REMODELING PERMITS
TOWN OF NORTH HEMPSTEAD, NY

North Hempstead Building Permit Requirements for Kitchens & Bathrooms

Why Does the Permit Answer Change From Town to Town?

Because New York State wrote it that way. 19 NYCRR 1203.3(a)(1) requires every authority having jurisdiction to require building permits for work that must conform to the Codes. It then lets localities exempt eight categories, the one mattering most to a remodel being “painting, wallpapering, tiling, carpeting, or other similar finish work.” The State mandates the permit and merely permits the exemption. Each jurisdiction decides whether to take that option, and whether to write its decision down.

North Hempstead is unusual on both counts: it takes the demanding end of nearly every discretionary choice available to it, and then publishes the choices. The Department of Building, Safety, Inspection & Enforcement at 176 Plandome Road, Manhasset, NY 11030 issues a Residential Building Permit Application Requirements sheet dated August 11, 2023, a Plumbing Permit Requirements sheet dated April 17, 2021, a gas permit sheet dated March 4, 2025, and electrical inspection agency qualifications updated February 6, 2025. Very few Long Island towns publish that much.

Do You Need a Permit to Remodel a Kitchen in North Hempstead?

Two published triggers decide most kitchens here, and both are broader than homeowners expect. The first is plumbing. The Town's Plumbing Permit Requirements state that “A plumbing permit is required for the installation of new/replacement plumbing fixtures or plumbing system alterations/extensions.” The word that does the work is replacement. A new sink dropped into the same cabinet run on the same supply and waste lines is a replacement fixture, and replacement fixtures are named in the trigger. A dishwasher, a pot filler and an island prep sink sit on the same side of the line.

The second is gas. The Town's gas permit sheet, dated March 4, 2025, covers the installation, modification or removal of existing gas appliances, gas-fired water heaters, gas-fired burners, and gas piping. Taking out an old gas range and setting a new one in its place is the removal of one existing gas appliance and the installation of another. A range swap is inside the gas permit trigger in North Hempstead.

North Hempstead does not publish an itemised list of exempt cosmetic work the way some Long Island towns do. Painting, cabinet fronts and a tile backsplash are the sort of finish work the State allows a locality to exempt, but this Town has published no document saying it has, and we are not going to tell you it has. Call the department with your scope.

Do You Need a Permit to Remodel a Bathroom in North Hempstead?

A bathroom packs more plumbing into less floor area than any other room, which is why the replacement-fixture wording matters more here than anywhere else in the house. A toilet, a tub, a shower valve or a vanity sink going back into a renovated bathroom is a replacement plumbing fixture, and moving any of them is a plumbing system alteration or extension. In practice, a bathroom renovation in North Hempstead is a plumbing permit job.

Then there is the requirement almost nobody sees coming. RESCheck is “required for all additions and renovations that affect the thermal envelope of the dwelling.” RESCheck is the residential energy code compliance report generated by the United States Department of Energy software of the same name, and the thermal envelope is the insulated boundary between conditioned and unconditioned space. A bathroom on an exterior wall is frequently on that boundary: open the wall, change the insulation, replace the window, and the renovation has touched it. Every addition touches it by definition. Most homeowners have never heard the word.

North Hempstead Permit Triggers, Kitchen and Bathroom Side by Side

Do You Need a Survey for an Interior Renovation in North Hempstead?

Usually not, and this is the most useful sentence on the page. North Hempstead requires a survey under Town Code § 2-9.G, then carves out an exception: a survey is “not required for projects such as interior alterations or renovations that do not alter or change the footprint, exterior shell.”

Read what that removes. A survey is ordinarily the slowest and most expensive single item in a Nassau County application package. It has to be ordered from a licensed land surveyor, scheduled and drawn, and unlike a set of plans it cannot be produced from inside the house. Some Suffolk departments want two or three original sealed surveys dated within a year before they will look at an alteration. North Hempstead, the strictest package in Nassau on almost every other axis, does not want one at all for a kitchen or bathroom inside the existing walls.

The boundary is footprint and exterior shell. Gutting a bathroom to the studs, moving fixtures within the room, taking down a non-bearing partition and rebuilding to a new layout all leave the footprint and the shell alone. Bumping a wall out three feet for a larger primary bath does not, and neither does a window opening cut where there was none. Where a scope sits on that line the determination belongs to the department, not to your contractor and not to this page.

What Does North Hempstead Want in the Application Package?

The Residential Building Permit Application Requirements sheet dated August 11, 2023 is the controlling document, and it is specific.

Two of those rows cost people time. The first is the seal. North Hempstead offers no hand-drawn-plan concession for small interior alterations the way some Suffolk towns do, so a licensed Professional Engineer or Registered Architect has to be engaged and paid before the application is complete — on a bathroom gut as much as on an addition.

The second is the insurance wording. X.C.U. stands for explosion, collapse and underground hazards — three exclusions a general liability policy commonly carries, particularly on a contractor's default certificate. North Hempstead will not accept a policy containing that exclusion, and it wants the Town added as Certificate Holder with completed operations coverage in place. Send that exact wording to your carrier early; insurance paperwork is the most common reason an otherwise complete package is sent back.

