Jurisdiction · the flagship question

St. Anthony is the one town in Fremont County that issues its own building permits

By Kjel Jones — independent custom-home researcher for St. Anthony and the Fremont County valley floor. Not a builder and not a general contractor. Licensed Idaho real estate agent, LPT Realty.

Published 2026-08-14 · every figure below was checked against its primary source on the date shown.

One sentence decides most of your paperwork

Fremont County publishes a Building page. Most of it is what you would expect: the codes it has adopted, the forms, the courthouse address. One sentence on it does more work than all the rest, and almost nobody building here has read it.

“Fremont County administers the International Building Code requirements in the issuance of all permits, except within the city limits of St. Anthony.”

— Fremont County, official Building page (fremontcountyid.gov/197/Building), retrieved 14 August 2026

Read it again, because the exception is the whole thing. St. Anthony is the only place in Fremont County that issues its own building permits. Every other town, every subdivision, every acre of open ground in the county goes through the county building department. Inside the St. Anthony city limits, it does not.

That single carve-out sends two houses a mile apart down two different permit paths, with different codebooks, different fees, different inspectors, different phone numbers and at least one requirement on one side that has no counterpart on the other.

The two desks, side by side

Everything in this table is transcribed from the issuing body's own current document. Nothing is inferred, and nothing came from a search result — the county's forms in particular are scanned images that most tools cannot read at all.

What actually changes for you

Four things, in the order they will hit your budget and your calendar.

1. A second permit, in a fixed order. Inside the city, zoning approval has to land before the building permit can be issued. That is a separate application with its own review, and it is not something a builder can skip by being quick.
2. Money before you are in the queue. The city wants a $150 deposit before it will accept the application at all. The county's deposit is due on submittal too, plus a $50 site plan review fee — and if you change approved plans and bring them back, you are charged for the review again.
3. Utilities on different clocks. In the city, the water and sewer application and hookup fees have to be paid before the building permit is approved. In the county, the septic permit is required at the moment you submit, and it comes from a different agency entirely.
4. Sidewalk before occupancy. Only in the city. It is on the application as a certification the owner and the builder both sign, and it is enforced at the certificate of occupancy — the last possible moment to discover it.

The question to ask before anything else

Not “who should I hire.” Ask “is this parcel inside the St. Anthony city limits?” and get the answer from a desk rather than from a mailing address. Rural addresses in this valley carry the town name for miles in every direction, and the corporate boundary does not follow the roads in any way you can eyeball.

Two calls settle it:

• City of St. Anthony, 420 N Bridge Street Suite A, St. Anthony, ID 83445 — (208) 624-3494; inspections (208) 709-3030, 24 hours' notice
• Fremont County Building Department, Fremont County Courthouse, 151 W 1st North, St. Anthony, ID 83445 — (208) 624-7200

If the answer is “county,” you will also want Eastern Idaho Public Health, Fremont County office, 45 South 2nd West, St. Anthony — (208) 522-8065, because your septic permit is required at the moment you submit the building permit application, not later.

Why nobody publishes this

Every builder working here knows it. None of them writes it down, because builders write about finishes and floor plans, not about which government desk holds your file. The out-of-area companies that run location pages for St. Anthony do not know it at all — a landing page generated for forty towns cannot know that one of them is a jurisdictional exception.

That is the whole reason this page exists. It costs you nothing to know it, and it is the difference between a permit that moves and one that sits.

Related reading on this site

• The St. Anthony District snow load is 50 PSF — the county figure every new house in this district satisfies
• What it costs to build a custom home in St. Anthony — the fixed public costs on each side of the line, set out in full
• Building a barndominium in St. Anthony — the county rule that catches most post-frame designs
• Who writes this site — why this is written by a researcher rather than a builder

Common questions

Does Fremont County or the City of St. Anthony issue my building permit?

It depends on which side of the city limits your lot falls on. Fremont County's own Building page says the county issues all permits except within the city limits of St. Anthony. Inside the line, the city issues; outside, the county does. No other town in Fremont County is named in that exception.

Why is St. Anthony the only town carved out?

The county does not explain it on the page, and this site will not guess. What is verifiable is the sentence itself: St. Anthony is the only city named. As the county seat it runs its own building department out of the city office at 420 N Bridge Street, and the county building department works out of the courthouse on the same street grid.

How do I find out which side of the line my lot is on?

Ask, before you buy and before you draw. The city office at (208) 624-3494 can tell you whether an address is inside the corporate limits; the county building department at (208) 624-7200 handles everything outside. An address with a St. Anthony mailing address is not proof of anything — rural routes carry town addresses for miles.

Does it change what my house has to be built to?

Yes. The two bodies publish different code lists. The county names the 2018 International Residential, Building and Energy codes. The city's application names a different set, including a 2017 electrical code and three 2012-edition mechanical codes. Same town, two lists.

Does it change what I pay?

Yes, and in more than one place. The city requires a $150 deposit before it will even accept an application, and requires water and sewer hookup fees to be paid before the building permit is approved. The county charges a $50 site plan review fee and requires the septic permit at submittal.

Is one side faster than the other?

The county publishes a figure: roughly four to six weeks to review and approve building plans. The city does not publish a turnaround; its application says you will be notified by the city office when the permit is approved. Ask both desks for a current estimate rather than relying on either statement.

Does the city require anything the county does not?

Two things stand out. Zoning permit approval must come before the building permit is issued, which is a second application. And sidewalk, street and concrete curb and gutter must be built along the street frontage before a certificate of occupancy is issued — a cost that simply does not exist on a county lot.

Is there a third possibility, neither city nor county?

There is an area of impact around St. Anthony, and the city's zoning title says lands in it are governed by an agreement with Fremont County and administered by the county. The precise boundary and rules should come from the city and county directly — the copy of the zoning title published on the city's own site is marked as a draft throughout, so this site does not quote figures from it.

Can a builder just handle all of this?

Most will, and the good ones do it every week. It still pays to know which desk your file is sitting on, because that is who you or your builder will be calling when something stalls, and it determines which rules you were quoted against.