# Florida's $7,500 Permit Exemption and Collier Pool Work

> Collier County caps its permit exemption at $7,500 and excludes structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and gas work. Most pool jobs fall outside it.

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# Florida's New $7,500 Permit Exemption and What It Does Not Cover in Collier County
It is the rule everyone in Naples has heard about and almost nobody has read. The Florida $7,500 permit exemption is real, it is published on Collier County's own site, and it is far narrower than the version circulating online.
**Clayton Waggoner**, Owner and Managing Member · Published August 13, 2026 · 18 min read

In this article
Collier County publishes the exemption in its own words: certain qualifying work valued under $7500.00 will be exempt from building permits (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [1](#ref-1). The same page then removes almost every pool job from it. The work may not include any structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing or gas [1](#ref-1), and the property may not be in a flood hazard area [1](#ref-1). A pump swap is mechanical and electrical. A light is electrical.
The short version
I. Collier County caps the exemption at work valued under $7,500 and applies it only to single family detached structures, in the county's own published words.
II. The same page excludes structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and gas work, which between them cover the pump, the heater, the lights, the pipe and the shell.
III. A property in a flood hazard area cannot use the exemption at all, so a Collier address can settle the question before anyone reads the scope.
IV. The exemption is not a skip. It is a written request carrying the contract, reviewed by county staff, and approved by issuing a letter of exemption.
V. Dividing one project into two to get under the cap is named on the county page and prohibited, and the Florida Building Code closes the same gap from above.
VI. Florida changed its building permit law in 2026, and Collier County publishes a $7,500 exemption. No source we could find connects the two, so this article keeps them apart.
VII. All of this is unincorporated Collier County. The City of Naples and the City of Marco Island run their own building departments and were not verified for this post.

I.

## What does Collier County's $7,500 permit exemption actually say?
Collier County Growth Management Community Development publishes it on a page called Work Exempt from Permit, or PRAD. The county states that certain qualifying work valued under $7500.00 will be exempt from building permits, and that this exemption applies only to single family detached structures. That is the county speaking, not a forum thread.
The page carries a retrieval date rather than a publication date, and it was read on 13 August 2026. The sentence that carries the cap reads, in full, that certain qualifying work valued under $7500.00 will be exempt from building permits (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [1](#ref-1). That is the county's own formatting of the figure. It is a valuation threshold applied to the work. It is not a fee, not a discount, and not a category of work that is inherently permit free.
The second limit arrives a line later. This exemption applies only to single family detached structures (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [1](#ref-1). A condominium unit is not a single family detached structure. Neither is a villa sharing a party wall. For some addresses in this county the question is settled at that sentence, before anything about the pool has been considered at all.
Two things follow from reading the county page rather than a summary of it. The exemption is real, and Collier County publishes it. Everything that narrows it is published on the same page, in the same voice, a few lines below. Nobody has to take a contractor's word for any of this, and nobody has to take ours. The page is public and it is short.
The word valued is doing quiet work in that first sentence. The threshold attaches to the value of the work rather than to a description of it, which means two jobs that look identical in scope can land on opposite sides of the line, and it means the value has to be established by something rather than asserted. Collier County's process asks for the contract. That is the part most people who have heard about the exemption have not heard about.
What Collier County publishes on its Work Exempt from Permit page, retrieved 13 August 2026 [1]
The published condition What it means for a pool job
Work valued under $7,500 A valuation threshold applied to the work, not a description of the work
Single family detached structures only A condominium or an attached villa sits outside it regardless of scope
No structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing or gas work The pump, the heater, the lights, the pipe and the shell are all named categories
Not in a flood hazard area Decided by the address, not by what is being done to the pool
No dividing a project to evade the requirement Two contracts for one job is named on the page as evasion
A written request, reviewed, answered by a letter of exemption An application with a different output, not the absence of an application

II.

