Unincorporated Fremont County building permits

Tips & gotchas

• Fremont County's own Planning Department page states verbatim, 'Fremont County does not have any County-wide Zoning or County specific Building Codes, except the following' — followed by the two real exceptions (septic/small wastewater permits, and floodplain zoning near Lander/Riverton/Dubois/Hudson). This is confirmed independently by the WSFM 'LOCAL AND STATE JURISDICTIONS' chart, which marks Fremont County's BLDG INSP/PR columns S/S (state) at the unincorporated-county level — the county never took general building-code delegation under W.S. § 35-9-121. There is NO county building permit, NO county building inspector, and NO county-issued Certificate of Occupancy for private construction in unincorporated Fremont County. Both sources cited directly, live, 2026-07-01.
• DO NOT CONFUSE with the City of Riverton: Riverton is a separate incorporated municipality within Fremont County with its own full building department, its own adopted 2024 ICC code family, its own electrical program (Municipal Code Ch. 15.08), and its own fee schedule (Resolution No. 1355) — see the separate 'riverton-wy' jurisdiction page. This LEAN page covers ONLY property outside the limits of Riverton and the county's other incorporated towns (Lander, Dubois, Hudson, Shoshoni, Pavillion, South Pass City).
• WIND RIVER RESERVATION NOTE (grounded on the county's own site): the county's Building Codes page states the Wind River Reservation is 'Zoned Residential/Agricultural' and that 'Reservation Zoning is administered by the Intertribal Business council, (307) 332-6625' — NOT by Fremont County. If a parcel is within the Wind River Reservation boundary, this county-level guidance does not apply; contact the Eastern Shoshone/Northern Arapaho Tribes' Intertribal Business Council or the applicable BIA/Tribal authority directly for permitting jurisdiction.
• South Pass City has its own Historic Zoning governing building appearance (available at the Fremont County Planning Office) — a narrow, geographically-limited exception to the general 'no building code' baseline, distinct from the Wind River Reservation carve-out.
• REAL EXCEPTIONS THAT DO APPLY in unincorporated Fremont County, despite no general building permit: (1) Floodplain Development Permit ($750) if the parcel is in a FEMA-mapped 100-yr flood hazard area near Lander/Dubois/Hudson/Riverton; (2) Small Wastewater (septic) Permit ($400-$2,000 depending on system type) for any new/replacement/repaired septic system serving under 2,000 gal/day, administered by Fremont County under DEQ-delegated authority; (3) Road/Driveway Access Construction Permit (Approach Application) from Fremont County Transportation for any new/altered driveway connecting to a county-maintained road, plus separate bore-cut/utility-ROW permits; (4) Electrical wiring permits — issued by the Wyoming State Fire Marshal's statewide program ($50 standard permit), NOT the county. Confirm all of the above directly with Fremont County Planning ((307) 332-1052) or Fremont County Transportation before beginning any project.
• Commercial and public construction still faces STATE review even without a county permit: Wyoming Statute § 35-9-108 requires a Wyoming State Fire Marshal plan review for government/school buildings, buildings over 5,000 sq ft with public access, childcare centers (10+ children), multi-story buildings, assembly occupancies, fire-protection-system installs, alternative-energy installations (solar/wind/generator), aboveground flammable-liquid storage/dispensing, Type I commercial kitchen hoods, spray-finish operations, and RV/mobile-home park site plans. Contact the State Fire Marshal Plan Review office (Jeff Schoen, (307) 673-1461, jeff.schoen@wyo.gov) for any of these.
• Water wells require a SEPARATE permit through the Wyoming State Engineer's Office — not the county and not DEQ. Wastewater systems at or above 2,000 gallons/day of residential waste, or any high-strength/commercial wastewater system, are permitted by Wyoming DEQ directly (Northwest District Engineer, Hannes Stueckler, (307) 335-6961), not by the county.
• Fremont County RECOMMENDS (but does not require, since it has no enforcement authority) that residents build to the State of Wyoming's adopted 2024 IBC/IEBC/IMC/IFC/IFGC and current NEC editions and hire qualified contractors — this is guidance for insurability/resale value, not an enforced local code with a permit or inspection behind it.
