What Permits a Kitchen Remodel Needs in Maryland

In Maryland a kitchen permit comes from the county, not the state. New cabinets and countertops on the existing layout usually need nothing. Move the sink, add circuits, relocate gas or take out a wall and you need trade permits, and often a building permit too. Remodel Now remodels kitchens across Baltimore County.

The work that needs nothing, and the work that needs three permits

A kitchen remodel in Maryland is not one permit decision. It is four or five of them, made by different offices, and they do not all answer to the same rules.

Start with the easy half. If you are replacing cabinets and countertops on the layout you already have, painting, and putting down new flooring, most jurisdictions here ask for nothing. Prince George's County says it plainly in its own project-by-project list: install kitchen cabinets, no permit; replace or install kitchen counter, no permit; install a hardwood or asphalt tile floor on a subfloor, no permit. Montgomery County's permit guide puts cabinet install, repair and replace on the no-permit side of the sheet. Baltimore City's exempt-work handout uses almost the same language the model code does, covering interior painting, papering, tiling, carpeting, cabinets, counter tops, and similar interior finish work.

Now move the sink four feet down the wall. Add the two countertop circuits the kitchen never had. Bring a gas line out to an island. Take out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. Every one of those lands somewhere different in the permit system, and in several Maryland jurisdictions it lands with a different agency than the building permit does.

The hard part is not that the rules are strict. It is that they are local.

There is no Maryland kitchen permit

Maryland sets a statewide floor for building construction through the Maryland Building Performance Standards, which adopt the 2021 International Building Code, the 2021 International Residential Code and the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code. Read the notes attached to that regulation and you find the reason kitchen permitting feels fragmented. The subject matter of IRC chapters 12 through 24 is not within the scope of the standards. Neither is chapters 25 through 33. Neither is chapters 34 through 43.

Those three blocks are the mechanical chapters, the plumbing chapters and the electrical chapters. The state standard governs how your house is framed and insulated. It does not govern the drain under your sink, the circuit feeding your microwave, or the duct over your range. Those come from codes each county adopts on its own schedule.

The result is real difference inside a thirty-mile radius. Howard County has been on the 2023 National Electrical Code since June 2024 and moved to the 2024 International Plumbing Code with county amendments in September 2025. Anne Arundel County enforces the 2020 NEC and the 2021 International Plumbing Code. Baltimore County wrote its rule as a moving target: under Section 21-7-303 of the county code, electrical installations conform to the most recent published edition of the NEC, while the plumbing side runs on the county's own Plumbing and Gasfitting Code adopted by Council Bill 94-23.

So the honest answer to what Maryland requires for a kitchen is that Maryland does not require it. Your county does, or your city does, and the two can disagree about the same work.

Who issues what, by jurisdiction

  • Baltimore County. Building permit office: Permits, Approvals and Inspections, 111 West Chesapeake Avenue, Towson. Plumbing and gas permit issued by: Permits, Approvals and Inspections, applied for by a county-licensed plumbing and gasfitting contractor. Cabinets and counters with nothing moved: The county alteration page is written broadly, so confirm your scope in writing rather than assume.
  • Baltimore City. Building permit office: Housing and Community Development, 417 E. Fayette Street, through E-Permits. Plumbing and gas permit issued by: Housing and Community Development, licensed contractor required. Cabinets and counters with nothing moved: Named on the city's exempt list as interior finish work.
  • Howard County. Building permit office: Inspections, Licenses and Permits, 3430 Court House Drive, Ellicott City. Plumbing and gas permit issued by: Inspections, Licenses and Permits, under the 2024 International Plumbing Code and NFPA 54 with county amendments. Cabinets and counters with nothing moved: No permit for finish work, and a plumbing permit returns the moment a line moves.
  • Anne Arundel County. Building permit office: Inspections and Permits, 2664 Riva Road, Annapolis. Plumbing and gas permit issued by: Inspections and Permits, with a separate plumbing permit and gas permit. Cabinets and counters with nothing moved: Reached by the residential single family dwelling permit only once the structure is altered.
  • Montgomery County. Building permit office: Permitting Services, 2425 Reedie Drive, Wheaton. Plumbing and gas permit issued by: WSSC Water, not the county. Cabinets and counters with nothing moved: Cabinet install, repair and replace listed as no permit.
  • Prince George's County. Building permit office: Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement, Largo. Plumbing and gas permit issued by: WSSC Water, not the county. Cabinets and counters with nothing moved: Listed as no permit for cabinets and for counters.
  • City of Rockville. Building permit office: Inspection Services Division, 111 Maryland Avenue. Plumbing and gas permit issued by: Inspection Services Division, which takes its own plumbing, electrical and mechanical permit applications. Cabinets and counters with nothing moved: City permits are required for electrical, plumbing, mechanical or structural work.

