Find out which permits govern your site, and what they actually require

If your project disturbs one or more acres of land you need permit coverage, and a stormwater pollution prevention plan is a condition of that coverage. Below one acre you still need coverage if the project is part of a larger common plan of development or sale that will ultimately disturb an acre or more, which is the trigger people miss most often: a half acre lot inside a 40 acre subdivision is covered. Screen your site above and the tool shows which rule decided it and the permit section it came from.

Under EPA's 2022 Construction General Permit you choose either once every seven calendar days, or once every 14 calendar days plus within 24 hours of a storm producing 0.25 inches or more of rain. If the site discharges to a sediment or nutrient impaired water, or to a Tier 2, 2.5 or 3 water, the increased frequency applies instead: every seven days AND within 24 hours of a qualifying storm. Arid, semi arid and drought stricken sites may qualify for a reduced frequency during the seasonally dry period. A delegated state permit can set different frequencies, and where we have not read that state's permit we say so rather than substituting the federal answer.

A bigger site gets the shorter deadline, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Stabilisation must be initiated immediately, meaning no later than the end of the next business day after earth disturbing activities cease. Completion is within 14 calendar days where five acres or less are disturbed at one time, and within seven calendar days above five acres. Discharging to a sediment or nutrient impaired water or a Tier 2, 2.5 or 3 water forces seven days regardless of acreage, and that override beats the acreage table.

It depends on the state, and the answer is genuinely three sided rather than yes or no. Some states require a credentialed preparer outright: California requires a Qualified SWPPP Developer. Some gate it conditionally, on acreage or on what the plan contains: New York gates only where the plan carries the stormwater management practice component, so an erosion and sediment control only plan has no preparer credential at all. Many states have no preparer credential. Where we have not verified a state we say so and link the agency instead of assuming the permissive answer.

Yes, and it is an absence of code rather than a policy. The screening imports the same engine the paid product and the API run, and it runs it in your browser tab. There is no fetch in that component and no endpoint behind it, so your location, acreage and dates have nowhere to be transmitted and nothing to be stored.

Screening a site is free, with no account and no card: the coverage verdict, the governing permit, the eligibility screens, the inspection frequency, the stabilisation deadlines and every citation. What free does not do is the recurring job, and the recurring job is not a preference here, it is what the permit demands. A covered operator must hold a written site specific plan and must retain an inspection and corrective action record for years. Pro at $49 a month generates that plan document and keeps that record.

No, and it never will. The permit requires a qualified person to physically walk the site on a schedule. We generate the plan and keep the record; the inspection itself is yours. Any product that implies otherwise is selling you a compliance gap.

PermitBird reports publicly published permit rules and cites the source and effective date behind each one. It is not legal or engineering advice and it is not a permit. Section 404 determinations do not replace a jurisdictional determination or a pre-construction notification filed with the district. We do not perform wetland delineations. We do not perform the physical site inspections a stormwater permit requires; we generate the plan and keep the record. Where a jurisdiction requires a credentialed preparer, the document we generate is a draft for that person to review and sign. Always confirm against your permitting authority's current rules before you break ground.

Yes. Alongside the stormwater screening above, PermitBird runs a separate free determination against all 57 US Army Corps of Engineers nationwide permits, for projects that discharge dredged or fill material into a wetland, stream or other water of the United States. It returns a candidate permit pathway, whether a pre-construction notification is triggered, and the district and state layers that still need checking, with the rule text behind every answer.

No. The 300 linear foot limit on the loss of stream bed was removed in the 2021 reissuance and the Corps declined to reinstate it in the 2026 rule. Acreage limits still apply, and they are not the same for every permit.