Who Is Allowed to Do the Work, and Who Files the Plumbing Permit?

North Hempstead stacks two licensing systems. Your general contractor must hold the Nassau County Home Improvement License, issued by the Nassau County Department of Consumer Affairs. Your plumber or electrician must additionally hold a current Town of North Hempstead License, and the Town wants a copy in the file. Those are separate credentials from separate authorities. Nassau County exempts plumbers and electricians from the county home improvement licence, so a plumber can legitimately have no county HIC number and still be exactly the person the Town requires.

Filing a plumbing permit is a shared act. The property owner signs the Owner's Authorization Form and the licensed plumber signs the Contractor's Affidavit. Neither signature alone completes the application. The Town also allows homeowners to “do plumbing work on their owner-occupied home,” but that route is gated: the homeowner must pass a competency test first.

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 Nassau County HIC #EF-65498 and Suffolk County HIC #HI-72958, and does not hold a Town of North Hempstead trade licence.

Which Electrical Inspection Agencies Does North Hempstead Accept?

The Town does not publish a named roster. What it publishes instead, updated February 6, 2025, is the qualification standard an agency must meet, with approval granted case by case by the Building Commissioner and the Board of Electrical Examiners.

The standard itself is the interesting part. An agency must carry $5 million per person for bodily injury, $10 million per accident and $10 million for property damage, with the Town named as additional insured, and it pays $100 to apply, $400 on approval and $250 for annual renewal. Ten million dollars of accident coverage is a serious barrier to entry for a small firm, and it tells you how the Town views the risk behind an electrical certificate. Ask the department which agencies it currently accepts before your electrician books an inspection.

What Does a North Hempstead Permit Cost?

North Hempstead publishes the best fee detail in Nassau County. The figures below come from Town documents dated between 2023 and 2025. Confirm the current schedule before you budget; these are the amounts as published.

Two features are worth pausing on. The under-$15,000 formula prices small jobs on declared construction cost rather than the flat application fee, so a modest bathroom refit and a full kitchen are not charged alike. And the “maintain” multiplier is the Town's legalization penalty: filing to legalize work already performed costs twice the normal fee. That bill usually arrives during a sale or a refinance. Paying twice for a $250.00 application is not the expensive part — opening finished walls to prove what is behind them is.

Applications run through MyToNH at mytonh.com, the Town's Citizenserve-based portal.

How Long Does a North Hempstead Permit Take?

The Town does not publish a turnaround time. Neither does any other Long Island jurisdiction we have examined, in either county. A contractor quoting you a guaranteed number of days for a North Hempstead permit is inventing it, because there is no published figure to quote.

North Hempstead vs Oyster Bay: The Same Toilet, Two Different Answers

The two towns share a border and do not share a rule. North Hempstead's published trigger names “new/replacement plumbing fixtures.” The Town of Oyster Bay's code, at § 180-22B(1), goes the other way: “Repairs to existing plumbing or drainage systems or the replacing of existing fixtures may be made without filing an application or obtaining a permit” — though not where soil, waste, vent or house drain piping is installed. The identical job, a toilet pulled and a new one set on the same flange, reads as permit-required in North Hempstead and permit-exempt under the Oyster Bay code text. Our Town of Oyster Bay permits page covers that side, including a conflict between the code exemption and the Town's own portal.

What If Your Address Is Inside an Incorporated Village?

Then the Town is not your building department, and everything above describes somebody else's rules. North Hempstead states that it administers the codes “within the unincorporated areas of the Town.” Roughly 30 incorporated villages sit inside its boundaries, each with its own building department, application, fee schedule and often its own trade licences. We publish no named list, because the enumerated lists do not reconcile across sources.

There is no single official “which Nassau village am I in?” address lookup, and that absence is the root of the confusion. Three things work. Your property tax bill is the definitive practical test: villages levy their own taxes, so a separate village tax line means you are in that village. The Nassau County Land Records Viewer at lrv.nassaucountyny.gov is searchable by address and integrates assessment roll data with district information and county GIS; the district information is where the answer lives. Or call the Town at 516-869-7660 — if the answer is “not us,” they will tell you which village it is.

Can a Kitchen or Bathroom Remodel Raise Your North Hempstead Property Taxes?

An improvement can raise an assessment, and New York's Home Improvement Exemption under RPTL § 421-f softens the increase: 100% of the increase is exempt in year one, declining 12.5 percentage points a year across years two through eight. The improvement must exceed $3,000, the greater portion of the building by square footage must be at least five years old, ordinary maintenance does not qualify, and the exemption is opt-in by locality. The Town of North Hempstead has adopted it, under Local Law 93-15.

We are not publishing a dollar figure for what the exemption is worth in Nassau County. The statute was amended effective January 1, 2026, when the $750,000 special-assessing-unit provision was repealed, and published local figures have not uniformly caught up. Call Nassau County Assessment at (516) 571-1500 to confirm the current amount and the filing window. This is general information, not tax, legal or code advice.

What Does the Work Itself Cost, and Who Handles It?