Two of those entries deserve emphasis before anyone calls the wrong number.

In Montgomery and Prince George's counties, the plumbing permit does not come from the county at all. WSSC Water is charged by the State of Maryland with issuing permits for and inspecting plumbing and all natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas installations in both counties. Montgomery's own home improvement guide tells homeowners exactly that under its plumbing entry: contact WSSC.

And Rockville is not Montgomery County DPS. The city runs its own building and trade permits through the Inspection Services Division at City Hall, under the Rockville City Code, and it takes its own plumbing, electrical and mechanical permit applications rather than sending them to the county. WSSC Water separately describes its own authority as covering natural gas and LP gas installations in all of Montgomery and Prince George's counties, so a Rockville kitchen that moves a gas line is worth confirming with both offices before material is ordered. A homeowner in Silver Spring and a homeowner in Rockville sit in the same county and do not file with the same office. Montgomery County's guide carries the warning in a footnote of its own: the information does not include municipality rules, and if you live in a municipality it is important to check its regulations.

Moving the sink

This is where most kitchens cross the line, and the exemptions are narrower than people expect.

Baltimore County's Plumbing and Gasfitting Code lists exactly five things you may do to a plumbing system without a permit. Stopping a leak in water, drain, vent or fuel gas piping, with the caveat that if the defect requires removal or replacement with new material it constitutes new work and a permit must be obtained. Clearing a stoppage or obstruction to flow. Repairing a leak in a valve or a fixture. Pulling and resetting a toilet to reach a cleanout. Repairing faucets and replacing toilet parts.

A kitchen sink appears nowhere on that list. Neither does a dishwasher drain, a disposal, a new shutoff valve, or a trap arm that moves. Baltimore City's exempt-work handout is the same shape and just as short.

Howard County drew one line in writing that is worth knowing, because it marks the boundary exactly. A department policy removed the plumbing permit requirement for replacing an existing residential dishwasher, then immediately says what the exemption does not cover: it applies only where the water, drain and vent lines already exist, and if any of those need to be relocated or otherwise re-plumbed, a plumbing permit and the associated inspections must be obtained. Swap the machine, nothing. Move the machine, permit.

Then there is the island. Putting a sink in an island is the most common kitchen request that runs into a code problem, because an island has no wall to run a vent up. Baltimore County's amended code allows an air admittance valve to vent an individual fixture only under conditions it spells out. The authority having jurisdiction has to permit it. The fixture has to be an addition or modification to an existing plumbing system. It has to be a lavatory, sink or standpipe with a 1-1/4, 1-1/2 or 2 inch drain connection. There has to be an existing condition that prevents proper installation of vent piping. The valve has to sit vertically at least 4 inches above the top of the fixture trap arm, stay where its inlet air moves freely, and remain accessible for replacement. The county also deleted sections 918.2 through 918.8 of the model plumbing code outright, so the model code's wider allowances for these valves do not apply here. A plan that leans on a valve under an island needs the department's agreement, not an assumption.

Remodel Now remodels kitchens throughout Baltimore County and across the Baltimore-Washington Metro Area, from Woodlawn and Towson out to Ellicott City and Columbia, including cabinet replacement, countertops and full kitchen remodels where the sink and its drain move. To talk through what your layout will trigger, the number is (301) 798-4696.

Adding circuits

Older Maryland kitchens are almost never wired to current standards, and the fix is permit work in Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Howard, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince George's alike.

The National Electrical Code requires countertop receptacle outlets in a dwelling kitchen to be supplied by at least two 20-ampere small-appliance branch circuits, and those circuits are not permitted to feed general lighting or outlets in other rooms. Receptacles serving kitchen countertop surfaces need ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection. In a 1958 rambler in Woodlawn or Parkville, the whole kitchen is often one 15-amp circuit shared with the dining room, with two receptacles total and no equipment ground. Bringing that up to code is a wire pull from the panel, not a device swap.

Baltimore County's electrical permit page sets the bar low for what counts as permit work. A permit is required for all electrical work, including the extension of circuit wiring, and for connecting replacement equipment to existing wiring. The only exemption is ordinary maintenance of existing systems, including light fixtures and switches. Replacing the fixture over the sink on its existing box is maintenance. Adding the under-cabinet circuit is not. The county warns that working without a permit is a violation subject to a civil penalty.

