Plumbing Permits in St. George, UT: What Needs One (2026)

Who issues the permit for your address

Permits come from the building department of the city the home is in, or from the county for unincorporated addresses. These are the offices each jurisdiction publishes; La Verkin and Toquerville are not in our file yet, so contact each city hall directly.

If your home is in	Office
St. George city limits	City of St. George Building Department, 61 S Main St, St. George, UT 84770 · 435-627-4100 · City Hall hours Mon–Fri 8 a.m.–5 p.m. · applications through the CityInspect portal
Washington City	Washington City Building Department, 111 North 100 East, Washington, UT 84780 · (435) 656-6326
Hurricane	Hurricane City Building Department, 147 N 870 W, Hurricane, UT 84737 · 435-635-2811
Ivins	Ivins City Building Department · (435) 634-9753
Santa Clara	Santa Clara City Building Department · (435) 673-6712
Unincorporated Washington County	Washington County Community Development, 111 East Tabernacle St., St. George, UT 84770 · (435) 301-7250 · electronic applications only

The St. George department’s pages publish the address, phone, portal, and a forms list (which includes a Backflow Testers list and a Residential Owner-Builder declaration). They do not publish a plumbing-specific rule, a plumbing fee, or inspection scheduling details. Where this page says what needs a permit, it is reading the state-adopted code, not quoting the City.

The code that decides it

Utah adopts its construction codes statewide. Under Utah Code 15A-2-103, effective July 1, 2026, that is the 2021 International Residential Code (IRC), whose plumbing chapters govern one- and two-family homes and townhouses, and the 2024 International Plumbing Code for other buildings, each with the state amendments in Title 15A. Cities enforce that package; St. George’s Building Department says only that design criteria must follow the currently adopted codes under House Bill 65.

The permit rule for a home is IRC Section R105.1. In the code’s words, any owner or authorized agent who intends to “erect, install, enlarge, alter, repair, remove, convert or replace any electrical, gas, mechanical or plumbing system, the installation of which is regulated by this code … shall first make application to the building official and obtain the required permit.” Section R105.2 then lists what is exempt. Utah’s statewide amendments rewrite three items on the Building list (retaining walls, decks, and a storage-container exception) and leave the Plumbing text as the model code prints it. We checked the wording against two government reproductions of the 2021 text, which match word for word:

Read it twice and the shape is clear. Repairing in place is exempt; replacing, moving, or adding is not. The first exemption even says so about itself: once a concealed pipe is bad enough to replace, it is “new work” and the permit comes back, which is where a backed-up drain or failed sewer lateral ends up once the pipe itself has to be replaced rather than cleared. A water heater is an appliance the plumbing chapters regulate (Utah amends the water heater section directly, below), so swapping one is “replace,” not “repair a leak”; what replacing a St. George water heater involves beyond the permit is covered on its own page.

Common jobs, read against the text

The City of St. George does not publish a job-by-job plumbing permit list, so the column below is this site’s reading of R105.1 against the two exemptions, not a City statement. For what it is worth, Springville City’s own exemption handout, which reproduces the same Utah-adopted list, closes by saying the code requires “replacing water heaters … any electrical, plumbing, or heating changes or expansions to have permits and approval.” That is Springville reading the same text we are reading, not a St. George rule. The St. George Building Department at 435-627-4100 is the final word for a St. George address.

