TOWN OF HUNTINGTON
BUILDING PERMIT REQUIREMENTS

Town of Huntington Building Permit Requirements

Which Building Department Covers Your Huntington Address?

The Town of Huntington Building & Housing Division sits in Town Hall Room 115, 100 Main Street, Huntington, NY 11743. General building enquiries go to (631) 351-2821; fee payment is (631) 351-3126. Counter hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Building questions can be emailed to BuildingInfo@HuntingtonNY.gov, and plumbing inspection matters to plmbinspect@huntingtonny.gov. Since January 17, 2023 the Town has run an OpenGov permitting portal, which lets applications be filed, reviewed, approved and tracked without a trip to Town Hall. Whether inspections can also be booked inside the portal is not stated in the material we could reach, so ask when you file.

Before any of that matters, check that the Town is actually your authority. Four incorporated villages sit inside the Town of Huntington: Asharoken, Huntington Bay, Lloyd Harbor and Northport. All four are on the north shore, each with an elected mayor and board of trustees, and each runs its own review. The Village of Northport is confirmed to operate its own building department. A homeowner inside any of the four files with the village, not with the Town. If you are not sure which side of the line you are on, your property tax bill is the practical test, because a village levies its own tax as a separate line item.

Do You Need a Permit for a Kitchen Remodel in Huntington?

Start with the state floor. 19 NYCRR 1203.3(a)(1) requires every authority having jurisdiction in New York to require building permits for work that must conform to the Codes. It then allows localities to exempt eight categories, two of which matter to a remodel: “painting, wallpapering, tiling, carpeting, or other similar finish work” and “repairs, provided that the work does not have an impact on fire and life safety.” The state mandates the permit and merely permits the exemption. That is why the answer changes as you cross a town line, and why a page like this has to be written town by town.

Huntington publishes no cosmetic-work exemption list. The words “kitchen” and “bathroom” do not appear in the Town's permit-trigger materials at all. The Town of Islip, twenty minutes south, publishes a plain-language sheet saying no permit is needed for paint, wallpaper, tile, carpet or cabinets. Huntington has published no equivalent. That absence is a finding: because the Town has not written down what is exempt, nobody can honestly tell you that new cabinets or a tile backsplash are exempt in Huntington.

What is clear is the plumbing side, and a kitchen touches it constantly. Under Town Code §153-34(A), plumbing permits are required for “the installation, repair, or modification of plumbing systems, medical gas systems, natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas piping, or the installation or modification of irrigation systems.” A gas line to a range, a relocated sink, a new dishwasher supply or an ice-maker line all sit inside that language. Structural scope — taking out a wall between the kitchen and the dining room, widening an opening, changing a header — is an alteration, and an alteration uses the Town's full application package described below.

Do You Need a Permit to Replace a Toilet or a Faucet in Huntington?

This is the finding that makes Huntington different from every other town on Long Island, and it is worth reading the code language directly rather than a paraphrase of it.

§153-34(A) requires a plumbing permit for the “installation, repair, or modification of plumbing systems.” §153-34(B) then states that “it shall be unlawful for a person to install, repair, service, or modify any plumbing system… without benefit of a plumbing permit.” Four verbs, and two of them — repair and service — reach work that most homeowners would never think of as permit work. Read literally, replacing a faucet or a toilet in place requires a Town of Huntington plumbing permit.

What makes that genuinely unusual is the comparison. The Town of Brookhaven publishes an exemption in its zoning chapter: “a building permit shall not be required for minor repairs to existing plumbing systems.” The Town of Islip publishes a fixture rule turning on whether roughing or new piping is involved. The Town of Oyster Bay's code says repairs to existing plumbing or drainage systems, and the replacing of existing fixtures, may be made without filing. Huntington publishes no equivalent. We searched for one; it is not there.