Prince George's County publishes the same distinction as a list of individual tasks on its when a permit is required page. Replace switch plates, nothing. Replace electrical wiring, electrical permit. Relocate switches, outlets, lighting fixtures and sub-panels, electrical permit. Replace circuit breakers, electrical permit. Replace the kitchen stove exhaust, electrical permit. The county attaches a footnote to every one of those rows: an electrical or mechanical contractor's license is required to obtain the trade permit.

That footnote is the part homeowners miss. The permit is not something you pick up on the way home. It is something a licensed trade applies for in its own name.

Relocating gas

Gas is the strictest of the four, and it is strict in a way that surprises people who have done their own wiring.

In Montgomery and Prince George's counties, gas piping belongs to WSSC Water. WSSC states that first-time installation of natural gas or LP gas appliances, and replacement work, requires a WSSC Water permit and must be done by a master gasfitter licensee, with a WSSC plumbing inspector inspecting the work within 10 business days of installation. Prince George's County's residential alteration page restates it without softening: installation of natural gas piping and appliances by an entity other than a Registered Master Gasfitter is strictly prohibited, and generally the installation of plumbing by a homeowner is not permitted either.

Baltimore County folds gas into the same code as plumbing. Its plumbing and gasfitting permit requires a permit for all plumbing and gasfitting work, and only a Baltimore County licensed plumbing or gasfitting contractor may apply for it. Anne Arundel County issues a separate gas permit, required for adding or relocating gas fixtures, appliances or piping, and limits trade permits to licensed electricians, plumbers and mechanics. Howard County enforces NFPA 54, the National Fuel Gas Code, alongside its plumbing code.

The practical version: converting an electric range to gas, moving an existing gas range to the other side of the room, and capping an abandoned line are all permitted work handled by a licensed gasfitter everywhere in this region.

Taking out a wall

Open-plan kitchens are the reason a building permit enters a project that started as cabinets.

Once a wall is coming out, the application stops being a finish-work filing. Prince George's County requires structural and architectural drawings with an interior alteration permit application, and requires the electrical work attached to that alteration to be applied for by a licensed master electrician. Howard County reviews the same work under the 2024 International Residential Code it adopted in September 2025. In each of them the drawings have to show what carries the load after the wall is gone, and producing that is the part of the paperwork that takes real time.

Baltimore County's addition, alteration and structural modification page requires a permit for any additions, alterations or structural modifications to existing dwellings, and separately for structural work or when a new bedroom or kitchen is created. Read strictly, the first clause reaches a kitchen rebuilt inside its existing walls. The specific trigger the page names for kitchens is creating one. The department settles which reading applies to a given scope, so describe the actual work to Permits, Approvals and Inspections and get the answer back in writing rather than rely on either sentence alone. The same page adds the line that covers the rest of the job: all electrical or plumbing work requires a permit and must be obtained by a licensed electrician and plumber.

Whether a wall is load-bearing is a question with a wrong answer. In the brick Cape Cods and ramblers around Woodlawn, Lochearn and Parkville, the wall between the kitchen and the dining room frequently carries second-floor joists and sometimes a bearing point for the roof. In a 1990s colonial in Ellicott City or Columbia, the kitchen is often framed with engineered I-joists or roof trusses that distribute load differently, and the beam replacing the wall has to be sized for the span and carried down through the floor to a footing. That last part is what gets missed. A flush beam with nowhere to land is not a plan.

The range hood nobody permits

Cooking exhaust is the quietest permit question in a kitchen and the one most often skipped.

Maryland's mechanical code is the 2021 International Mechanical Code, and Baltimore County adopted the same edition through Council Bill 49-24. Under it, domestic cooking exhaust equipment has to discharge to the outdoors through smooth, airtight metal duct fitted with a backdraft damper, with a carve-out for listed ductless hoods where ventilation is otherwise provided. The number that matters for a remodel is this one: an exhaust hood system capable of exhausting more than 400 cfm has to be provided with makeup air at approximately the same rate, automatically controlled to start and run with the exhaust.

Professional-style ranges have made that threshold ordinary. A 48-inch range under a hood rated well above 400 cfm needs a makeup air system, and in a reasonably tight house the consequence of skipping it is not theoretical. A hood that strong can pull enough air out of the house to reverse the draft on a water heater or furnace flue. Prince George's County treats replacing the kitchen stove exhaust as electrical permit work. Anne Arundel issues mechanical permits for duct work. If the hood on your drawing is a big one, the makeup air question belongs in the conversation before cabinets are ordered, because it decides where duct runs and where a wall gets opened.

Who is allowed to pull each permit

In most of Maryland you cannot pull a kitchen trade permit yourself, and neither can your general contractor.

