prohibits imposing a limit on the days a property can be rented, so no annual night…

Ada County cannot require extra off-street parking just because a home is a short-term rental. Idaho Code 67-6539 forbids STR-specific parking mandates; the dwelling's normal…

Ada County cannot require short-term-rental operators to carry additional insurance. Idaho Code 67-6539 bars STR-specific insurance mandates, though hosts should still carry adequate…

Ada County cannot limit short-term rentals to owners' primary residences. Idaho Code 67-6539 expressly bars requiring owner occupation for any amount of time, so non-owner-occupied and…

Ada County STRs (stays of 30 days or less) owe Idaho's 6% state sales tax plus the 2% state travel-and-convention tax. Properties inside the Greater Boise Auditorium District also owe…

The Boise foothills and rural fringes of Ada County lie in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), an area of high wildfire risk. Ada County and the City of Boise have WUI planning and…

Idaho law requires a smoke detector on a wall in a hallway or space communicating with each bedroom area and the living area. Landlords must verify detectors are installed and working…

Ada County Code 5-2-7-2 bans outdoor fires countywide unless weather poses no safety hazard and the DEQ air quality index is 60 or below, and even then only for a short list of…

Unincorporated Ada County allows recreational and warming fires but requires a 25-foot setback from any structure or combustible material unless the fire is contained in a barbecue…

Only nonaerial 'safe and sane' fireworks (fountains, sparklers, ground spinners, smoke devices, snakes) are legal for consumers in Idaho. Aerial and audible fireworks, firecrackers…

Inside Ada County's Wildland-Urban Interface Overlay District, liquefied petroleum gas containers cannot sit within the mandatory 50-foot defensible space around a habitable structure…

In unincorporated Ada County, fences may sit inside or outside any setback but cannot exceed six feet above grade on a perimeter boundary or required setback without a variance. On…

Ada County Code 8-3-6(C) bans barbed wire and electric wire fencing across the unincorporated county unless the property is a farm, sits in the RP, RR, or RUT district, hosts a…

Ada County Code 8-3-6(F) requires a building permit, with drawings stamped by a licensed engineer or architect, for any fence, wall, latticework, or screen that exceeds six feet in…

Any retaining wall in unincorporated Ada County with a total vertical height of four feet or more, footing included, must be engineered and permitted under the Ada County Building…

Ada County zoning lets a six-foot fence sit on the perimeter boundary between neighbors, but any sight-obscuring fence near a street corner must not block the clear-vision triangle…

In the Rural Residential (RR) district, Ada County limits building height to a maximum of thirty-five feet (35'). Building height is measured from average ground level at the front…

In unincorporated Ada County's Rural Residential (RR) district, Table 8-2-6-1 sets a 50-foot front setback along an arterial, collector or section-line street, dropping to 30 feet on…

In unincorporated Ada County's Rural Residential (RR) zoning district, Title 8 Chapter 2's dimensional standards table caps lot coverage, the footprint of every structure on a parcel…

Above-ground pools are explicitly covered by Ada County's Section AG 105. They need a barrier at least 48 inches tall; the pool wall itself can serve as the barrier if the gap between…

Residential pool safety in Ada County is enforced through the AG 105 barrier. Public/commercial pools must follow Idaho Department of Health and Welfare rules (IDAPA 16.02.14), which…

Idaho law puts the cost and duty of weed control on landowners even for vacant, unimproved parcels. Idaho Code 22-2407, adopted locally through Ada County's Noxious Weed Control…

Ada County's Nuisance Ordinance, Code section 5-9-3, makes it unlawful to create, cause, maintain, or knowingly allow a public nuisance on property you own, rent, or occupy anywhere in…

Unincorporated Ada County allows one secondary (accessory) dwelling per lot of at least 6,000 square feet. It must be 350 to 1,200 square feet, or 60% of the principal home's…

Unincorporated Ada County lets you convert an existing garage, basement, or detached accessory structure into a secondary dwelling, provided it meets the Section 8-4-23 standards, the…

Ada County Code 8-4-23(F) requires a recorded deed restriction on every secondary dwelling stating that once no owner remains living in either the main house or the ADU, the secondary…

Ada County's zoning code treats a tiny home as a manufactured home. A tiny home used as a second unit must meet the secondary-dwelling standards of Section 8-4-23 (350 to 1,200 sq ft…

Ada County Code 8-4-23(B)(3) requires that either the principal home or the secondary dwelling stay continuously occupied by at least one person with an ownership interest in the…