Here is the honest boundary of what we know. We are reporting what the code says and noting the absence of a published exemption. We are not reporting how the Building & Housing Division applies §153-34 at the counter, because the Town has not published that either. So the useful move is not to guess in either direction: call (631) 351-2821, describe the actual fixture and the actual work, and ask whether a plumbing permit is required. As of July 2026, that is the only reliable answer available, and it takes one phone call.

What Does Huntington Require for a Kitchen or Bathroom Scope?

What Goes Into a Huntington Alteration Permit Package?

Huntington's alteration package is the heaviest we have documented in Suffolk County. The items below come from the Town's Requirements & Guidelines revised 9/1/2021, using building permit application form 87-01 (rev. 10/16). One caution first: both source documents predate the Town's January 2023 portal launch. We publish them as published, and you should confirm whether online filing has superseded the paper multiples before you pay a surveyor for three copies of anything.

The survey count is a small detail that tells you something real. Huntington asks for three surveys; Brookhaven asks for two. Surveys are not free, and a homeowner who budgets on a neighbouring town's checklist arrives at the counter short. The photo-ID requirement is worth noting too: Huntington wants a copy of the Suffolk County Home Improvement License photo ID in the package, which means an unlicensed contractor cannot quietly file through you. Greene Group Construction holds Suffolk County HIC #HI-72958 and Nassau County HIC #EF-65498.

What Does a Town of Huntington Building Permit Cost?

Here is the second finding, and as of July 2026 no competitor appears to have noticed it. The Town of Huntington maintains two official fee pages, and they contradict each other. They give different base fees, different certificate fees and two entirely different methods of calculating what you owe. Both cite the same authority, Town Code §87-23, which we could not retrieve. We are not going to pick a winner, because picking one would be a guess dressed up as research. We publish both.

Look at what the two methods actually do to a real job. One page prices a permit off square footage; the other prices it off estimated construction cost at $7 per $1,000. Those are not two ways of saying the same thing — on a small footprint with expensive finishes they diverge sharply, and a bathroom is exactly that kind of job. Huntington's two official fee pages disagree. Call (631) 351-3126 to confirm before you budget. Get the figure for your scope before it goes into anyone's contract.

The two pages do agree on one thing, and it is the expensive one. The penalty for working without a permit is three times the amount established. Legalising unpermitted work after the fact is the single most avoidable cost in a Huntington remodel, and it is one reason we carry permit fees as a visible line item rather than folding an estimate into a lump sum.

Who Is Allowed to Do the Work in Huntington?

Huntington splits the two trades, which surprises people. Plumbing work must be performed by a Town of Huntington licensed master or limited plumber. The Town runs its own licence: $95 to apply and $150 for the licence after a practical exam, with applicants required to be 21 or older, show seven years of experience, and submit a notarized application with seven years of W-2s. There is an owner exemption, and it is narrow enough to quote in full: an owner may do the work “without benefit of a license as long as the work is performed by the owner and not by the owner's contractor or other person.” In other words the exemption covers you, personally, holding the wrench. It does not travel to anyone you hire.

Huntington issues no town electrician licence. The Town code instead provides that “no person shall, for compensation, install, repair, alter or modify any electrical work in the Town of Huntington unless he meets the requirements of the Suffolk County Plumbing and Electrician Licensing Board.” So the plumber's credential is a Town matter and the electrician's is a county matter, in the same house, on the same job.

On our side of it: our own carpenters and project managers run your job start to finish. Electrical and plumbing are performed by licensed Nassau and Suffolk trade contractors we've worked with for years — we schedule them, we coordinate the inspections, and we're accountable for the result. Greene Group Construction holds the Nassau and Suffolk County home improvement contractor licences listed above and no town-level trade licence.

How Is Electrical Work Inspected in Huntington?

