2025 Building Code Adoption Tracking Fact Sheets Released

ByNews Editor

FEMA has released its annual Building Codes Adoption Tracking Fact Sheets that break down the code adoption status of every state and territory in the United States. As of Q3, only 21% of the nation’s jurisdictions have adopted current, natural-hazard resistant building codes. When looked at by populations, When analyzing adoption status by the percentage of the population living in natural hazard-resistant jurisdictions, FEMA says 38% of the population is covered.

What are the 2025 Building Code Adoption Tracking Fact Sheets? 

FEMA publishes regional Building Code Adoption Tracking (BCAT) Fact Sheets to provide an overview of hazard-resistant building code adoption status in each state and territory within a FEMA region. The BCAT Fact Sheets show an annual percent of communities adopting hazard-resistant building codes in high-risk flood, damaging wind, hurricane wind, tornado, and seismic areas. States and territories are categorized as either “Higher Resistance,” “Moderate Resistance,” or “Lower Resistance,” and a summary of significant building code adoption information is provided. 

Explanation of the Hazard-Resistance Methodology 

The BCAT effort tracks five hazards: flood, damaging wind, hurricane wind, tornado, and seismic. The maps, definitions and provisions of the model codes and the standards underlying those codes, such as American Society of Civil Engineers, Structural Engineering Institute (ASCE/SEI) 7, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures, and ASCE/SEI 24, Flood Resistant Design and Construction, define these five hazards and the areas where they pose the highest risk.

FEMA Fact Sheet: 2025 Building Code Adoption Tracking Overview

How to Use the Regional Fact Sheets
The fact sheets are a tool for FEMA regional representatives and other stakeholders to use in their outreach efforts to their states and territories to encourage adopting the latest consensus-based hazard-resistant building codes. These fact sheets enhance the resilience conversation and planning for:

  • FEMA and state, local, tribal and territorial governments during FEMA/State Mitigation Consultations
  • Updates to state, local, tribal and territorial Hazard Mitigation Plans
  • RiskMAP Project lifecycle stages
  • Supporting and implementing preparedness goals
  • Code enforcement projects
  • Loss avoidance studies
  • Readiness enhancement for building code administration assistance under the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, Section 1206 – Code Implementation and Enforcement

Access the BCAT fact sheets, organized by regions. This page also has the annual Mutual Aid for Building Department (MABD) regional fact sheets available for download.

Access FEMA’s BCAT Portal to identify which building codes your area has adopted

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