In unincorporated Ada County, a detached accessory structure (shed, garage, workshop) may not exceed 24 feet in height, cannot sit in a required setback or on an easement, and cannot…

Ada County's outdoor-lighting standards regulate glare and up-lighting to protect nighttime skies. Fixtures over 260 lumens must have an opaque top to prevent up-lighting; fixtures at…

Ada County Code 8-3-12(K)(6) lets billboards be illuminated only if they meet the county's general outdoor lighting standards in Section 8-3-8, and it bans flashing or intermittent…

Ada County limits light spilling onto neighbors. In commercial or industrial settings, the effective zone of light from bright fixtures may not trespass onto abutting residential…

Garage-sale signs fall under Ada County's content-neutral temporary-sign rules. No permit is needed: residential lots may have up to six temporary signs, each up to 4 square feet and 8…

Ada County's sign code is content-neutral, so it does not single out political signs. Temporary signs, including yard signs, are allowed without a permit: in residential districts up…

Ada County Code 8-3-8(C)(3) exempts temporary holiday lighting from the county's outdoor lighting standards, but only if it is used forty days or less per year. Run a display longer…

Ada County Code 8-3-12(K) caps animated and electronic message content on billboards at 20% of the sign face, limits billboard height to 40 feet in commercial and industrial districts…

Ada County Code 2-2-5(A) confines cooking fires on county parks and waterways property to gas and charcoal grills; any other fire needs the Parks Director's advance approval for an…

Ada County regulates commercial barbecue pits under section 5-2-7-3, requiring outdoor pits to be built of concrete or noncombustible material, set back 10 feet from combustible…

Rooftop, pole and ground-mounted solar panels are an accessory use in unincorporated Ada County and require a Zoning Certificate from the Planning and Development Director under Ada…

Unincorporated Ada County lets a homeowner install solar panels on an existing detached structure through a simple Director-issued zoning certificate, even if the structure itself…

Ada County Code 5-2-10(L) makes it illegal to take recyclable material out of a bin set out under the county's contracted residential recycling program without permission from the…

Ada County Code 5-2-4-1 requires every reachable residential property in the unincorporated county to receive, and pay for, the contracted solid waste collection service, with built-in…

Dumping trash on public or private land without authorization is illegal statewide under Idaho Code 18-7031, carrying a $150 first-offense fine that escalates to a misdemeanor with…

Residents can self-haul bulky items to the Ada County Landfill (Hidden Hollow), 10th & Fairview area at 200 W. Front St. billing. General trash costs a $15 minimum (up to 1,035 lbs) or…

Ada County Code 5-2-4-3 sets the physical rules for curbside carts: containers must sit within four feet of the street, go out no earlier than the evening before collection and no…

Ada County Code 8-3-7(E)(3) requires trash dumpsters on projects subject to master site plan review to be fenced or enclosed with a sight-obscuring screen between six and ten feet…

Ada County Code 5-2-8-2(D) requires the county's contracted hauler to collect solid waste from every residential customer at least once a week, following streets, alleys and walkways…

Ada County Code 5-2-4-3(D) requires branches, tree trimmings, limbs, hedge cuttings and other clean wood waste too big for a sanitary container to be bundled: no bundle may weigh more…

Ada County Code 5-2-4-2(A) bars letting waste accumulate on any property in the unincorporated county if it is likely to attract flies, breed pests, or "afford food or harborage for…

Ada County Code section 8-9-5 creates a Board-appointed Historic Preservation Council that surveys local historic sites, nominates properties to the National Register, and reviews any…

Food vehicles and trailers operating inside the Avimor Planned Community in unincorporated Ada County need a zoning certificate from Ada County Development Services before opening…

New and substantially improved buildings inside an Ada County Special Flood Hazard Area must set their lowest floor at least two feet above the Base Flood Elevation, the county's…

Ada County requires a floodplain development permit for any construction, grading, filling or fencing within Special Flood Hazard Areas mapped on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps, and…

Any new construction or alteration of a habitable structure inside Ada County's Wildland-Urban Interface Overlay District must maintain a 50-foot defensible space clear of flammable…

Construction on Ada County Hillside Overlay sites, meaning any grading on a slope of 25 percent or more, must meet current EPA and Idaho Department of Environmental Quality erosion and…

New development in unincorporated Ada County must submit an engineer-prepared drainage study and drainage plan under Section 8-3-5(B) before the county issues a zoning certificate…

