Free tool
Does my pergola or verandah need a building permit?
Victoria exempts one narrow structure from needing a building permit here — the pergola as the Regulations define it, inside item 16 of Schedule 3. Everything else on the brochure page — roofed verandahs, carports, decks, gazebos — answers to different rules, and this checker routes each to where its answer actually lives.
The checker
Interactive checker
The step-by-step checker runs in your browser and needs JavaScript. Everything it asks is written out below in the tests in full — the same conditions, the same thresholds, in the same order.
Question 1 of 3
The rule itself
The tests in full.
Item 16 is four conditions on one defined structure, and every one has to hold at once. The structures it does not cover are listed after it, each with where its answer lives.
regulation 5 — the definition
It has to be a pergola in the defined sense
A pergola is "an open structure that is unroofed but may have a covering of open weave permeable material" — shade cloth, slatted battens with gaps, wire for a climbing plant. A covering that can close and shed water — polycarbonate, Colorbond, tiles, insulated panels, a retractable fabric awning, an opening louvre roof — makes the structure a verandah, whatever the brochure calls it, and item 16 no longer applies.
item 16(a) and (d) — size
Not more than 3.6 m high, floor area not exceeding 20 m²
Both comparators are inclusive: exactly 3.6 m and exactly 20 m² pass. Height runs from natural ground level — on a cut or filled block that is the pre-development surface, not the paving. Regulation 7 applies the prescribed values subject to tolerances, so a structure on a limit is a question for the surveyor, not the tape measure alone.
item 16(b) and (c) — position
The forward limit depends on what it serves
Appurtenant to a Class 1 building — a house — the pergola may sit up to 2.5 m forward of that building's front wall (item 16(b)). Appurtenant to any other building, it must sit no further forward than the front wall, with no 2.5 m allowance (item 16(c)). The reference line is the building's front wall, not the fence or the title boundary.
column 3 — "Parts 3 to 19"
What an exempt pergola keeps
An exempt pergola is exempt from Parts 3 to 19 of the Regulations — not from Part 2, which adopts the Building Code of Australia. Regulation 23 is what removes the building permit requirement for work the Schedule lists; the Schedule's heading cites regulations 23, 185 and 279.
what item 16 does not cover
Everything else on the brochure page
A roofed verandah, patio, alfresco or awning fixed to the house has no exemption at any size — it is an addition to the house. A freestanding roofed structure — gazebo, freestanding patio cover — is item 1 territory, the garden-shed exemption: floor area not exceeding 10 m², no more than 3 m high (2.4 m within 1 m of a boundary), not masonry, and within item 1's position rules — no further forward than the front wall of the building it serves or, standing alone, at least 9 m from the front street alignment and 2 m from any side street alignment — the shed checker walks it in full. An attached deck is permit work whatever its size; the NCC's 1 m barrier rule is about balustrades, not the permit. A carport is bigger than any of these exemptions in practice; its boundary position is governed by the reg 80 boundary-wall limits — the siting calculator works those out.
Contact us
Close to any line? Send it in.
You do not need a permit to ask whether you need one. Send the kit brochure or drawings, a site plan or marked-up aerial with the distances to the boundaries and the house, and the address — a registered building surveyor will tell you where the job lands, at no charge. Or ring the surveyor on (03) 9802 9459. Mon–Fri, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. We reply as soon as we can — typically within two business days.
Get a quote
Needs a permit? One fixed fee, quoted first.
Send the kit's drawings as supplied — we do not need them redrawn — with a site plan and the address. We confirm the siting before you order, then quote one fixed fee for the permit and the inspections.