Roofing Permits & Roof Replacement Cost in Worthington, Ohio

Reviewed September 2026 by a licensed Ohio general contractor.

What does Worthington require, in one table?

Roofing permit facts published by the Worthington Division of Building Regulation.

Who issues it	Division of Building Regulation, 374 Highland Avenue, 614-431-2424.
Permit for a re-roof	Required. The residential fee schedule names roof replacement and roof recover as permit work.
Fee basis	$70 flat for roof and siding replacement or roof recover; $50 where the project is valued at $1,500 or less. Add 1% for the Ohio Board of Building Standards.
How you apply	Through the EnerGov Customer Self Service portal at worthington.org/css — apply, upload, pay and schedule most inspections there.
What they ask for	“More information including manufacturer’s literature may be needed for window, door, roofing, and siding replacement projects.”
Review time	State code requires the building official to approve or deny the application within 30 days of receipt.
Design review	Properties in the Architectural Review District need a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Architectural Review Board, which meets on the second and fourth Thursdays.
Tax abatement	The CRA covers commercial and industrial work; a 2025 resolution added residential eligibility only for multi-unit workforce-housing developments.

What does a Worthington roofing permit cost?

$70. The city’s one-, two- and three-family residential permit fee schedule, effective 6 February 2025, groups “uncovered decks or other minor alterations such as moving or adding doors, roof & siding replacement, roof recover and windows” at a flat $70, dropping to $50 where the project is valued at $1,500 or less. A 1% Ohio Board of Building Standards fee is added.

Two details make that schedule unusually useful. It names roof recover separately from roof replacement, so an overlay is explicitly permit work here rather than a grey area. And because the fee is flat rather than valuation-based, the permit line on a Worthington quote should be the same on a $9,000 roof as on a $25,000 one.

What does the city want with the application?

Worthington asks for product data on exterior replacement work. Its own permit-process page says that simple equipment replacements can be described in the application, but that “more information including manufacturer’s literature may be needed for window, door, roofing, and siding replacement projects”. In practice that means the shingle or panel data sheet, which a competent roofer already has.

Everything runs through the EnerGov Customer Self Service portal at worthington.org/css: apply, upload documents, pay the invoice the city raises after review, then print the approved documents and the inspection card, which have to be on site for the inspector. State code gives the building official 30 days to approve or deny an application, though simple residential work rarely takes that.

Does the Architectural Review Board look at roofs?

If your house is in the Architectural Review District, yes — and it happens before the permit, not after. The city’s permit-process page lists a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Architectural Review Board among the special approvals that can be required during plan review, and warns that missing approvals delay permit issuance.

The seven-member board hears requests for approval of exterior changes to buildings and property in the district and generally meets on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at the municipal building on N. High Street. Old Worthington is a small area with a long memory: if you are in it, get the material and colour agreed before the order goes in.

Can a Worthington homeowner get a roof abated?

No — and the reason is a good illustration of how narrow these programmes are. Worthington restricted its Community Reinvestment Area tax exemptions to commercial and industrial development for years. In 2025 council amended the criteria to add residential eligibility, but the programme it added is a workforce-housing abatement: projects must mix residential with office or non-retail commercial space, must build at least four units on sites under two acres or ten on larger sites, and must meet area median income targets on a share of them. The total term is capped at fifteen years.

None of that reaches a homeowner replacing shingles. If you want to understand where roof abatements do work in central Ohio, that is the Columbus programme, explained in our guide to the roof permit tax abatement.

What does a roof replacement cost in Worthington?

With a $70 permit, the city is not the variable — the roof is. Worthington publishes no housing-stock breakdown by pitch or storeys, and its housing runs from small colonial-era buildings around the Village Green to post-war ranches and later two-storeys, so averages are close to meaningless. Measure the roof.

Take the baseline in the roof cost estimator — standard-grade shingles, low slope, one storey — and multiply: 1.12 for a 5/12 to 8/12 pitch, 1.30 for 9/12 and steeper, then 1.08 for a second storey or 1.18 for a third. A compact 15-square roof at a moderate pitch over two storeys — a realistic shape for an older Worthington two-storey with a simple gable — plans at roughly $6,700 to $11,900. That covers tear-off and disposal, underlayment and ice barrier, flashings, cleanup and the permit and dump fees; it does not cover decking replacement, structural repair, ventilation upgrades or gutters.

If the Architectural Review Board is in your path, price the material it will approve rather than the cheapest bundle on the truck. The shingle roof replacement guide covers grades and what separates them, the metal roof replacement guide covers standing seam and metal shingles, and our Columbus roofing permits guide covers the city south of the line.

Questions & answers

How much is a roofing permit in Worthington, Ohio?

$70 for roof and siding replacement or roof recover under the residential fee schedule effective February 2025, dropping to $50 where the project is valued at $1,500 or less, plus a 1% Ohio Board of Building Standards fee. The fee is flat, not based on the value of the job.

Does a roof overlay need a permit in Worthington?

Yes. The city’s fee schedule names “roof recover” alongside roof replacement in the same $70 category, so an overlay is permit work here rather than a grey area. Whether an overlay is a good idea is a separate question — Ohio code limits how many layers a roof may carry.

What does Worthington want submitted for a roofing permit?

The city says manufacturer’s literature may be needed for roofing, siding, window and door replacement projects, on top of the application itself. Everything is filed through the EnerGov Customer Self Service portal, where fees are invoiced after review.

Do I need Architectural Review Board approval for a new roof?

Only if your property is in the Architectural Review District, where a Certificate of Appropriateness is one of the special approvals that must be in place before the permit issues. The board generally meets on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month.