## Does the exemption cover electrical, plumbing, mechanical or gas work on a pool?
No. Collier County states that the work may not include any structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing or gas (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [1](#ref-1). Read that against a pool. A pump is mechanical and electrical. A light is electrical. Re-piping is plumbing. A heater tie-in is gas. Shell work is structural. Those five categories are most of what a pool job is.
Take the jobs homeowners actually ask about. Replacing a pump means disconnecting and reconnecting a motor on a circuit and cutting into the suction and return lines, which is mechanical, electrical and plumbing in one afternoon. Replacing a light means a niche, a conduit run and a bonding connection. Replacing a heater means a gas supply or a dedicated electrical supply, and usually a plumbing tie-in and a control connection as well. Resurfacing means the shell, and the moment a concealed pipe is opened it means plumbing too.
Collier County proves the point with its own permit structure rather than with an argument. Electrical is a separate application type with its own requirements page, and the county asks applicants to categorize the nature of the work being done as alteration or remodel (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [3](#ref-3). Gas piping is a separate type again, and it asks for a plan showing the BTU rating of each appliance served, the type of pipe to be used, the size and length of pipe to each appliance, the layout, demand load, inlet pressure, and pressure drop (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [4](#ref-4).
A county that publishes a dedicated application type for electrical work, and another for gas piping, has already told you what it thinks those trades are. They are permitted work. The exemption page and the permit pages agree with each other, and the reading that puts them in conflict is the one circulating online.
So the practical question is not whether your job is small enough. It is whether the scope touches any of the five named categories, because if it does then the cap never comes into play at all. That question is answerable from a written scope before anyone quotes it, and it is why a [pool equipment pad rebuild](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-equipment-pad-rebuild-naples/) lands squarely inside the excluded categories no matter how modest the parts list looks.
This is also the sentence worth taking to a contractor. Ask which of the five categories the work touches, and ask for the answer against the scope rather than against the total. A scope that touches none of them is unusual on a pool. A scope that touches three is ordinary.
The trade-by-trade read

### Five words that cover most of a pool
Structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and gas. A pump is two of them. A heater is often three. A resurface that opens a concealed pipe is two. The exclusion list is not a technicality at the edge of pool work, it is a description of the middle of it.

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing in one place. The exclusion list is a description of this. III.

## Can I use the exemption if my property is in a flood hazard area?
No. Collier County states that the property where the work is located may not be in a flood hazard area (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [1](#ref-1). That is a condition on the address, not on the work, so it can settle the question before the scope is read. We are not going to guess whether yours qualifies. The county publishes a lookup.
You will find pages that tell you what share of Collier County sits inside a flood hazard area. This is not going to be one of them. We could not find that figure published by a source we are willing to stand behind, and a number invented for an article is worse than no number at all when it is the thing deciding whether you need a permit.
Collier County Floodplain Management publishes the answer for your specific parcel instead. The county adopted a new coastal flood map effective 8 February 2024 and hosts a local DFIRM viewer where a single address can be checked directly (Collier County Floodplain Management, 2024) [5](#ref-5). That check costs nothing and takes about a minute, and it is the first thing to do rather than the last.
The 2024 map matters because it moved. The county describes it as including changes that may have occurred in the flood hazards and risks throughout the County since the last flood hazard map was published in 2012 (Collier County Floodplain Management, 2024) [5](#ref-5). If the last time anyone looked up your address was under the old map, the answer you are carrying around is stale. The exemption question is not the only thing that turns on it, but it is the one in front of you today.
This is where a Collier County address stops being a formality. Canal lots, barrier island lots and lots behind seawalls are ordinary here rather than exceptional, and the flood map is the reason a job that clears every other condition can still fall outside the exemption. The order to work in is address first, then scope. The address answer is free and instant. The scope answer takes a conversation.

On a Collier County canal lot the address can answer the question before the scope does. IV.