Permit fees are a small line inside a much larger number. Our published planning ranges run from about $12,000 for a surface bathroom refresh to $250,000 and above for high-end custom kitchen work; the detail sits in our Long Island kitchen remodel cost guide and bathroom remodel cost guide. For how this Town sits alongside the rest of Nassau — three towns, two cities, 64 villages — see kitchen remodeling in Nassau County and bathroom remodeling in Nassau County.

Permit questions get urgent in one scenario. When a bathroom or kitchen is rebuilt after a failed supply line or a leaking shower pan, the damage rarely stops at the finishes, and the subfloor, joists and ceiling below need assessing before anyone talks about tile. Greene Group Construction runs water damage restoration and insurance claims support as real service lines, so documentation, mitigation and the rebuild sit under one contract. Structural work runs through our general contracting division, and debris leaves with our own junk removal and cleanout crews.

Town of North Hempstead Remodeling Permit FAQ

What are the Town of North Hempstead building permit requirements for a kitchen or bathroom remodel?
North Hempstead runs the most demanding published package in Nassau County. Its Residential Building Permit Application Requirements, dated August 11, 2023, call for construction drawings carrying the seal and original signature of a New York State Licensed Professional Engineer or a Registered Architect, a RESCheck energy report for any renovation or addition affecting the thermal envelope, the Nassau County Home Improvement License for the general contractor, a current Town of North Hempstead License for the plumber or electrician, and general liability insurance with completed operations naming the Town as Certificate Holder. Confirm your scope with the department at 516-869-7660.

Do I need a survey for an interior renovation in North Hempstead?
Usually not. North Hempstead requires a survey under Town Code section 2-9.G, but its own application requirements state that a survey is not required for projects such as interior alterations or renovations that do not alter or change the footprint, exterior shell. A kitchen or bathroom remodel inside the existing walls normally falls inside that exception. A survey is the slowest and most expensive single item in a Nassau application package, so this exception is worth confirming with the department before you order one.

Does replacing a toilet, sink or vanity require a North Hempstead plumbing permit?
Yes, on the published wording. The Town Plumbing Permit Requirements dated April 17, 2021 state that a plumbing permit is required for the installation of new or replacement plumbing fixtures or plumbing system alterations and extensions. Replacement is named directly, so a like-for-like swap is inside the trigger. That is stricter than the neighbouring Town of Oyster Bay, whose code exempts repairs to existing plumbing and the replacing of existing fixtures from the permit requirement.

What is RESCheck and does my North Hempstead kitchen or bathroom remodel need one?
RESCheck is the residential energy code compliance report produced by the United States Department of Energy software of the same name. North Hempstead requires it for all additions and renovations that affect the thermal envelope of the dwelling. The thermal envelope is the insulated boundary between conditioned and unconditioned space, so a bathroom or kitchen on an exterior wall where insulation, windows or exterior sheathing are opened up can pull the requirement in, and an addition always does. Most homeowners have never heard of it and it is a common reason a first submission comes back.

Who is allowed to do plumbing and electrical work in the Town of North Hempstead?
The Town requires that plumbers or electricians provide a copy of their current Town of North Hempstead License, while the general contractor holds the Nassau County Home Improvement License. The two are separate credentials and one does not substitute for the other. Property owners may do plumbing work on their own owner-occupied home, but the Town requires them to pass a competency test first. Greene Group Construction holds Nassau County HIC number EF-65498 and Suffolk County HIC number HI-72958 and does not hold a Town trade licence.

What does a Town of North Hempstead building permit cost?
North Hempstead publishes the clearest fee figures in Nassau County. On documents dated between 2023 and 2025, the standard building permit application fee is $250.00, and projects under $15,000 are charged $50.00 plus $14.00 per $1,000 of construction cost. A residential plumbing permit is $50.00 initial. A residential gas permit is $50.00 for a unit installation and $64.00 for piping. Maintain applications, meaning legalization of work already performed, are charged at twice the normal fee. Credit card payments carry a 2.95% surcharge and e-check payments $1.75. Confirm the current schedule at 516-869-7660.

Which electrical inspection agencies does North Hempstead accept?
The Town does not publish a named roster. It publishes qualification requirements instead, updated February 6, 2025, and agencies are approved case by case by the Building Commissioner and the Board of Electrical Examiners. The bar is high: an agency must carry $5 million per person for bodily injury, $10 million per accident and $10 million for property damage, with the Town as additional insured, and it pays $100 to apply, $400 on approval and $250 for annual renewal. Ask the department at 516-869-7660 which agencies it currently accepts for your job.

I have a Great Neck mailing address. Do I file with the Town of North Hempstead?
Not necessarily, and this is the single best illustration of the problem in Nassau County. The Town states that it administers the codes within the unincorporated areas of the Town, and roughly 30 incorporated villages sit inside its boundaries, each running its own building department. Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kensington, Kings Point, Lake Success, Russell Gardens, Saddle Rock and Thomaston are nine separate incorporated villages that largely share Great Neck mailing addresses. A mailing address is not a jurisdiction. The practical test is your property tax bill: villages levy their own tax as a separate line.