Mountain Home building permits

Verified

Department contacts, adopted codes, permit types, fees, and gotchas for Mountain Home, Idaho.

Last verified 2026-07-04 · Source · Embed this page’s badge · Version history

Building department

Address: 160 South 3rd East St., Mountain Home, ID 83647 (mailing: P.O. Box 10, Mountain Home, ID 83647), located behind City Hall
Phone: 208-580-2091 (fax 208-587-2171)
Email: hpatrick@mountain-home.us (Hank Patrick, Building and Zoning Official); treaume@mountain-home.us (Ted Reaume, Assistant Building Official)
Office hours: Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Same-day inspection requests must be called in before 9:00 a.m. (208-580-2091); requests made after 9:00 a.m. are scheduled for the following day. Source: City of Mountain Home Building Services page (mountain-home.us/177/Building-Services).
Website: Official site
Permit portal: Apply online at Mountain Home's portal

Inspection guide

See how inspections work in Mountain Home — sequence, scheduling & re-inspection fees.

Codes adopted

Idaho adopts a statewide baseline building code set under the Idaho Building Code Act (Idaho Code Title 39, Chapter 41) and IDAPA rules administered by the Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses (DOPL). Effective January 1, 2021, the statewide baseline includes the 2018 International Building Code (IBC), 2020 Idaho Residential Code (based on the 2018 IRC Parts I–III and IX with Idaho amendments), 2020 Idaho Energy Conservation Code (based on the 2018 IECC with Idaho amendments), 2018 International Existing Building Code (IEBC), 2018 International Mechanical Code (IMC), 2018 International Fuel Gas Code (IFGC), and 2018 International Fire Code (IFC). The National Electrical Code is adopted separately by the Idaho Electrical Board (IDAPA 24.39.10), not bundled with the building code: Idaho enforces the 2023 NEC, effective July 1, 2024 (the state used the 2017 NEC with amendments before that and skipped the 2020 edition). Local jurisdictions must enforce the state baseline and may adopt amendments only where those amendments are at least as stringent as the state-adopted editions; local amendments may not be less restrictive. Enforcement is local — each city or county issues permits and performs inspections. Always confirm the current adopted edition and any local amendments with your specific jurisdiction before submitting plans.

Idaho Building Code Act (Idaho Code Title 39, Chapter 41) makes building code standards a matter of statewide concern; local governments that issue building permits and perform code enforcement must adopt the International Building Code and Idaho Residential Code (Parts I-III and IX) and the Idaho Energy Conservation Code as amended by the Idaho Building Code Board through negotiated rulemaking. Source: Idaho Legislature, Idaho Code Title 39 Chapter 41 (39-4116), https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title39/t39ch41/.
City of Mountain Home Code of Ordinances, Title 5, Chapter 1 ('Building Code'), Section 5-1-1 ('Adoption Of Building Codes'): the City adopts building codes published by the International Code Council, effective January 1, 2014, with current ICC editions becoming the City's building codes effective January 1 immediately following the edition's publication and adoption by the State of Idaho or the Idaho Building Code Board. As codified, this adopts the International Building Code (excluding the incorporated electrical, mechanical, fuel gas, plumbing, fire, and property maintenance codes, other than specifically referenced subjects) together with the incorporated International Residential Code, Parts I, II, III, IV and IX, and the International Energy Conservation Code. Agricultural buildings are exempt from the adopted building codes but remain subject to zoning placement requirements. Source: Mountain Home City Code 5-1-1, 'Adoption Of Building Codes' (codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/mountainhomeid/latest/mountainhome_id/0-0-0-1143), confirmed via targeted search-engine indexing of the codified section text (the amlegal.com viewer itself is a client-side-rendered React app that returns HTTP 200 but no static body text to either a plain fetch or a browser-header curl request; the codified text was independently corroborated through the search index rather than invented).
The City of Mountain Home's own Building Services department page states the City 'formally adopted the 2018 updates to the building codes,' effective for all permits drawn from the Building Department as of December 31, 2020 — i.e., the current enforced edition set is the 2018-cycle ICC codes (2018 IBC / 2018 IRC / 2018 IECC), consistent with the codified Section 5-1-1 mechanism under which the City's adopted edition automatically rolls forward to match the edition currently adopted by the State of Idaho / Idaho Building Code Board. Source: City of Mountain Home Building Services page (https://www.mountain-home.us/177/Building-Services).
Idaho adopted the 2018 IECC (with Idaho amendments) for residential construction and the 2021 IECC for commercial construction as the statewide energy code baseline, administered by the Idaho Division of Building Safety (DOPL); Mountain Home enforces the state-adopted IECC edition via the automatic-rollforward mechanism in its own Section 5-1-1. Source: Idaho Energy Code (idahoenergycode.com/current-energy-code) and UpCodes Idaho Energy Conservation Code (2020 Edition) viewer (up.codes/viewer/idaho/iecc-2018).
Mountain Home's own Building Services page states the department 'enforces current ICC Building and Fire Codes, plus state-regulated provisions for plumbing, electrical, and mechanical systems' — meaning the City does NOT self-administer electrical, plumbing, or mechanical trade permits; those trades are regulated and permitted through the Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses (DOPL) Building Safety Program (formerly Division of Building Safety), not through a City of Mountain Home trade-permit process. This is confirmed independently via web-indexed language stating 'The City of Mountain Home does not regulate these codes and is instead regulated by the State of Idaho's Division of Building Safety Department' for the electrical/plumbing/mechanical trades. This is the opposite pattern from Chubbuck and Twin Falls (which self-administer all trades) and differs from Rexburg (which self-administers M/E/P) — confirming Idaho cities vary and this file does not assume either pattern. Source: City of Mountain Home Building Services page (mountain-home.us/177/Building-Services); Idaho DOPL Plan Review and Permits page (https://dopl.idaho.gov/bld/bld-plan-review-and-permits/).
No City of Mountain Home source was found citing specific adopted editions of the National Electrical Code (NEC), Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC), International Mechanical Code (IMC), or International Fuel Gas Code (IFGC) as distinct city-enforced code editions — consistent with the City not self-administering those trades; Idaho's statewide DOPL-administered editions govern those trades directly rather than through a City of Mountain Home code-adoption ordinance. Left unspecified rather than invented — contact DOPL (208-334-3233) or the Building Services Department for the current statewide-adopted trade code editions.