## How do you actually get the exemption, and what does the county issue?
By asking for it in writing. Collier County takes a written request carrying the contract for the work, and states that the request will be reviewed by County staff and if approved a letter of exemption will be issued (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [1](#ref-1). That is an application with a different output, not the absence of an application.
Almost everything written about this exemption describes it as permission to not do something. Collier County describes it as something to do. There is a request. The request carries the contract for the work, so the county can see the value that puts the job under the cap. Staff review it. The answer arrives as a document.
That document is the point, and it is the part the online version leaves out entirely. A letter of exemption is evidence, held by you, that the county looked at this specific job at this specific address and agreed it did not need a permit. An assumption is not evidence. When the house sells, when an insurer asks, or when a later contractor opens a wall and finds work nobody can account for, the difference between a letter and an assumption is the whole difference.
The valuation is not yours to declare and forget either. The contract establishes it, which is why the process asks for the contract rather than for a number on a form. A job priced to sit just under a threshold, with the rest of the work moved onto a second document, is the exact pattern the next section is about.
None of this makes the exemption useless. It makes it a different route through the same building department, with a narrower gate at the front and a paperwork trail at the end. That is worth knowing before you sign, and it is not what the version circulating online describes.
V.

## Can a job be split into two smaller jobs to stay under the cap?
No, and the county names the tactic rather than leaving it to inference. Collier County states that a construction project may not be divided into more than one project for the purpose of evading the requirements of this exemption (Collier County Growth Management Community Development, retrieved 2026) [1](#ref-1). If somebody proposes two contracts for one job, that sentence is the answer.
That sentence exists because the idea is obvious. Any valuation threshold invites it, and the county wrote the counter into the rule at the same time it wrote the rule. What matters for a homeowner is that the proposal usually does not originate with you. It arrives from whoever would like the work to start on Monday.
There is a layer above the county, and it closes the same gap from the other direction. The Florida Building Code provides that exemptions from permit requirements of this code shall not be deemed to grant authorization for any work to be done in any manner in violation of the provisions of this code (Florida Building Commission, 2015) [2](#ref-2). An exemption removes the permit. It does not remove the code, and it does not remove the consequences of not meeting it.
The same code section is specific about pipe, which is where pool work meets it most often. It provides that if any concealed trap, drain pipe, water, soil, waste or vent pipe becomes defective and it becomes necessary to remove and replace the same with new material, such work shall be considered as new work and a permit shall be obtained and inspection made as provided in this code (Florida Building Commission, 2015) [2](#ref-2).
Read those two together and the shape of the thing is clear. The county rule sets a narrow gate. The state rule stands behind it and says that walking around the gate does not change what the work has to meet. One job split into two is still one job, and concealed pipe replaced during a resurface is still new work.
That is why scope, not total, is the thing to establish first. Whether the job is [pool resurfacing](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-resurfacing-naples/) in the narrow sense, or a project that reaches the pipe, the lights and the equipment pad, is the question that decides the permit. It is answerable from a written scope, and it is the first thing established on any [pool remodeling in Naples](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-remodeling-naples/) project.
VI.

## Did a new Florida law create the $7,500 figure?
Two things are separately true and this article keeps them apart. Florida changed its building permit law in 2026: CS/CS/HB 803, Building Permits and Inspections, became Chapter Law 2026-63 with an effective date of 1 July 2026 (Florida Senate, 2026) [6](#ref-6). Collier County publishes a $7,500 exemption on its own page [1](#ref-1). The bill page states no dollar threshold.
You will see those two facts written as one sentence, usually in the form of a new Florida law that makes work under a certain figure permit free. We are not going to write it that way, because we could not find a source that joins them. The Florida Senate's bill page for CS/CS/HB 803 records the title, the approval, the chapter law number and the effective date (Florida Senate, 2026) [6](#ref-6). It does not state a dollar figure anywhere.
The dollar figure comes from Collier County's own page, in Collier County's own words, and that is where it has been cited throughout this article [1](#ref-1). Whether the county published it because of the 2026 legislation, before it, or independently of it is a question we cannot answer from a primary source. So we have not answered it, and you should be wary of anyone who does without showing you the document.
This is not pedantry, and it changes what you do next. If you believe a state law grants you the exemption directly, you will assume it works identically at every Florida address, and it does not follow that it does. What can be shown to you is what Collier County publishes for unincorporated Collier County, which is the page a Collier homeowner has to satisfy regardless of where the rule originated.
It also changes who you argue with and about what. A contractor telling you the state has made this job permit free is describing a chain of reasoning rather than a document. Ask which page says it. If the answer is Collier County's Work Exempt from Permit page, you can read that page yourself in five minutes, and every condition in the table above is on it.
There is a version of this article that would have read better and been wrong. It would have opened with a bill number, a date and a dollar sign in the same sentence, and it would have been the most confident page on the subject in this market. Confidence is not the same as sourcing, and on a question that decides whether you are working with or without a permit, the difference is worth the duller paragraph.
VII.

