Which building and plumbing codes does Phoenix enforce?

The city's code history opens its list with "Current Codes Adopted – Effective August 1, 2025 (Ordinance G-7397)." Those are the codes Phoenix inspectors enforce today. The pieces that touch plumbing and gas:

• 2024 International Plumbing Code (IPC), with Appendices C and E.
• 2024 Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC), with Appendices A, B, C, I and M.
• 2024 International Fuel Gas Code (IFGC) for gas piping and appliances.
• 2024 International Building Code (IBC), whose Chapter 1 holds the Phoenix administrative provisions on permits, inspections and fees.
• 2024 International Residential Code (IRC) and 2024 International Mechanical Code (IMC), which overlap on houses and water heater venting.
• 2024 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code, for pool and spa plumbing.

The city list also shows the prior set: the 2018 codes under Ordinance G-6463, effective July 6, 2018.

• PBCC: the Phoenix Building Construction Code, meaning the model codes plus Phoenix's administrative provisions and amendments.
• Amendment: a Phoenix change to a model code. The model book is the starting point. The amended text is the rule.
• Administrative provisions: the permit, inspection, fee and licensing rules in IBC Chapter 1 as Phoenix rewrote it.
• Initial review: the first time plans are submitted. The city ties the code edition to that date, not to the date you pull the permit.

Phoenix's own text on the plumbing choice reads that "the provisions of the Uniform Plumbing Code or International Plumbing Code, as amended, shall apply" to installing, altering, repairing and replacing plumbing (Section 101.4.3). Read that as a choice the design makes once. It is a reading, not a defined rule, that mixing sections of both codes in one design would not fit the wording.

Anyone doing permitted work inside the City of Phoenix: homeowners, contractors, tenants' contractors and designers. It does not cover work in Mesa, Chandler, Glendale or other cities, which adopt their own editions. Arizona statutes such as the contractor licensing law sit outside the building code and apply everywhere.

The implementation notice sorts projects by the date plans were first submitted.

• Restaurant tenant improvement filed in October 2025. The owner wants to stay on the 2018 code because the drawings are done. Plans first submitted after August 1, 2025 fall under the 2024 set unless one of the notice's exceptions fits: a project already in development review, an earlier submittal, or a case-by-case approval.
• Tenant improvement filed in February 2026. No exception exists. The plans follow the 2024 PBCC, including Phoenix's grease interceptor amendments.
• Design drawn to the UPC. It stays on the UPC. Section 101.4.3 lets the plans follow either code, so nobody has to redraw it to the IPC.
• A contractor working Phoenix and Gilbert on the same day. The Phoenix job follows the 2024 codes with Phoenix amendments. Gilbert's town code adopts the 2018 IPC, so the same fixture can face different rules across a city line.

1. 1Open the Planning and Development Department's building code page and download the amendment PDFs for the code your plans use (2024 IPC or 2024 UPC) and the 2024 IBC Chapter 1 administrative provisions.
2. 2Pick one plumbing code for the design and note it on the plans.
3. 3Compare your first submittal date with the table above.
4. 4Read the amended sections for your job before drawings are final. Grease interceptors, backflow, secondary backflow protection and low-slope sewers all carry Phoenix changes.
5. 5Submit through the SHAPE PHX portal, where commercial plan review and inspection permits went live April 27, 2026. PDD's main line is 602-262-7811.

• "Phoenix only uses the UPC." The code says UPC or IPC, and Phoenix amends both.
• "The 2024 codes started in 2024." Council adopted them June 18, 2025, effective August 1, 2025.
• "The 2018 code still works for new plans." Not for plans submitted after December 31, 2025.
• "The model code text is the whole rule." Phoenix amends the model books. Read amendment PDFs in the PDF itself, because struck-through text is easy to miss in a copy and paste.