Job	Our reading	Why
Water heater replacement (tank or tankless, gas or electric)	Permit	Replacing the appliance replaces part of the system; the exemptions cover leak repairs and clog clearing, not replacement. Utah’s amendments also set strapping and pan rules the inspector checks.
Whole-house repipe	Permit	New water supply piping is new work under R105.1.
Replacing a concealed drain, waste, or vent pipe that failed	Permit	The exemption text itself says this “shall be considered as new work and a permit shall be obtained.”
Sewer lateral replacement or re-lining	Permit	Replacing a defective concealed drain line; the same sentence applies.
Moving or adding a fixture (new bathroom, relocated sink, added hose bib)	Permit	The exemption for fixture repairs stops where valves, pipes, or fixtures are replaced or rearranged.
Water softener or whole-house filter tie-in	Permit	A tie-in alters the supply piping; not on the exemption list. (Our reading; the City publishes no softener rule.)
Backflow assembly on irrigation or a secondary-water connection	Permit	New or relocated piping, and Utah requires the assembly to be tested at installation and annually.
Fixing a leaking pipe or valve in place, clearing a clog	Exempt	R105.2 Plumbing: stopping leaks and clearing stoppages, as long as nothing is replaced or rearranged.
Pulling and resetting a toilet (same location, same supply)	Exempt	Named in the exemption: “removal and reinstallation of water closets.”
Swapping a faucet cartridge, flapper, or fill valve	Exempt	Repairing a leak in a fixture without replacing the fixture or its piping.

Getting the permit, step by step

1. Find out which office covers your address. Inside St. George city limits it is the City of St. George Building Department. Washington City, Hurricane, Ivins, and Santa Clara each run their own building department. Unincorporated addresses go to Washington County Community Development. Your tax notice or the county parcel map settles which one.
2. Check the job against the code, not a guess. The code Utah adopts statewide requires a permit to install, alter, repair, remove, or replace a plumbing system, then exempts two things: stopping leaks and clearing stoppages without replacing or rearranging pipes, valves, or fixtures. If your job replaces, moves, or adds anything, treat it as permitted work.
3. Hire a licensed plumbing contractor and let them pull it. The contractor who does the work normally applies for the permit under its own Utah DOPL license; St. George takes applications through its CityInspect portal. Ask for the license number first and run it on the DOPL lookup.
4. For a gas water heater, ask who is certified for the gas side. Utah law requires a person certified for gas appliance work to install, repair, or replace a residential gas appliance even on a small project. A licensed plumbing contractor will know who on the crew holds it.
5. Confirm the permit and inspection are in the written quote. The fee and the inspection should be line items or plainly included. A quote that leaves them out, or offers to skip the permit to save money, is the classic unlicensed tell.
6. Be home for the inspection and keep the record. The inspector checks the work against the Utah-amended code: strapping, the pan and its drain, the relief-valve discharge, shutoff valves. Keep the permit number and final approval with the house documents.

Who is allowed to pull it

Permitting and licensing are two different systems, and the second decides who can apply for the first. Utah licenses plumbing contractors through the Division of Professional Licensing (DOPL); our five-minute license check shows how to read a record. A licensed contractor applies for the permit under its own license, which is the normal path for every permit-side job in the table above. The independent plumbers we match for plumbing repair in St. George work the same way: the permit rides on their license, as part of the job.

Utah Code 58-55-305 does exempt an owner working on their own property from the contractor-license requirement, and it tells any office that issues a building permit to a sole owner to report that permit to DOPL. St. George publishes a Residential Owner-Builder declaration form. What it does not publish is whether, or on what terms, it issues a homeowner a plumbing permit for a water heater or a repipe, so that is a phone call, not something we will guess at. Our view: if you are paying someone to do the work, the permit belongs under their license, not yours.

Three more clauses in the same section matter for plumbing specifically. The small-project exemption, which lets unlicensed people take jobs under $7,000 in many trades, carves plumbing out: work involving the plumbing system on such a project must be done by a licensed plumbing contractor, and only a component such as a faucet or toilet may be handled by a licensed journeyman plumber. Installing, repairing, or replacing a residential gas appliance, which includes a gas water heater, must be done by a person certified for that work, even on a small project. And minor plumbing work incidental to repairing a fixture or appliance is exempt from licensing only when no modification is made to the existing water, soil, waste, or vent piping, or to a gas appliance, and never for a first-time installation. A handyman offering to “just swap the water heater” is outside all three.