## Does any of this apply in the City of Naples or on Marco Island?
No. Everything above is Collier County's own published requirement for unincorporated Collier County. The City of Naples and the City of Marco Island run their own building departments and their own permitting, and their requirements were not verified for this post. If your address is inside either city, confirm the exemption with that city's building department before you rely on any of it.
That paragraph is doing more work than it looks like it is doing. Collier County, the City of Naples and the City of Marco Island are three permitting authorities rather than one, and an article that quotes the county page and then addresses every reader in the Naples area has quietly changed jurisdiction halfway through. A great deal of what is written about this exemption does exactly that.
If you are inside either city, the thing to ask for by name is that city's own work exempt from permit process. Does the city have one? What is its threshold? What does it exclude? What document do you receive if it is approved? Those are the four questions this article answers for unincorporated Collier County, and they are four questions a city building department can answer in a single call.
The pool work does not change at the city line. The permitting authority does. If your address is on the island, [pool work on Marco Island](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-remodeling-marco-island/) is where the island specifics live, and inside the old city grid [pool work in Old Naples](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-remodeling-old-naples/) covers that ground. Neither page carries a permitting rule we have not read at the source, and neither will.
The question that decides your permit is what the scope actually touches, and that is answerable before anyone quotes. Read the contract line by line for the words structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and gas. Check your own address on the county's flood map. Between those two you will know which route you are on before the first number is discussed.
If the answer turns out to be that the job is a permitted job, that is not a setback. It is the same work with an inspection at the end of it, and on a [pool remodeling in Naples](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-remodeling-naples/) project the inspection is the part that survives the sale of the house. The rest of this series works through the questions sitting underneath this one, and [the rest of the Collier County pool guides](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/blog/) covers the diagnostic side alongside it.

"The exemption is not permission to skip the process. It is a different application, with a different document at the end of it."

Ask Clayton

## Questions this article usually prompts
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** **Clayton Waggoner** *Owner and Managing Member · Splash Pools* Online
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If this is the situation you are in
[Pool remodeling in Naples, handled as one project →](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-remodeling-naples/)[Pool resurfacing in Naples, including the part everyone skips →](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-resurfacing-naples/)[Equipment pad rebuilds, so the next repair is a part swap →](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-equipment-pad-rebuild-naples/)[Pool repair in Naples, diagnosed before it is quoted →](https://www.splashpoolsllc.com/pool-repair-naples/)
References

- [Collier County Growth Management Community Development, Work Exempt from Permit (PRAD), retrieved 13 August 2026](https://www.collier.gov/Business-Resources/Building-Permits-Construction/Application-Requirements/PRAD)
- [Florida Building Commission and Florida DBPR, Staff Analysis DS 2015-080, quoting Florida Building Code section 105.2 (2015)](https://www.floridabuilding.org/fbc/commission/fbc_0815/DEC_Statements/Staff_Analysis_DS2015-080.htm)
- [Collier County Growth Management Community Development, Electrical (PREL) application requirements, retrieved 13 August 2026](https://www.collier.gov/Business-Resources/Building-Permits-Construction/Application-Requirements/PREL)
- [Collier County Growth Management Community Development, Gas (PRGS) application requirements, retrieved 13 August 2026](https://www.collier.gov/Business-Resources/Building-Permits-Construction/Application-Requirements/PRGS)
- [Collier County Floodplain Management, 2024 Coastal Flood Map effective 8 February 2024, and the county DFIRM lookup](https://www.collier.gov/Business-Resources/Floodplain-Management)
- [Florida Senate, CS/CS/HB 803 Building Permits and Inspections, Chapter Law 2026-63, effective 1 July 2026](https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2026/803)
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