Same size is still a permit
You'll hear around Naples that swapping a garage door for one the same size needs no permit. The paperwork says otherwise. The City of Naples handles this exact job with its size-for-size Window/Door application, and garage doors are on it. Collier County files garage doors under its Doors/Windows, Garage Doors, Shutters permit. Marco Island's Window/Door Permit asks whether each opening is replaced size for size, and only moves you to an alteration permit when the size changes.
What a same-size door saves you is framing work, not paperwork. The new door still needs a product approval rated above the wind load of your opening, and an inspector still has to see it in place.
The wind line for your address
Collier's design wind map runs from about 150 mph inland to 172. Coastal Naples, from Vanderbilt Beach to Port Royal, sits between 163 and 168; Marco Island is 170 to 171. We size every door to the line for your address.
Those figures come from the county wind load layer for homes (Risk Category II), drawn from the 8th Edition of the state building code, and the county doesn't vouch for it down to the last mile per hour. What decides your door is the design pressure worked out for your opening. The City of Naples wants it opening by opening, with wind speed, exposure and zone, and Marco Island wants it prepared by a design professional.
A Florida Product Approval or a Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance works in all three offices. Collier sits outside the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, which the code keeps for Miami-Dade and Broward, so the Miami-Dade paper is accepted here but never required.
Repairs: where the rule is written, and where it isn't
Most repairs never touch the frame, and in the county that matters. On a detached single-family home in unincorporated Collier, repairing a door without touching the frame or changing the opening is on the exempt list in Sec. 22-26. The wind rules still apply to the parts that go in. A new opener isn't named there, so we check before swapping one.
The City of Naples has no such line. Its permit rule covers repairs, and its exempt list names interior doors, not garage doors. Marco Island sends minor repairs through its building official. In both cities we call the building department before we start. When a door has to be made secure while the office is closed, the application follows on the next business day, as the City of Naples asks of emergency work.
Not sure what your door needs? The symptom guide walks through the usual suspects, and a broken spring is the most common one.
Check the status of a permit yourself
- Find your office. Use the table on this page. The office follows the property, not the postal address, and several Naples ZIP codes cross the city line.
- Search by address or permit number. Collier: the GMCD Public Portal, by address under Search for a Property or by number under Status and Fees. It holds permits from 2011 on; older ones sit in the county's CD-Plus search, which the county says isn't kept current, so confirm any closure in the Public Portal. City of Naples: the Public Portal button on the Building Department pages. Marco Island: Search in the city permitting portal, which needs no account and goes back to October 1998.
- Read the status. In Collier, closed means FINALED, or COED on older records, or CANCELLED. A permit reading Inspections Completed still needs a request to close, according to the county's Bulletin 14. In the City of Naples, the last paper is a Certificate of Completion. On Marco, look for the passed final inspection.
- Something still open? Call the office with the permit number. In Collier, Building Permit Resolution Services handles open and expired permits at (239) 252-2493.
What signed off means on our jobs
In 2023 the Collier County Clerk put it in a headline: the job is not finished until the permit is closed
. We work to that line and we make it checkable. When a new door is done, you get the permit number, a screenshot of the office's portal showing it closed and the link to look it up yourself. Where an office grants an HB 803 exemption letter instead, you get the letter. There's no version of the job where you end up with neither.
A repair gets its own paper: a written record by text with the photos, the parts that went in, the warranty terms and the name of the person who did the work.
Choosing a door? Start with new garage doors or, for storm ratings, hurricane and impact doors.
Who hears about it when a permit is running out
A permit for a single-family home expires one year after it's issued, or when the next edition of the Florida Building Code takes effect, whichever is later, unless the office extends it (F.S. 553.79). State law lets the office warn the owner and the contractor at least 30 days ahead. Collier sends its notice to the email on the permit application, which on a contractor's permit is the contractor's, and only the person who signed that application can ask for an extension; the homeowner can't, as the county explains. If nobody acts in time, the permit goes VOID and a new application starts over.
If you spend the summer up north, that notice was never going to reach you. It reaches us. We keep the dates on every permit we pull and close each one before it lapses, and if a date is at risk, we're the ones allowed to ask for more time.
HB 803 and garage doors
Since July 1, 2026, Florida exempts some work on single-family homes valued under 7,500 dollars from a building permit (F.S. 553.79(1)(g)). The request goes in writing, with the contract. The exemption never covers structural, electrical, plumbing, mechanical or gas work, or a property sitting partly or fully in a flood hazard area.
- City of Naples: no. The City lists windows and doors as structural, so a garage door keeps its permit.
- Unincorporated Collier: only with an exemption letter, requested in the county portal, for detached single-family homes. The county hasn't said whether a garage door counts as structural, so we ask before relying on it.
- Marco Island: requests go through the city portal, with a fee, and the city hasn't addressed garage doors.
Either way, the paper you keep is a closed permit or an exemption letter. Someone telling you on the phone that you don't need one is neither.
The Notice of Commencement
On bigger jobs Florida adds one more paper. When the direct contract is more than five thousand dollars, the building office needs a copy of the recorded Notice of Commencement before the first inspection (F.S. 713.135), and the notice is posted on the job. Collier accepts only a copy certified by the Clerk, and the notice runs one year from recording unless it names another date (county instructions).
The official forms warn owners that skipping it can mean paying twice for the same improvement. The quote tells you whether your job needs one, and if it does, we walk you through recording it.
Work hours, office by office
- City of Naples, residential streets: Monday to Saturday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. (City construction hours).
- Unincorporated Collier: Monday to Saturday, 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Marco Island: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with no construction on Sundays or holidays.
None of the three allows construction on a Sunday, and the City and the county also stop on New Year's Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. So installs happen Monday to Saturday. The phone is answered around the clock, and in an emergency we make the door secure; the permitted work waits for a working day.
One more City of Naples rule worth knowing in storm season: when a storm is on its way, active job sites have to secure or remove loose materials 48 hours before it arrives (Sec. 16-291).
After a storm: the permit comes before the door
After a hurricane, the City of Naples wants the permit issued before any replacement work begins, and if the house already had an open permit, the storm repairs go in as a revision to it (City hurricane permitting). The same page reminds owners that contracting without a license during a declared state of emergency is a felony under Florida law, and points to Collier County Contractor Licensing, (239) 252-2431, to confirm one. Ask anyone who shows up for a license number and check it there, ours included.
What water does to an opener, the sensors and the springs is on the hurricane doors page; if the door is stuck right now, go to emergency repair.
Left with an open permit?
Maybe the last company closed its doors, changed hands or stopped picking up. Florida law gives owners a way through: you can close a permit with the original contractor or hire a different licensed contractor, who is responsible only for the work they do (F.S. 553.79(16)(a)). An expired permit on work that was substantially finished can usually be closed under the code in force when it was filed, without starting from scratch (553.79(16)(b)).
In Collier, Building Permit Resolution Services, (239) 252-2493, helps with open and expired permits and works with title companies and buyers when one turns up during a sale. Buyers have protection too: a building office can't deny permits to, or penalize, someone who bought the house at arm's length over a permit the previous owner left open (553.79(17)(a)).
Send us the permit number and the address, or call (239) 990-8829. Call and we'll tell you whether we can take it over.
Last reviewed: September 2026. Rules change; the office that issues your permit has the final word.
