How Much Does a New Roof Cost in Michigan in 2026

Nothing we found prices a Michigan roof on its own. The Remodeling 2025 Cost vs. Value Report (www.costvsvalue.com) gives the closest measured number, and it is national: $31,871 to replace an asphalt-shingle roof. Michigan roofers out-earn the U.S. average ($29.54 vs. $27.95 an hour, BLS, May 2025), and a contractor you pay to reroof needs a state residential builder license, or a maintenance and alteration license that lists roofing.

The $31,871 benchmark is a U.S. figure, not a Michigan price

Zonda’s survey covers 119 U.S. markets and 28 remodeling jobs, setting each one’s average cost against the value it holds at resale. Its 2025 national table gives the asphalt-shingle roof replacement a job cost of $31,871 and a resale value of $21,501, which it reports as 68% of cost recouped. The metal roof replacement is $51,865, with $25,972 recovered at resale, or 50%.

Those are averages for the report’s own defined projects across its U.S. sample, not a quote for your house; how big a roof, and which shingle, the report assumed is missing from the pages we could read.

© 2025 Zonda Media, a Delaware Corporation. Complete data from the Remodeling 2025 Cost vs. Value Report can be downloaded free at www.costvsvalue.com.

What Michigan roofers are paid (BLS, May 2025)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025 estimate 3,090 roofers employed in Michigan. Their mean wage was $29.54 an hour ($61,450 a year) and the median $28.62, against a U.S. mean of $27.95 and a U.S. median of $26.65. The survey leaves out “the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms,” so a one-person roofing outfit is not in these numbers. It is a wage, one input to a bid, not a job price.

Roofing is a licensed trade under Michigan’s Occupational Code

MCL 339.2404(3) names roofing among the crafts a residential maintenance and alteration contractor’s license can cover. MCL 339.601(1) bars anyone from practicing a regulated occupation without the license. The rule covers work on a “residential structure”: a detached one- or two-family dwelling, or a townhouse of not more than three stories above grade with a separate means of egress (MCL 339.2401(c)).

MCL 339.2403 lets these people work without that license:

• an authorized representative of the United States, the state, or a county, township, city, village or other political subdivision;
• an owner working on a structure on the owner’s property “for the owner’s own use and occupancy”;
• an owner of rental property, for maintenance and alteration of that rental property;
• an officer of a court acting within that office;
• someone (other than a salesperson) who works only under contract with a licensed residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor;
• anyone whose whole project, across one or more contracts, is priced under $600 for labor, material and everything else. That exemption is lost if the job is part of a larger operation or split into contracts under $600 “to evade this act”;
• licensed electrical, plumbing and mechanical contractors, only for their own trade’s work.

An unlicensed contractor cannot sue in a Michigan court to collect for work that required the license, and cannot put a lien on your property for it (MCL 339.2412(1) and (3)). A first offense is a misdemeanor with a $5,000 to $25,000 fine, up to a year in jail, or both (MCL 339.601(6)(a)). LARA’s find or verify a licensed professional page links to the license search.

A contract signed at your door: three business days to cancel

Under Michigan’s Home Solicitation Sales Act, a sale over $25 is a home solicitation sale when the roofer’s in-person, phone or written pitch reaches you at home and you agree there. You may cancel “until midnight of the third business day after the day on which the buyer signs” (MCL 445.112(1)). Business days are Monday through Friday, minus New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King’s birthday, Washington’s birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans’ Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas (MCL 445.111(c)).

The Act does not reach a sale made under a preexisting revolving charge account; after prior negotiations at the seller’s fixed business location; of insurance by a licensed agent; at a fixed business location; in response to a printed ad in a publication of general circulation; of a licensed real estate broker’s services; or of demonstrated farm equipment (MCL 445.111(a)). You also lose the right to cancel if you asked for the work without delay because of an emergency, the roofer made a good-faith substantial start, you signed a handwritten, dated statement describing the emergency and waiving the right, and, for goods, they cannot come back in substantially as good condition (MCL 445.112(5)).

Once you cancel, the seller has 10 days to return payments (MCL 445.114(1)) and is not paid for services performed before cancellation (MCL 445.115(2)). Until the three business days run out, the seller may not send a courier or other third party to pick up your payment at home.

Which residential code applies in 2026, and who issues the permit

“This act and the code apply throughout the state” (MCL 125.1508a(1)). The state administers and enforces it except where a county, city, village or township has taken that job over by ordinance (MCL 125.1508b(1), 125.1502a(v)). Under MCL 125.1510(1), “except as otherwise provided in the code,” a building permit application goes to that enforcing agency with the fee the agency sets. A permit is not required for “ordinary repairs” (subsection 7).

LARA says a July 7, 2025 order of the Michigan Court of Claims (Home Builders Assoc et al. v LARA et al.) stops it from implementing the rule sets that would have moved the Michigan Residential Code to the 2021 International Residential Code on August 29, 2025. While that stipulated order stands, the 2015 versions “will remain valid and in effect.”

Common questions from Michigan owners

Can I reroof my own house without a license?

Yes, if it is a structure on your property for your own use and occupancy (MCL 339.2403(b)).

The roofer said the job is small, so no license is needed. Is that right?

The size exemption works only if the entire project, counting every contract, comes in under $600 and is not part of a larger job or split up to dodge the rule.

Can an unlicensed roofer file a lien on my home?

No. MCL 339.2412(3) blocks a lien by anyone who was not licensed during the work that required the license.

More reading: roof replacement cost nationwide in 2026, metal roof cost, foundation repair cost in Michigan and the net proceeds calculator for a roof done before a sale.