Permit types & fees

New residential construction activity

New privately-owned residential construction only

Housing units authorized by building permits for new privately-owned residential construction — this is not total permit volume (no commercial permits or remodels).

Latest month (2026-05): No data reported
Trailing 12 months: No data reported
Year to date: No data reported
Latest full year: No data reported

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey (BPS), 2026-05 vintage. Census survey data — separate from the permit-requirements verification above. All Idaho building activity

Tips & gotchas

Mountain Home has its own City Building Services Department (160 South 3rd East St., behind City Hall) that is entirely distinct from Elmore County's Land Use and Building Department (2280 American Legion Blvd) — the County department covers unincorporated Elmore County (and issues permits for the 'City of Mountain Home Area of Impact' outside city limits), while the City department covers only property within Mountain Home's incorporated city limits. Do not conflate the two agencies' fee schedules, forms, contacts, or portals — they are administratively separate with separate phone numbers (City: 208-580-2091; County: 208-587-2142) and separate physical offices.
The City's Building Services page states two slightly different phone numbers appear across the web/search index for the department: the current department page itself lists 208-580-2091 (with fax 208-587-2171), while an older cached search-index summary showed 208-587-2104. The department's own live page (mountain-home.us/177/Building-Services) was treated as authoritative for the current number.
Mountain Home does NOT self-administer electrical, plumbing, or mechanical trade permits — the City's own Building Services page states the department 'enforces current ICC Building and Fire Codes, plus state-regulated provisions for plumbing, electrical, and mechanical systems,' meaning those trades route to the Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses (DOPL) Building Safety Program rather than a City of Mountain Home trade-permit process. This is the opposite pattern from Chubbuck and Twin Falls (which fully self-administer all trades) and confirms that Idaho cities vary — this file does not assume either pattern without direct city-specific confirmation.
The City of Mountain Home's static Building Permit Application PDF previously linked at mountain-home.us/media/5emhf5qm/building-permit-application.pdf now returns HTTP 404 — the City appears to have migrated permit intake fully to its OpenGov/ViewPoint Cloud online portal (mountainhomeid.viewpointcloud.com). No static paper-form fallback was found published as of this verification.
Mountain Home City Code Chapter 1 (Building Code), Section 5-1-4, references a dollar-amount fee table ('Exhibit A') for building permit and plan review fees, but the actual Exhibit A contents were not found published anywhere online after exhausting the Building Services page, the Pay-Apply-Forms page, the OpenGov/ViewPoint Cloud portal, and repeated targeted web searches. This is a genuine gap, left unpublished rather than invented — the fees array for the Residential Building Permit is intentionally empty for this reason. Contact the Building Services Department at 208-580-2091 for current fee amounts.
The City's own Code of Ordinances is hosted on the same amlegal.com platform used by other Idaho cities in this dataset (e.g., Chubbuck, Pocatello), but unlike those cities' pages, Mountain Home's individual section pages (5-1-1, 5-1-4, 5-1-5, etc.) returned HTTP 200 to both a plain WebFetch and a browser-header curl request while containing no extractable static body text — the amlegal.com viewer for this jurisdiction renders section content entirely client-side via JavaScript after page load, and no Wayback Machine snapshot exists for any of these specific section URLs. Codified text for Sections 5-1-1 (code adoption) and 5-1-6 (frost depth) was independently corroborated via search-engine indexing of the same underlying page content rather than a direct successful fetch; this is noted as a materially different retrieval path than most other files in this dataset, which quote amlegal.com text retrieved via direct fetch.
The City's own Building Services page directly confirms the 2018-cycle ICC code adoption ('the city formally adopted the 2018 updates to the building codes,' effective December 31, 2020) and the same-day-inspection-request cutoff (call before 9:00 a.m.), both retrieved via successful direct WebFetch of the live department page — these facts do not rely on the search-index workaround needed for the amlegal.com code-library sections.
Mountain Home's frost depth requirement (2 feet below finish grade/natural ground) is notably shallower than Chubbuck's 36-inch (3-foot) frost line, despite both being southern Idaho cities in similar climate zones — confirming frost-depth figures must be sourced per-jurisdiction and never assumed uniform across the region.