Ontario runs electrical work through a separate regulator from the municipal building department. A building permit covers the structure; the Electrical Safety Authority’s notification of work covers the wiring — and a project can hold one without the other, which is exactly how inspections get missed.
Key takeaways
A renovation that touches wiring is really running two separate approval tracks at once. The municipal building permit, issued under the Building Code, covers the structure — framing, foundations, occupancy classification, life-safety systems. The electrical notification, issued to the ESA under the Ontario Electrical Safety Code, covers the wiring itself, and it is filed independently. “Having a building permit isn’t the same as filing an electrical notification. You may need both,” per ESA’s own framing of the distinction. A general contractor who assumes the building permit covers everything under the Building Code umbrella is the most common way an electrical notification gets missed entirely.
Almost all electrical work has to be reported: “the Ontario Electrical Safety Code… requires almost all electrical work be reported to the Electrical Safety Authority by filing a notification of work (or ‘permit’),” and “the person doing the work… should file the notification before the work starts.” Filing after the fact doesn’t avoid the requirement; it just means the inspection gets scheduled later in the sequence than it should have been.
The ESA restricts who can perform electrical work for hire, and the restriction is narrower than “a licensed electrician.” “Licensed Electrical Contractors (LECs) are the only businesses in Ontario legally authorized to do electrical work,” identified by “a 7-digit ECRA/ESA licence number that… appears on their vehicles, business cards and estimates,” per ESA’s licensing page. “Qualified electricians and Master Electricians are not permitted to perform work for hire” on their own individual credential — a Master Electrician is licensed by the ESA to “manage and supervise the work performed by the Licensed Electrical Contracting Business,” holding “their own unique Master Electrician licence, but it is not the same as an ECRA/ESA licence, so they cannot be hired directly.”
For a project manager coordinating trades, that distinction is what determines who signs the notification of work. It has to be the LEC business, not an individually credentialed electrician working outside that business’s licence.
Electrical work has a hard rule that most other trades don’t: “an electrical installation must be inspected before it’s concealed or buried.” That means drywall, insulation and any other work that would hide the wiring cannot proceed until the ESA has signed off — the same principle behind the general building-inspection timing discussed in our companion piece on inspection bookings and repeat failures. On a schedule where drywall is already booked, the electrical inspection needs to be booked to land before it, not after.
Because the National Building Code and its provincial adoptions set out “technical requirements for the design and construction of new buildings, as well as the alteration, change of use and demolition of existing buildings,” per the National Building Code 2020, the electrical notification and the building permit are both, in different ways, enforcing the same underlying code compliance — which is exactly why treating them as one filing is the mistake, not a shortcut. A schedule that books the ESA inspection request the same day the electrical rough-in is genuinely complete, rather than waiting until the trade behind it is ready to start, is what keeps that two-day gap from ever becoming the constraint the project trips over.
The consequence for skipping that inspection isn’t just a failed sign-off: under the Electricity Act, 1998, s. 31.1(1), a distributor may shut off electricity to a property without notice if it believes a condition exists that threatens the safety of any person — an installation that was never signed off is exactly the kind of condition that provision exists to catch. The distributor then has to notify the ESA and post notice on the property within 10 days (s. 31.1(2)), so an unsafe or unpermitted installation does not stay quietly disconnected without the regulator finding out.
A worked example
A basement finishing project adds three new circuits and relocates the panel. The general contractor pulls the municipal building permit for the framing and drywall on day 1, and the LEC subcontractor files the ESA notification of work separately on day 3, once the electrical scope is finalized. Framing inspection passes on day 12. The homeowner, eager to keep moving, asks the drywall crew to start on day 13 — but the electrical rough-in inspection hasn’t happened yet, because the ESA notification was filed later than the building permit and its inspection request went in on day 10, only three days before drywall was scheduled.
Closing the walls before that inspection would mean concealing wiring that hasn’t been signed off, which is exactly the sequence ESA’s “inspected before it’s concealed or buried” rule exists to prevent. The project holds drywall for four days while the ESA inspection is completed — a delay that a single combined trade-and-permit schedule, filed on day 1 instead of day 3, would have absorbed without touching the drywall date at all.
No. “Having a building permit isn’t the same as filing an electrical notification” with the ESA — per ESA’s guidance, most projects with electrical scope need both filings, on separate tracks.
A Licensed Electrical Contractor (LEC) business, identified by its 7-digit ECRA/ESA licence number. An individual Master Electrician licence is a supervisory credential and “cannot be hired directly” on its own, per ESA’s licensing rules.
Before the installation is concealed or buried — before drywall, insulation, or backfill goes over the wiring. Booking that inspection needs to happen early enough in the schedule to land ahead of the trade that closes the walls.
ESA states only that “fees vary according to the type of work you’re doing” and publishes no flat figure. Budget the fee as scope-dependent rather than assuming a fixed number.
No. The requirement to report almost all electrical work still applies regardless of when the notification is filed — filing late just means the inspection request goes in later too, which is what tends to push it past the point drywall or another concealing trade was scheduled to start.
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