Do you need a permit to install an EV charger?

An EV charger is a continuous load running at full current for hours, which is a duty cycle most household circuits never see. The inspection checks the conductor sizing, the overcurrent protection, the terminations and the grounding against exactly that condition. Unpermitted work also tends to surface at the worst moment: at closing, or in an insurance claim after a fire.

Most places, the city or county building department issues the permit and sends an electrical inspector. In some places, particularly where the electric utility is municipally owned, the utility performs the electrical inspection itself and the building department is not involved in the same way. Very few sites publish which applies where, which is why our city pages name the office and the inspector by name.

Jurisdictions adopt editions of the electrical code on their own schedule, and plenty are several cycles behind the current one. Which edition applies changes real requirements on an EV circuit — receptacle types, disconnect requirements, ground-fault protection. An installer working from the current national edition in a jurisdiction that adopted an older one will sometimes be asked to change work that was correct by the newer rule.

Residential electrical permit fees for a single circuit commonly sit in the low tens to low hundreds of dollars, and the range between neighbouring jurisdictions is wider than most people expect. Turnaround is usually days for the permit and days to a couple of weeks for the inspection slot. Your installer normally pulls it; confirm that in writing, because a permit pulled by the homeowner puts the liability on the homeowner.