The Town code names “the New York Board of Fire Underwriters and such other approved electrical inspection agencies as found qualified by the Director of Engineering Services.” The other approved agencies are not published anywhere we could find — there is no roster, no list, no downloadable schedule. Only one Long Island jurisdiction we have examined publishes a current named roster of accepted electrical inspection agencies, and it is not Huntington. Ask the Building & Housing Division which agencies it currently accepts before your electrician books an inspection, because an inspection from an agency the Town does not recognise is a certificate you cannot use.

How Long Does a Huntington Permit Last, and How Long Does Review Take?

Two honest answers, and both of them are that we do not know.

Permit expiry, extension and renewal in Huntington: unknown. Those terms live in Chapter 87 of the Town Code, and Chapter 87 could not be retrieved. Huntington does publish permit-duration language elsewhere in its code for Fire Prevention permits, and we are deliberately not repeating it here, because a Fire Prevention permit is a different permit type and substituting one for the other would be exactly the kind of tidy-looking error this page exists to avoid. Ask the department how long your building permit stays valid once issued, and what an extension costs.

Turnaround: not published. Huntington does not publish a permit review time, and neither does any other jurisdiction on Long Island. That is verified across all of them. A contractor who promises you “permits in three weeks” in Huntington is inventing a number that the Town itself has never published. Call, ask about the current queue, and build float into the schedule. The certificate of occupancy or completion is the other end of the same clock — one Town fee page lists it at $62.50 and the other at $50, which is one more reason to confirm figures directly.

Can a Huntington Remodel Raise Your Property Taxes?

An improvement can raise an assessment, and New York's Home Improvement Exemption under RPTL §421-f exists to soften it. The exemption is opt-in by locality, and the Town of Huntington adopted it by L.L. No. 1-1994, enacted January 25, 1994, limited to “eighty thousand ($80,000) dollars in increased market value, but not less than five thousand ($5,000) dollars.” Statewide, the exemption runs on an eight-year declining scale — 100%, 87.5%, 75%, 62.5%, 50%, 37.5%, 25%, then 12.5% — the improvement must exceed $3,000, and the greater portion of the improved building by square footage must be at least five years old. Ordinary maintenance and repairs do not qualify. A gut kitchen or bathroom in an older Huntington house clears the $3,000 floor without effort. Confirm eligibility and the current filing window with the Town of Huntington Assessor.

Where Does the Permit Sit in a Real Huntington Project?

Permits are a scheduling problem before they are a paperwork problem. In Huntington the plumbing permit governs the two moments that decide your timeline: rough-in and final. That means the fixture layout has to be settled before filing, not after demolition, because a moved drain after the rough inspection is a revision rather than a decision. For what the work itself costs, our planning ranges run from $12,000 for a bathroom surface refresh to $250,000 and up for high-end custom kitchen work — the detail sits in our Long Island bathroom remodel cost guide and our Long Island kitchen remodel cost guide. For how Huntington compares with the other nine Suffolk town departments, see bathroom remodeling in Suffolk County and kitchen remodeling in Suffolk County.

One more situation worth naming. When a bathroom or kitchen is being rebuilt after a failed supply line, a leaking shower pan or a burst pipe, the scope is set by what the water reached rather than by what you wanted to change. That work still needs the same Huntington filings, and it usually needs them faster. Greene Group Construction runs water damage restoration and insurance claims support as real service lines, so the team that documents the damage is the team that scopes and rebuilds, and the permit does not fall between two vendors. Structural work runs through our general contracting division.

Town of Huntington Remodeling Permit FAQ

Do I need a permit to replace a toilet in Huntington?
Read literally, yes. Town of Huntington Code §153-34(A) requires plumbing permits for the installation, repair, or modification of plumbing systems, and §153-34(B) makes it unlawful for a person to install, repair, service, or modify any plumbing system without benefit of a plumbing permit. Huntington publishes no minor-repair or fixture-swap exemption, which sets it apart from Brookhaven, Islip and Oyster Bay. Call the Building & Housing Division at (631) 351-2821 and ask how the department applies §153-34 to a like-for-like fixture replacement before you assume either answer.

