Building a pergola in Florida: who does what
A pergola in Florida takes three people: a homeowner who wants one, a licensed contractor who builds it, and a licensed Florida professional engineer who takes responsibility for the structural design and seals the drawings. Almost every question that stalls a project is really a question about which of those three does this part, and how do I find them.
The five pages below answer those questions in the order they come up. Each one leads with the answer, then shows the statute, code section or state database it comes from.
- How do I find a contractor to build a pergola in Florida?Through referrals, a licensed-trade directory, or a marketplace that routes your project to contractors who are already taking work. Whichever route you use, the comparison only works when every contractor is quoting the same scope from the same dimensions.
- How do I check that a Florida contractor is licensed and insured?Search the name and licence number in the DBPR licensee database, check the workers’ compensation Proof of Coverage database, and get the insurance certificate from the carrier — not from the contractor. Florida Statute § 489.128 makes an unlicensed contractor’s contract unenforceable by that contractor.
- Who signs and seals pergola plans in Florida?A design professional registered in Florida — in practice a Florida-licensed professional engineer. The alternative is a Florida Product Approval or Miami-Dade NOA that covers your exact product and your exact installation condition. Building departments accept one or the other.
- What wind speed does a Florida pergola have to be designed for?In the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone — Miami-Dade and Broward counties only — a residential pergola is Risk Category II: 175 mph in Miami-Dade, 170 mph in Broward, per Florida Building Code § 1620. Everywhere else the site value comes from ASCE 7.
- Where does pergola review work come from for a Florida PE?From contractors and homeowners who need a sealed accessory-structure set and have nowhere obvious to ask. The work is small, repetitive and constant — which is exactly why the drafting should already be done when it reaches the engineer.
The three sides of one project
Read in one sitting, the five pages describe a single workflow. It is worth seeing it whole before you start, because the expensive mistakes are handoff mistakes.
| Party | Owns | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Homeowner | The scope: where it goes, how big, what it attaches to, what it is made of. | Comparable quotes from contractors who are actually licensed for the work. |
| Contractor | The build, the schedule, the price, and in most jurisdictions the permit application. | Real dimensions to price from, and a Florida PE who will take a backyard structure. |
| Engineer | The structural design, the calculations, and the seal on the construction documents. | A project that arrives digitized instead of as a phone photo of a napkin sketch. |
Built Roster exists to hold those three columns in one place. It does not replace any of them, and it does not do the government’s side of the work. What actually happens after you pick a contractor is the part most homeowners have never had described to them.
How these pages are written
Every factual claim cites the source it came from: a Florida statute, a section of the Florida Building Code, a state licensing database, or a specific building department’s own published checklist. Where we could not verify something, we say so on the page rather than repeating it. Four claims you will find all over the internet and will not find here:
- A price for a pergola in Florida. Published ranges are content, not quotes. Price follows span, material, attachment condition, foundation and site access, and the only number that means anything is one a licensed contractor wrote against your dimensions.
- A statewide dollar range for permit fees. Florida permit fees are computed from declared job valuation plus surcharges and local plan-review fees, and they differ by jurisdiction.
- A “typical” permit turnaround. No government body publishes one, and the jurisdictions differ by more than any average would survive.
- An engineering fee range. Same problem, smaller sample.
And one thing we will not say about ourselves: Built Roster is not a permit service. We do not pull permits, file them or process them. We connect the homeowner, the contractor and the engineer, and we give each of them the tools their own part of the job needs.
Florida has 67 counties and hundreds of municipalities, each of which adopts its own local amendments, its own licensing categories and its own submittal checklist. Everything below is sourced from the statute, the Florida Building Code, or a named building department’s own published document — but the only answer that governs your project is the one from the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) at your address. Call your city or county building department before you order materials.
Start the project instead of researching it
Reading is the easy part. Getting three comparable quotes and a licensed engineer onto the same set of dimensions is where a backyard project actually turns into a build.
Built Roster is the platform where the three sides of a Florida patio-structure project work the same file. A homeowner posts the project and receives quotes from available contractors. The contractor prices real dimensions and finds a licensed Florida professional engineer without leaving the workspace. The engineer opens a project that is already digitized — dimensions, member sizes, post layout, county wind data — reviews it, changes whatever needs changing, and signs and seals.
Each side gets the tools for its own part: AI photo analysis and renders, sketch vectorization, a plan generator, an AI plan reader that turns an existing drawing into editable sheets, and structural calculations run against ASCE 7-22 for wind, AISC 360-22 for steel, ACI 318-19 for concrete, NDS 2018 for wood and ADM 2020 for aluminum — with wind data seeded for all 67 Florida counties, including the HVHZ and the 34 wind-borne debris regions.
What we will not claim. Built Roster does not pull, file or process permits. The licensed professionals on the project do their own work, and whatever gets submitted goes to your building department through whoever that jurisdiction allows to submit it. The AI drafts; a licensed PE decides and seals. Our county data is reference material to be verified with your AHJ, not a substitute for it. Homeowners can start pergola projects today — screen enclosures are the next structure type and are not open yet. Payments are still running in Stripe sandbox. Joining is free for homeowners, contractors and engineers — no card, no subscription — and Built Roster charges a 5% platform fee to the contractor and 5% to the engineer only when a project closes.
Join free — no cardQuestions? hello@builtroster.com. Built Roster connects the three sides of a Florida patio-structure project; it does not pull, file or process permits. Homeowners can start pergola projects today. Screen enclosures are next, and we will not pretend otherwise until they ship.
Sources
- Florida Statutes § 489.113 — Qualifications for practice; restrictions (Florida Senate) — https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/489.113
- Florida Statutes § 489.128 — Contracts entered into by unlicensed contractors are unenforceable (Florida Senate) — https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/489.128
- Florida DBPR — Licensee search (MyFloridaLicense) — https://www.myfloridalicense.com/wl11.asp
- Florida Building Code § 1620 — High-Velocity Hurricane Zones: Wind Loads (2023 FBC, 8th Edition) — https://up.codes/s/high-velocity-hurricane-zones-wind-loads
- Florida Building Code § 107.3.5 — Minimum Plan Review Criteria for Buildings — https://up.codes/s/minimum-plan-review-criteria-for-buildings
- Florida Board of Professional Engineers — licensee verification — https://fbpe.org/
- City of Pompano Beach — Gazebo / Pergola submittal checklist, updated 01/29/2024 — https://cdn.pompanobeachfl.gov/city/pages/building_inspections/submittal_checklists/Gazebo-or-Pergola.pdf
- City of Cape Coral — Pergola Summary Sheet (Community Development, Permitting Division) — https://www.capecoral.gov/Documents/Document%20Hub/Permit%20Document%20Center/Guidelines/Accessories/Pergola%20Summary%20Sheet.pdf