The plumbing permit in Baltimore County can be applied for only by a plumbing and gasfitting contractor licensed by Baltimore County. The electrical permit can be applied for only by an electrical contractor registered or licensed with the county, and that registration is a separate step from holding a state license. Prince George's requires electrical work on an alteration to be applied for by a Master Electrician licensed by the State of Maryland, and plumbing or gas by a Registered Master Plumber or Gasfitter licensed by WSSC. Anne Arundel limits trade permits to licensed electricians, plumbers and mechanics.

Howard County carved out one exception worth knowing. Under the county code adopted alongside its plumbing and gasfitting code, a permit is not required for a homeowner who personally performs plumbing work in their own residence, provided the homeowner gives the county written notification describing the work, acknowledges that the work has to meet the code, and grants permission to inspect it. The exception stops short of the final connection to a public or private water or disposal system. It is a narrower door than it sounds like, and it closes entirely once anyone is paid to do the work.

Above all the trade licenses sits the Maryland Home Improvement Commission, which licenses the contractors who sell and perform home improvement work on residences. A kitchen sits inside that definition. Baltimore County reinforces it on the application side: all residential alterations or additions by a private contractor require the Maryland Home Improvement License number of that contractor. State law also sets what the home improvement contract has to contain, including the contractor's name, address and MHIC number, a written description of the work and the materials, approximate start and substantial completion dates, and signatures from both parties. A contractor cannot take more than a third of the contract price as a deposit, and cannot take any payment at all before the contract is signed.

The sequence, and the mistake that opens a finished wall

The order of operations in a permitted kitchen is not flexible, and the expensive error is always the same one.

Permits come first. Demolition follows. Then the trades rough in while everything is still open: drain and vent piping, supply lines, the gas line if there is one, all the wiring and boxes, and the hood duct. Only after the rough inspections pass does anything get covered.

Montgomery County's published inspection sequence for residential alterations shows how tightly the agencies interlock there. The WSSC plumbing and gas rough-in carries its own inspection and its own sticker, and county approval of the framing close-in inspection depends on that sticker being in hand. Insulation and drywall cannot go in before both are done. A crew that drywalls on Friday because the WSSC inspector is booked until Tuesday has created a problem nobody can schedule away.

Baltimore County is equally blunt. The county's plumbing code requires concealed work to be made accessible again until the necessary inspections are complete, which means an inspector who finds a tiled backsplash over an uninspected rough has the authority to make it come off. Most failed inspections in a kitchen are not failures of workmanship. They are an inspection called before the work was actually ready.

What to ask before you sign

A kitchen contract that does not name the permits has a gap in it. Five questions close the gap, and none of them are about cabinet doors.

Ask which permits this specific scope requires and who applies for each. A good answer names the jurisdiction, separates the building permit from the trade permits, says which licensed trade is filing each one, and says whether the plumbing permit is coming from the county or from WSSC. If the answer is that nobody pulls permits for kitchens, you have learned enough.

Ask for the MHIC license number and check it before signing anything. It belongs on the contract, and it is publicly checkable through the commission.

Ask what happens if the rough inspection fails, or if an inspector is not available on the day the trades are finished. You want a clear answer about who absorbs the delay and the reinspection, and you want it written into the contract rather than discussed in a driveway.

Ask where the hood terminates and whether the hood on the plan needs makeup air. If the answer is that it vents into the soffit or the attic, that is a finished answer about the whole job.

Ask what happens if the wall turns out to be load-bearing. Projects that put this question off until demolition day are the ones that stall for weeks. A contractor who has already thought about the beam, the point loads and the permit revision will say so without hedging.

One more item applies to most of the housing stock in this region. In a house built before 1978, anyone paid to disturb painted surfaces has to be certified under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule and use lead-safe work practices. Taking down painted plaster behind old kitchen cabinets is squarely inside that rule, and EPA administers the program directly in Maryland.

A kitchen hides more systems than any room in the house except the bathroom. Water, drain, vent, gas, branch circuits, exhaust duct and sometimes structure all converge in a space about the size of a parking spot, and all of it disappears behind cabinets that are not coming off again for twenty years. The permits are the only record that someone qualified looked at it first.

Sources

Frequently Asked Questions

What permits do I need for a kitchen remodel in Maryland?

It depends on the county, because Maryland has no single statewide kitchen permit. Replacing cabinets, countertops and flooring on the existing layout usually needs no permit at all. Once a plumbing fixture moves you need a plumbing permit, once circuits are added or relocated you need an electrical permit, once gas piping moves you need a gas permit, and once a wall comes out or the room layout changes you need a building permit. In Montgomery and Prince George's counties the plumbing and gas permits come from WSSC Water rather than the county. Confirm your specific scope with the office that covers your address before demolition starts.

