United States
Interior requirements in the United States.
There is no single nationwide interior code in the United States. Federal law covers specific buildings for specific reasons, and the model codes only apply where a state or city has adopted them. Which one binds your project is a local question.
On this page
This page is review guidance, not legal advice. It explains what the instruments are and where they stop. It does not decide what applies to your building — the authority that issues your permit does that.
The instruments
Five names you will meet, and what each one is
Two of these are federal law. Two are model codes. One is a published standard that codes and contracts reference.
The ADA
When the ADA applies — and when it does not
The ADA is the most over-applied document in US interior work: it is quoted constantly and applied to buildings it does not cover.
Broadly, it applies to
- Places of public accommodation — buildings open to the public, in the categories the law lists
- Commercial facilities
- State and local government buildings and services
- Elements and spaces that serve those facilities, including toilet rooms and routes
It does not apply to
- Private single-family housing and private residential interiors as such
- Every space in every building — the law works by category, not by geography
- Building types covered instead by Fair Housing, where that applies
- Whatever a local code adopts — that is a separate requirement, with its own edition
Read the ADA page for which interior provisions a drawing review can see, and what it cannot.
Fair Housing
When Fair Housing applies
The Fair Housing Act adds design and construction requirements for a specific category of housing. It applies to covered multifamily dwellings — not to homes in general.
Covered multifamily dwellings
Buildings of four or more dwelling units, with an accessible route into and through the unit on the applicable floors, first occupied after the date the design requirements took effect.
Seven design requirements
Accessible entrance on an accessible route, usable public and common areas, usable doors, an accessible route through the unit, accessible switches and outlets, reinforced bathroom walls for grab bars, and usable kitchens and bathrooms.
Not the same as the ADA
The ADA and Fair Housing are different laws with different scopes. A building can be covered by one, both or neither, and the technical answers differ.
Safe harbours
HUD recognises published documents that can be used to show compliance. Confirming which one your project relies on is a design-team and authority question.
Read the Fair Housing page for what the design requirements mean on an interior drawing.
Model codes
Why the IBC and IRC are not nationwide mandatory
The IBC and IRC are model codes published by the International Code Council. They are drafts of legislation, not legislation.
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Nothing applies until a jurisdiction adopts it
States, counties and cities adopt the model codes — often a specific edition, often with amendments, sometimes years behind the current edition, and occasionally not at all in favour of their own code.
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The edition matters
A project permitted under one edition is not reviewed against another. Quoting a newer or older edition than the one adopted in that place is a common source of disagreement on drawings.
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Amendments are where local requirements live
Local amendments add, delete and modify provisions. The answer to "what does the code require here" is the adopted code as amended, at the edition in force for that permit.
Coverage
ROMURE's US coverage, stated plainly
Partial US coverage — the ADA and the Fair Housing Act
ROMURE applies the ADA 2010 Standards and the Fair Housing Act's design and construction requirements where each one applies to the project. Both are active, verified packs with their editions and clauses recorded, and both are partial: they cover the scopes they were encoded for, on the buildings they reach, and nothing else.
No state or city code has been adopted, so a review never produces an IBC or IRC conclusion for a US project. The applicable requirement for most interior work is the locally adopted code as amended, and that is a local fact: the review states what it checked, what it did not, and where no verified pack applies. This page explains the instruments so that coverage statement is readable — it is not a claim that US requirements generally are being checked.
What still runs
Design, coordination, dimension and clearance review runs on the drawing evidence regardless of jurisdiction. That is where most interior problems are found — and the findings state their basis, so nothing is presented as a code conclusion.
Keep going
What to read next.
Start with one sheet
US project, drawings on your desk?
Upload one page. The review will name what it checked, what it did not, and where no verified US pack applies.
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