Elevation Certificates are an important administrative tool to determine and certify the final elevation on newly constructed buildings. It is required per City codes at the time of building occupancy. An elevation certificate (EC) is required for all new buildings including manufactured homes, and installation of all new or replacement mobile homes, affected by a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA).

ECs are also required for all substantially improved or damaged buildings within the Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs). The City requires elevation certificate if there are substantial improvements, such as room additions to an existing building, or repairing an existing home that was substantially damaged and is located in the SFHA.

Notice: On July 7th 2023, FEMA issued a new Elevation Certificate Form numbered FF-206-FY-22-152. A newer version of the form was released on September 5th 2023 that fixed some formatting issues and typos. Per FEMA guidelines, a transition or "Grace" period for Elevation Certificate form is no longer provided and older elevation certificate forms may not be used.

Elevation certificates are used by the City, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to provide elevation information necessary to ensure compliance with community floodplain management ordinances, to determine the proper insurance premium rate, and to support a request to change NFIP’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) such as Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) or Letter of Map Revision based on fill (LOMR-F).

FIRMs delineate both the SFHAs and the risk premium zones applicable to each community. The Initial FIRM Date for the City of Oceanside's Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) is September 5, 1984.

All buildings built prior to the above Initial FIRM Date are considered to be pre-FIRM and all buildings built after the above date, are considered to be post-FIRM.

City of Oceanside maintains a copy of elevation certificates for new and substantially improved post FIRM buildings. All certificates in the City inventory are available to the property owners, their agents and FEMA.

Prior to final occupancy, an Elevation Certificate must be submitted to the City for all new and substantially improved or substantially damaged buildings.

• Elevation Certificate Form & Instructions (FEMA Website)
• Building Diagrams for Completing Elevation Certificate Form
• Elevation Certificate Review Fee

For more information please check FEMA website.

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