Kitchen Remodeling Service Areas: Portland-Vancouver Metro

We take kitchen remodeling requests from Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties in Oregon, and from Clark County in Washington. Portland itself is covered on our page about kitchen remodeling in Portland. Three other cities have pages of their own, because each has something a kitchen project there needs to know: kitchen remodeling in Vancouver, WA runs on Washington’s licensing, permit and sales-tax rules; kitchen remodeling in Beaverton goes through a city Building Division that applies the state codes without local changes; and kitchen remodeling in Lake Oswego starts with a planning sign-off before the building permit.

Permit offices and homes, city by city

• Portland: Portland Permitting & Development (PP&D) issues building and electrical permits. Median home built 1966. Covered on our page about kitchen remodeling in Portland.
• Vancouver, WA: the city’s Residential Building Permit (RES), with an electrical permit of record for the electrician. Median home built 1988.
• Beaverton: the city Building Division issues building, mechanical, electrical and plumbing permits. Median home built 1987.
• Lake Oswego: the city’s Building department, after Planning signs off on an alteration permit; the city issues its own electrical permits. Median home built 1982.
• Gresham: the city’s Permit Services, which also issues electrical permits. Median home built 1981.
• Hillsboro: the city’s permitting center, electrical permits included. Median home built 1997.
• Tigard: the city Building Division, which also issues trade permits. Median home built 1988.
• West Linn: the city Building Division, but electrical permits come from Clackamas County. Median home built 1988.
• Milwaukie and Oregon City: permit offices not checked yet, so ask the city. Median homes built 1968 and 1992.
• Camas, WA: the city Building Division, but every electrical permit comes from Washington L&I. Median home built 2001.
• Unincorporated areas: Clackamas County Building Codes and Washington County Building Services, both of which issue electrical permits too.

Median year built: Census American Community Survey, 2020-2024. Permit offices: each office’s own pages, read on 2026-10-11 and 2026-10-12. Oregon’s state permit list is the baseline on the Oregon side: cabinets, countertops and similar finish work need no building permit, while walls need a building permit, and relocated plumbing, new wiring, gas piping and kitchen range exhausts need trade permits. The cities differ in the details, and Portland’s list is stricter than the state’s for replacing a fixture with concealed connections.

Which license the remodeler needs

The state line decides it. A job in Oregon needs a contractor licensed by the Oregon Construction Contractors Board (CCB); check one with the CCB license search. A job in Clark County needs a contractor registered with the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I); check one with L&I’s Verify tool. The remodeler we pass your request to holds the one the job’s state requires. Lead-safe work on homes built before 1978 follows the same line: a CCB Lead-Based Paint Renovation license in Oregon, RRP certification from the Department of Commerce in Washington.

How old the homes are

Housing age varies widely across the area. Of the cities above, Milwaukie has the highest share of homes built before 1980, 72.0%, followed by Portland at 63.4% (Census American Community Survey, 2020-2024). Gresham (48.1%), Lake Oswego (46.4%), Oregon City (40.8%) and Vancouver (40.2%) sit in the middle. Hillsboro (24.4%) and Camas (24.5%) have the newest; in Happy Valley, which has no page, the median home was built in 2009. In a home built before 1978, the lead-safe rules apply: in Washington they cover any work that disturbs paint, and in Oregon the CCB’s threshold for interior work is six square feet of painted surface per room.

Everywhere else in the four counties

Every other city and town in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Clark counties is served by ZIP code: the quote form checks yours on the first step. ZIP codes that cross the four counties’ borders are included too, around towns such as Woodburn, Newberg, Scappoose, Washougal and Woodland.