What the inspector checks that the model code does not

The inspector works from the Utah-amended code, not the printed IRC. Several amendments in Title 15A, Chapter 3, Part 2 land squarely on the jobs above:

• Water heater strapping. Utah replaces IRC P2801.8: water heaters “shall be anchored or strapped to resist horizontal displacement caused by earthquake motion,” with strapping in the upper third and lower third of the unit’s height.
• The pan and its drain. A new P2801.6.3 makes the water heater pan an emergency receptor for the water heater only; P2801.6.2 is extended so that, where the code official permits, the pan drain may connect to a drain stack with its own trap, vent, and trap-seal protection.
• Relief-valve discharge. A new item 15 in P2804.6.1 requires the discharge pipe to follow the manufacturer’s instructions and not exceed 180 degrees of directional change.
• Shutoff valves. P2903.9.3 is rewritten so a shutoff valve is required on each fixture supply pipe to every appliance and fixture other than bathtubs and showers, unless the fixture has a wall-mount valve.
• Backflow assemblies. A new P2902.1.1 requires reduced-pressure, double-check, pressure-vacuum-breaker and related assemblies to be tested at installation, after any repair or relocation, and at least annually, by the Utah Division of Drinking Water’s adopted field procedures. St. George maintains a published Backflow Testers list for exactly this.
• Booster pumps and graywater. A pressure booster pump may not connect to a public water main unless Utah Administrative Code R309-540 allows it; single-family graywater irrigation systems fall under R317-401.
• Vent terminations through a wall must end at least 12 inches from the wall with an elbow pointing down (P3101.4).

None of this changes whether a job needs a permit; it changes what passes. A licensed Utah plumber installs to this version every day, which is one more reason the license check matters before the permit is pulled.

What the permit costs

St. George publishes a Building Fee Sheet through its Permits and Inspections page. It is a valuation-based scale with no plumbing line item, so we are not going to print a St. George plumbing fee. Washington County likewise publishes no plumbing fee schedule we could cite. Our plumbing cost guide notes which jobs typically carry a permit line on a quote; the plumber shows the exact local figure once the permit is issued.

Red flags around permits

• “Water heaters don’t need a permit here.” Not in our reading of the code Utah adopts, and not in Springville’s either. Get it in writing or get another plumber.
• “You pull a homeowner permit, we’ll do the work.” That shifts the contractor’s responsibility to you. If a licensed contractor does the work, the permit belongs under their license.
• A Nevada or Arizona license. St. George sits near both borders. A Utah permit goes with a Utah DOPL license.
• No inspection scheduled. A permit never inspected and closed out can surface at resale as open or expired. Ask when the final inspection is.
• Nobody certified for the gas side. On a gas water heater, ask who holds the gas appliance certification Utah requires.

Why bother

The inspection is the only independent check on work that ends up behind drywall, under a slab, or in a water heater closet nobody opens for a decade. The permit record is what the next buyer’s inspector, your insurer after a flood, and the next plumber will ask to see. If permitted work was done without one, DOPL takes complaints against licensees, and the building department that covers the address can tell you what an after-the-fact permit involves.

Sources

Read November 1, 2026: Utah Code 15A-2-103 (adopted code editions, read directly on le.utah.gov September 27, 2026); Utah Code Title 15A Chapter 3 Part 2, compiled PDF on le.utah.gov (sections 15A-3-202 and 15A-3-205); Utah Code 58-55-305, compiled PDF effective May 7, 2025; City of St. George Building Department and Permits and Inspections pages; IRC R105.1 and R105.2 as reproduced by Springville City, Utah (2021 IRC, letterhead dated July 21, 2025) and Grant County, Washington (2021 IRC), which match word for word; neighboring building-department contacts from each city’s published code and website; sewer providers from the City of St. George and Ash Creek Special Service District sites as cited on our service-areas page. Code editions change on a state schedule; recheck after January 1, 2027.