For most flooring jobs in most Ohio municipalities the answer is no. The exceptions are narrow, but they are the expensive ones to get wrong.
The general rule
Replacing a floor covering — pulling carpet and laying luxury vinyl plank, sanding and
refinishing existing hardwood, laying tile over a sound substrate — is normally treated as
maintenance rather than construction, and normally does not require a building permit in Ohio.
Where that stops being true
- You are replacing the subfloor, not the surface. Once sheathing comes up,
you are into structure. - Anything involving joists. Sistering, notching, cutting for a duct or a drain,
or repairing rot — all structural, all permitted. - You are changing the layout. Removing a wall to run one floor through two rooms
is a structural permit regardless of what the floor is. - Plumbing or electrical moves with it. Relocating a radiator, a floor register
or a floor outlet pulls in the trade that owns it — and those trades are state-licensed in
Ohio. - Bathrooms. Retiling a bathroom floor often turns into waterproofing and
sometimes into plumbing, and jurisdictions vary on where they draw the line.
It is decided locally, and Ohio has a lot of locals
Ohio has no single statewide answer to this, because building permits are administered by the
municipality or the county. Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, Canton,
Youngstown and Parma each run their own building department, and so does every township around
them. The five-minute version: call the building department and describe the job. They will tell
you, they will not charge you for asking, and it is a great deal cheaper than a stop-work order.
Who pulls it
If a permit is required, the contractor normally pulls it — and a contractor who wants
you to pull the permit for their work is worth a second look. It usually means they cannot,
which is worth knowing before they start.
Common questions
Does refinishing hardwood need a permit?
Almost never. It is a surface treatment on an existing floor.
Does a floated floor over an existing slab need one?
Generally no — nothing structural is being altered. If levelling compound is going down over a
cracked slab, ask why the slab is cracked before you ask about the permit.