Which desk issues one, and under which instrument
Virginia runs a single building code for the whole state, and the office issuing a building permit under it is the local building official, working for the county or city, or for a town that administers the code itself. The permit rules sit in the Virginia Administrative Code at 13VAC5-63, in the 2021 edition of the Uniform Statewide Building Code, which took effect January 18, 2024. Section 108.1 carries the requirement to apply, and everything a permit does downstream hangs off that application being made and approved first.
North Carolina writes the permit requirement into a statute as well as into its code. Except where its own subsection (c) and one companion provision say otherwise, G.S. 160D-1110(a) forbids commencing construction, reconstruction, alteration, repair, movement to another site, removal or demolition of a building or structure without first securing every permit the North Carolina State Building Code and other State or local laws call for. One requirement, written in two places, and that matters when you go looking for the rule in writing.
Either way it is one office in one jurisdiction, and inside a town it may not be the county's office at all. What each county and town near us publishes about its own process sits on our Virginia permits page and the North Carolina one.
Two Virginia lists sit behind the phrase no permit needed
One list, Section 102.3, lifts things out of the building code itself, and several of its items carry conditions of their own. Parking lots and sidewalks are on it where they are not part of an accessible route. So are farm buildings and structures, except a building, or part of one, on a farm that is run as a restaurant under the state's restaurant laws, and that item closes with a condition: "However, farm buildings and structures lying within a flood plain or in a mudslide-prone area shall be subject to flood-proofing regulations or mudslide regulations, as applicable." Section 36-97 of the Code of Virginia defines a farm building or structure as one "not used for residential purposes, located on property where farming operations take place," and used primarily for farm uses the statute lists. Where an item fits, the work is exempt from the code itself, within whatever conditions the item carries, not merely excused at the permit counter.
The other list, Section 108.2, is the one people usually mean. It excuses sixteen kinds of work from the permit application and the inspections tied to it, and its own opening sentence adds that being excused this way does not exempt the work from the rest of the code. No permit and no rules are two different things, and the code says so in the same breath it grants the relief. The section's next sentence runs the other way, for an owner who wants the permit anyway: on a request from the owner or the owner's agent for work on the list, "a permit shall be issued and any related inspections shall be required." The list ends with exceptions of its own, and one reaches every item on it: the building official may require an application for exempted items "located in a special flood hazard area."
Neither list names a driveway, a patio or an on-grade slab. On the 108.2 list, what can reach them is the thirteenth item, which covers construction work the building official judges minor and ordinary, or, for repair work, item 14.11, which reads the same way, in either case only where public health and general safety are not adversely affected. Read the verb. That is a judgment made by one named person in one county, and it is not something you can settle at your own kitchen table, whether you are pouring a walk or a footing under a building.
North Carolina draws its line with a dollar figure instead
North Carolina hands its inspectors no equivalent judgment call. It uses a threshold. G.S. 160D-1110(c) excludes work costing $40,000 or less, done to the current edition of the North Carolina State Building Code, in a single-family residence, farm building or commercial building, unless the work involves any of the items the subsection goes on to list. First on that list is adding, repairing or replacing load-bearing structures. The same figure appears again in the building code statute itself at G.S. 143-138(b5). Read where that exclusion is aimed, though. Every word of it is about work in a building, so a driveway or a patio standing on its own ground is not squarely inside it either way, and the statute never names one.
That figure belongs to the statute, and it was a lower number before October 1, 2023, so an older article about North Carolina permits may still be quoting the one it replaced.
A further subsection reaches work that moves dirt. G.S. 160D-1110(e) says no building permit shall be issued for a land-disturbing activity as defined in G.S. 113A-52, or for any activity covered by G.S. 113A-57, "unless an erosion and sedimentation control plan for the site of the activity or a tract of land including the site of the activity has been approved" under the Sedimentation Pollution Control Act. The statewide plan requirement in G.S. 113A-57 is written for an activity that will disturb "more than one acre on a tract," so ask the county whether your job needs a plan before the permit application goes in.
The name on the application is a job, not a formality
Virginia's code hangs the duty on the permit holder. Not on the contractor by trade, not on the owner by title. Section 113.1.2 runs two lines and puts the call to the building official on whoever holds the permit, and Section 113.1.1 puts the ladder, the scaffolding and any test equipment on that same person.
So whoever goes on the application is the one the county rings and the one who has to ring the county. If a general contractor applied, the duty is the general contractor's. On a garage a homeowner permitted in their own name, it is the homeowner's. Settle it before the concrete is ordered rather than on the morning of the pour.
A permit also has a shelf life. Section 110.6 lets a building official revoke one where work has not started within six months of issue, or has been suspended or abandoned for six months. The applicant can answer that either by showing an approved inspection inside a six month period or by other evidence that substantial work has been done, and the official may grant one or more extensions of up to a year each on written request. If the job is going to sit over a winter, that belongs in a conversation at the desk rather than in a surprise come spring.