Do I need a permit to remodel a kitchen in the Town of Huntington?
Any kitchen scope that touches plumbing needs a plumbing permit under Town Code §153-34(A), which names the installation, repair, or modification of plumbing systems as well as natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas piping. A gas line to a range is squarely inside that language. Structural work such as removing a wall or enlarging an opening is an alteration and uses the Town alteration application package. Huntington publishes no cosmetic-work exemption list and no kitchen guidance, so do not assume cabinets, tile or countertops are exempt here. Call (631) 351-2821 and describe your actual scope.

Do I need a permit to remodel a bathroom in the Town of Huntington?
A bathroom remodel is almost entirely plumbing work, and Town Code §153-34(A) requires a plumbing permit for the installation, repair, or modification of plumbing systems. Moving a toilet, adding a second sink or converting a tub to a curbless shower all involve new or modified piping. Huntington publishes no minor-repair exemption and no bathroom guidance, so the safe assumption is that a bathroom scope needs a permit. Confirm the current requirements with the Building & Housing Division before ordering materials.

What does a Town of Huntington building permit cost?
Huntington's two official fee pages disagree, and we will not pick a winner. One page lists a $50 non-refundable application fee for all Building & Housing permits, a $125 residential base permit fee, a $62.50 certificate of occupancy or completion, and says square footage from the submitted plans is used to calculate the permit fee. The other page lists a $100 minimum residential fee, a fee of seven ($7) dollars for each one thousand ($1,000) dollars of estimated construction costs or fraction thereof, and a $50 certificate of occupancy. Both cite Town Code §87-23. Call (631) 351-3126 to confirm before you budget.

What documents does a Town of Huntington alteration permit require?
As published in the Town's Requirements & Guidelines revised 9/1/2021, using application form 87-01: two completed Building Permit Applications signed by the property owner and notarized, not by the lessee; three recent complete surveys by a licensed land surveyor; three copies of the plot plan; three sets of construction drawings at a scale of not less than one quarter of an inch to one foot; workers' compensation form C-105.2 or U-26.3; a copy of the Suffolk County Home Improvement License photo ID; and one copy of a recent tax bill showing Section, Block and Lot. Both source documents predate the Town's 2023 online portal, so confirm whether online filing has superseded the paper multiples.

Do I need a Town of Huntington licence to do plumbing or electrical work?
Plumbing work must be performed by a Town of Huntington licensed master or limited plumber. The Town licence costs $95 to apply for and $150 for the licence itself after the practical exam. There is a narrow owner exemption: an owner may do the plumbing work without benefit of a license as long as the work is performed by the owner and not by the owner's contractor or other person. Huntington issues no town electrician licence. Its code instead says no person shall, for compensation, install, repair, alter or modify any electrical work in the Town of Huntington unless he meets the requirements of the Suffolk County Plumbing and Electrician Licensing Board.

How long does a Town of Huntington building permit take?
The Town of Huntington does not publish a permit turnaround time, and neither does any other jurisdiction on Long Island. A contractor quoting you a guaranteed number of days is inventing it. Huntington's permit expiry, extension and renewal terms sit in Chapter 87 of the Town Code, which we could not retrieve, so we do not publish a permit life for Huntington either. Ask the Building & Housing Division at (631) 351-2821 about the current queue and about how long your permit stays valid once issued.

Does the Town of Huntington issue permits in Northport, Asharoken, Huntington Bay or Lloyd Harbor?
No. Four incorporated villages sit inside the Town of Huntington: Asharoken, Huntington Bay, Lloyd Harbor and Northport. Each has its own elected mayor and board of trustees and runs its own review, and the Village of Northport is confirmed to operate its own building department. A homeowner inside any of the four files with the village, not with the Town. If you are unsure which side of the line your address falls on, your property tax bill is the practical test, because a village levies its own tax as a separate line.