Do I need a permit to replace kitchen cabinets and countertops?

In most of this region, no, as long as nothing behind them moves. Prince George's County lists installing kitchen cabinets and replacing or installing a kitchen counter as requiring no permit. Montgomery County's home improvement guide puts cabinet install, repair and replace on its no-permit list. Baltimore City's exempt-work handout covers interior painting, papering, tiling, carpeting, cabinets, counter tops and similar interior finish work. The exemption ends the moment a drain, a supply line, a gas line or a circuit is relocated, and Baltimore County's alteration page is written broadly enough that it is worth confirming your scope with Permits, Approvals and Inspections first.

Do I need a permit to move a kitchen sink?

Yes. Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Howard, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince George's all treat relocating a fixture as new plumbing work rather than a repair. Baltimore County's Plumbing and Gasfitting Code exempts only five narrow items: stopping a leak, clearing a stoppage, repairing a leak in a valve or fixture, pulling and resetting a toilet to reach a cleanout, and repairing faucets or replacing toilet parts. A relocated sink drain is none of those. In Montgomery and Prince George's counties that permit is issued by WSSC Water and can only be applied for by a registered master plumber.

Can I put a sink in a kitchen island in Baltimore County?

Often yes, but the venting has to be solved before the cabinets are ordered. An island has no wall for a vent to rise in. Baltimore County's amended plumbing code allows an air admittance valve to vent an individual fixture only if the authority having jurisdiction permits it, the fixture is an addition or modification to an existing system, there is an existing condition preventing proper vent piping, the drain connection is 1-1/4, 1-1/2 or 2 inches, and the valve sits vertically at least 4 inches above the top of the fixture trap arm and stays accessible. The county deleted sections 918.2 through 918.8 of the model plumbing code, so the model code's broader allowances do not apply.

Who pulls the plumbing and electrical permits for a kitchen, me or my contractor?

In most cases neither, at least not the trade permits. Baltimore County accepts a plumbing permit application only from a plumbing and gasfitting contractor licensed by the county, and an electrical permit application only from an electrical contractor registered or licensed with the county. Prince George's requires a Master Electrician licensed by the State of Maryland for electrical work on an alteration, and a Registered Master Plumber or Gasfitter licensed by WSSC for plumbing or gas. Anne Arundel limits trade permits to licensed electricians, plumbers and mechanics. Howard County allows a narrow exception for a homeowner personally doing plumbing work in their own residence, but only with written notification to the county and permission to inspect.

Is Rockville handled by Montgomery County permitting?

No. The City of Rockville issues its own building and trade permits through its Inspection Services Division at City Hall on Maryland Avenue, under the Rockville City Code, not through Montgomery County DPS. A Silver Spring address and a Rockville address are in the same county and file with different offices. Montgomery County's own home improvement guide notes in a footnote that its information does not cover municipality rules. The city takes its own plumbing, electrical and mechanical permit applications, while WSSC Water describes its gas permitting and inspection authority as covering all of Montgomery and Prince George's counties, so a gas change at a Rockville address is worth confirming with both.

Do I need a permit to move a gas range or convert from electric to gas?

Yes, and in this region it is the most tightly controlled part of a kitchen. WSSC Water is charged by the State of Maryland with issuing permits for and inspecting all natural gas and LP gas installations in Montgomery and Prince George's counties, the work must be done by a master gasfitter licensee, and a WSSC inspector has to inspect it within 10 business days of installation. Prince George's County states that installation of gas piping and appliances by anyone other than a Registered Master Gasfitter is strictly prohibited. Baltimore County requires a permit for all plumbing and gasfitting work, applied for by a county-licensed contractor, and Anne Arundel issues a separate gas permit for adding or relocating gas fixtures, appliances or piping.

Does a new range hood need a permit or makeup air?

Ducting matters more than most homeowners expect. Domestic cooking exhaust has to discharge to the outdoors through smooth, airtight metal duct with a backdraft damper, with a carve-out for listed ductless hoods where ventilation is otherwise provided. A hood system capable of exhausting more than 400 cfm has to be provided with makeup air at approximately the same rate, automatically controlled to run with the exhaust. Prince George's County treats replacing the kitchen stove exhaust as electrical permit work, and Anne Arundel issues mechanical permits for duct work. Skipping makeup air on a professional-style hood can reverse the draft on a water heater or furnace flue in a tight house.

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