A home occupation sign in unincorporated Ada County follows Ada County Code 8-3-12(G): the lesser of 64 square feet or one square foot per 3 feet of lot frontage in rural…

Ada County splits home occupations into two tiers, and customer traffic is where they diverge sharply. A small home occupation, approved by zoning certificate alone, cannot receive any…

Idaho requires no cottage-food license, permit, or registration. You may make non-potentially-hazardous foods in your home kitchen and sell them directly to consumers without a Health…

Idaho defines a family daycare home as caring for six or fewer children, a group daycare facility for 7-12, and a daycare center for 13 or more. Providers for four or more children…

Ada County caps home occupations at 25% of a dwelling's total floor area or 1,000 square feet, whichever is less, and splits them into small home occupations needing only a zoning…

Ada County prohibits lighting, using, inhaling, or consuming any tobacco product or electronic cigarette anywhere on county parks and waterways property except inside a posted 'smoking…

Ada County makes it a misdemeanor to excrete human waste, defined to include both defecation and urination, anywhere on county-owned or leased property outside a designated restroom…

Ada County bars loitering on the grounds of its Public Safety Complex on Barrister Drive unless the person is there under contract to provide goods or services. The ordinance defines…

Adults 21 and older can carry beer and wine in most Ada County parks and waterways property, but the county blocks alcohol entirely in streets, parking lots, playgrounds, sports…

Ada County bars riding a skateboard, roller skates, scooter, in-line skates, or bicycle on sidewalks, curbing, benches, planters, sport courts, playgrounds, or other hard surfaces on…

Ada County's unmanned aircraft ordinance, Code 5-4-10, requires every drone operator to carry an FAA remote pilot certificate and bans flights that harass or endanger people, invade…

Ada County Code 5-4-10 bans flying a drone in ways that harass or endanger people, invade a reasonable expectation of privacy, or interfere with firefighters or public safety officers…

Hosting a business, concession or organized solicitation drive on Ada County parks and waterways property takes the Board's prior written authorization under Ada County Code 2-2-7(B)…

Street fairs, festivals, and other public events inside Ada County's Spring Rock planned community need Spring Rock design committee sign-off no matter the size. Once expected…

Ada County exempts land zoned in a rural area district from its own Nuisance Ordinance. Code section 5-9-3, as amended by Ordinance 1014 effective January 20, 2026, now excludes…

Ada County lets owners of qualifying farmland petition the Board of County Commissioners to designate their property an Agriculture Protection Area (APA). A minimum of five contiguous…

Planned community developments in unincorporated Ada County must provide centralized wastewater treatment with reuse service and use reclaimed water for nonresidential irrigation when…

Ada County parks are day-use only and close at sunset. Overnight camping and parking is prohibited on any Ada County owned or leased park property except when the board permits it for…

Ada County bars anyone under 18 from streets, alleys, and other public places between midnight and 5:00 AM, and makes it unlawful for a parent or guardian to allow it. Exceptions cover…

Ada County's Boise River Camping Ordinance makes it unlawful to camp on any sidewalk, alley, public right-of-way, or under any bridge within 200 feet of the Boise River. Adopted…

Ada County Code 8-13B-8 sets the street-tree standard for the Cartwright Ranch Planned Community: on curbed, guttered streets with sidewalks, trees in the right-of-way planting strip…

Ada County Code 2-2-6(E) bars cyclists, e-bike riders, scooter users, skateboarders and in-line skaters from taking the Greenbelt or county bike paths at a speed that endangers other…

Ada County Code 2-2-10(G) bans e-bikes from the Ridge to Rivers foothill trail network but allows them on the paved Boise River Greenbelt. The county defines an e-bike, under 2-2-2, as…

Unincorporated Ada County requires a county clerk license before anyone peddles or solicits door-to-door. Applicants pay a $50 fee, post a $1,000 bond, and submit fingerprints for an…

Ada County bars peddlers and solicitors from any home posted 'No Peddlers Allowed' or 'No Solicitation Allowed,' and confines door-to-door activity to 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m…

Ada County makes it unlawful to knowingly keep a state-designated noxious weed on your land under Noxious Weed Control Ordinance section 5-8-3. The county doesn't publish its own…

Ada County caps residential density in a Planned Unit Development at three dwelling units per acre unless the comprehensive plan sets a higher urban density, but a builder can earn up…

Ada County Code 1-13-3 sets the minimum investment a business must make to qualify for the county's property tax exemption on new plant investment at three million dollars. Set under…