• The Road/Driveway Access Construction Permit fee WAS found — it is printed on the Transportation Department's own Approach/Access Permit Request form (not on the Planning Department's fee schedule, which only covers Planning Department fees): Residential Access Permit $125.00, Commercial Access Permit $225.00. The Bore Cut and Public Utilities Right-of-Way permit form similarly prints its own fee: $100.00 base plus $250.00 (gravel road) or $750.00 (paved road) surcharge plus $0.10/ft for overhead/parallel easement. A prior pass reported no fee found because it only checked the Planning Department's FY2025 fee schedule, which genuinely does not cover Transportation Department fees; the fee lived on the Transportation form itself all along.
• Fremont County's Planning FY Fee Schedule PDF does not copy and paste cleanly — read its fee table from the page as published. The Approach Application PDF does carry usable inline text.
• Unincorporated Fremont County has no commercial building permit distinct from the residential baseline — a confirmed absence, not a documentation gap. The county's own Building Codes & Certificates of Occupancy page states 'Fremont County does not have any County-wide Zoning or County specific Building Codes, except the following' (septic/small wastewater, floodplain zoning, plus the incorporated-city, South Pass City historic-zoning, and Wind River Reservation carve-outs documented in this jurisdiction's other entries); no commercial exception exists, and the county issues no building permit and no Certificate of Occupancy for commercial structures. What DOES govern commercial construction here is a three-part composite: (1) STATE plan review under W.S. § 35-9-108 — the Wyoming State Fire Marshal's Office requires plan review for 'building[s] over 5000 sq. ft. in total area with public access, such as a business' (the county page's own verbatim example), places of assembly regardless of size, multi-story buildings, childcare centers (10+ children), government/school buildings, alterations/remodels of those buildings valued $40,000+ (ICC Building Valuation Data), qualifying changes of occupancy, fire-protection systems, alternative energy, aboveground storage tanks/dispensing, Type I commercial kitchen hoods, spray-finish operations, and RV/camping park site plans; the process (wsfm.wyo.gov/fire-prevention/plan-review) runs through the eLicensing portal with a 5-business-day accept/reject, a 21-business-day review of complete submittals, 'No work shall be done before the Permit to Construct is issued', and a state-issued Certificate of Occupancy or Letter of Compliance on completion — see the fire-sprinkler-alarm-permit and change-of-use-permit entries for the full documented process; (2) the county's own narrower permits, which apply to commercial identically to residential and publish commercial-specific fee lines: Commercial Septic System permit $850 (FY 2026 Planning fee schedule), Commercial Access Permit $225 (Transportation Approach/Access form), Floodplain Development Permit $750 if the parcel is in a mapped flood hazard area, and Commercial Scale Wind and Solar $3,000 + $300/MW for utility-scale energy projects; (3) the statewide WSFM electrical wiring permit for all electrical work. The corollary is real and worth stating plainly: a single-story commercial building of 5,000 sq ft or less with public access, that is not a place of assembly or childcare center, sits outside a mapped floodplain, and involves no fire-protection system triggers NO building permit and NO plan review at ANY level of government — only septic (if any, $850), driveway access (if connecting to a county road, $225), and the state electrical wiring permit apply. Confirm the parcel is genuinely unincorporated (not inside Riverton, Lander, Dubois, Hudson, Shoshoni, Pavillion, or South Pass City, and not within the Wind River Reservation) before relying on this — every one of those runs a different regime.
• The Planning Department has replaced the FY2025 fee schedule with a new document — 'updated fees JULY.pdf', filed under a 'Planning Commission' subfolder rather than the old 'FEES' subfolder, uploaded to the server 2026-07-09 and titled 'FY 2026 FEE SCHEDULE (Effective 7-1-2026)'. Every figure on it (subdivisions, all 9 septic fee lines, the $750 floodplain fee) is identical to the old schedule except the Addressing fee, which moved from $125-$130 to $130-$140 (not a fee tracked in the permit types here). Caution: the old FY2025 URL still resolves with the old figures, while the newer edition appears on the listing page. Separately, the Approach Application and Bore Cut/ROW permit forms print their own fees ($125/$225 residential/commercial access; $100 base + surcharges for bore-cut), which do not appear on the Planning fee schedule at all. The Planning Department phone number is (307) 332-1077 per the department's own live contact page (planning_department/index.php) — not (307) 332-1052, which appears in some older materials. The WSFM 'LOCAL AND STATE JURISDICTIONS' chart date label moved from 5/11/2026 to 7/7/2026, but Fremont County's own S/S (state) determination for unincorporated BLDG/ELEC did not change.