QUICK FACTS:
Are Tiny Houses Legal In Vermont: YES*
Tiny House Costs In Vermont: $20,000 – $100,000
Tiny House Friendly Cities: Londonderry, Burlington, Montpelier
Roll’en Homes Townshend, VT
PRICE RANGE
$30,000-$100,000
It started back in 2017, when Greg Durocher began his own carpentry business called Durocher Carpentry. After over a year with this business, Greg decided to get back to what he truly loves — building tiny homes. This passion was the beginning of Roll’en Homes.
Tiny House Crafters Londonderry, Vermont
PRICE RANGE
Contact Seller
Tiny House Crafters began as a passion project of three friends, a contractor, an environmentalist, and an architect who each possessed a love for building and design. You can contact them through the phone number or email on their website if interested in their designs.
Jamaica Cottage Shop Londonderry, Vermont
PRICE RANGE
$1,000-$36,000
Packages range from building kits and plans to entire prefabricated tiny homes and cabins. You can also find buildings and building plans for other various infrastructure like livestock pens, storage shelters, and playhouses at Jamaica Cottage Shop.
Kingdom Equipment & Trailers Danville, Vermont
PRICE RANGE
$3,000-$12,000
Kaufman Trailers Vermont Saint Johnsbury, Vermont
PRICE RANGE
$7,000-$19,000
AJ’s Truck & Trailer Center Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
PRICE RANGE
$4,000-$9,000
AJ’s Truck & Trailer Center offers a large selection of trailer variations and hauling products including hitches, plows, and salt spreaders. The company also carries and installs vehicle accessories like electrical connectors to brake controllers.
For tiny houses on wheels, AJ’s has single and tandem axel flatbed utility trailers as well as a car hauler series. While it’s located in Pennsylvania, AJ’s is currently delivering trailers and other products to several cities throughout Vermont.
- Burlington, VT
- Montpelier, VT
- Greensboro, VT
- Manchester, VT
- Stowe, VT
- Barre, VT
- Killington, VT
- Battleboro, VT
- Waterbury, VT
- Middlebury, VT
- Rutland, VT
Tiny Houses For Sale In Vermont
Why live in Vermont? The Green Mountain State is a perfect place to live if you enjoy life in quaint cities and small towns.
The social culture in Vermont aligns pretty closely with the lifestyle tiny housers tend to pursue. The state is known for its gorgeous natural landscapes, 55 state parks, a foodie culture focused on organic and healthy food, environmentally conscious residents, warm and welcoming locals, and a relaxed way of life that pushes back against American hustle culture.
If this sounds like a dream, consider getting a tiny house in Vermont. Check out these tiny house listings to see if any of them speak to you.
Vermont is a gorgeous state to visit. It’s a popular vacation spot in late May or early June, as well as mid-September–October due to its gorgeous seasons, breathtaking natural landscapes, small crowds, quaint little towns, events including the Vermont City Marathon, and local delicacies like maple syrup.
All of my friends who have visited Vermont in the fall say it’s lifechanging. Check out these tiny houses on Airbnb in Vermont to book your next family vacation.
Living in a tiny house community gives you access to shared resources and helps to keep your cost of living and financial burdens much lower. It also helps you meet new people in the tiny community and form genuine bonds.
If this sounds appealing to you, there are several communities in Vermont worth looking into. If you know of a tiny house community in Vermont we’ve forgotten, let us know in the comments below.
Headwaters Garden & Learning Center
Headwaters Garden & Learning Center is an intentional living community in Cabot, Vermont. The ecovillage was founded with the idea of providing community members with a nurturing environment and the public with educational, recreational, and healing programs to teach sustainable livelihoods.
The community consists of eight independent dwellings including tiny houses, single-family homes, a yurt, tee-pees, domes, a treehouse, tents, and additional lots to build on. Members share in the community workload by cultivating the land, helping with building projects, providing childcare, growing food, and much more.
Joining is a few-step process — after some time spent attending events at the community, visitors can submit an application that will be considered by the group. To build your own home at Headwaters, you would buy a home site and agree to pay monthly condo fees for shared facilities. Currently, the remaining home site is for sale for $50,000, whereas the average building lot in the area is over $60,000.
Headwaters also provides educational services to the public. Members offer wellness, arts, and lifestyle courses and weekend retreats for those who want to try new things like vegan eating, learning about the climate crisis, or taking up guitar lessons.
Ten Stones Community
Ten Stones is a multi-generational, sustainable co-housing community in Charlotte, Vermont. It was created by 17 humble families who wanted to live as a community. Ten Stones sits on 87.4 acres of woodland, meadow, and preserved agricultural land with 16 clustered, privately owned, half-acre home sites with small dwellings.
Residents live in a close-knit neighborhood that seeks a blend of privacy and community. There is no one dogma other than a desire to live communally, ecologically, and economically. Members tend to be deeply connected to the land and like to live pastorally in the heart of Champlain Valley. Decisions are made via a community consensus and all members are involved in that process.
The families of Ten Stones care for jointly owned land and infrastructure, share resources with one another, work to maintain and improve the community, celebrate important life events, and care for one another deeply.
Tiny House Fest Vermont
Tiny House Fest Vermont began in 2016 when three friends decided to launch an annual tiny house festival in downtown Brattleboro. At the time, one of the founders was in the process of designing and building a tiny house on wheels, another was renovating homes, and another was completing an energy retrofit. All were considering many questions about the most affordable and ecofriendly housing.
As they considered the economy, flexibility, and proximity of tiny houses, they decided to do something about this community need. And thus, Tiny House Fest Vermont was born!
The festival invites anyone in the city to comes out, eat good food, tour tiny houses on wheels, and join the conversation around why the tiny house movement matters.
Vermont Tiny Houses
The Vermont Tiny Houses Facebook page is open to all tiny house lovers in the state of Vermont. The page welcomes all skill levels to the group, where members share photos, tips, tricks, and advice for living the tiny house life in Vermont. The group also hosts the occasional tiny house building workshop for those who are new to the tiny life!
Enthusiasm for tiny house life continues to increase all across the U.S., and Vermont is no exception. Like many other states, Vermont has yet to address tiny houses as a legal dwelling or create statewide laws around their use.
However, that doesn’t make living in a tiny house impossible. It’s common in the state’s more rural areas to fly under the radar and live in a tiny home, parking your house outside the lines of major cities. By doing this, you can live in your tiny home unnoticed.
It’s fairly difficult to live in a tiny home on wheels in most of Vermont’s major cities, though, as those areas tend to be stricter with zoning and building laws. Many folks in the bigger cities build tiny homes as backyard ADUs so they aren’t registered as primary dwellings.
Can I Make My Tiny House Legal In Vermont?
As I mentioned, Vermont does not address tiny homes in its statewide building code. The State has adopted the 2015 IBC, 2012 IPC, and 2017 NEC. Yet, there is no residential code for one- or two-family dwellings currently in effect in Vermont to apply to your tiny home.
It’s difficult to know exactly what’s allowed and what’s not allowed without going local. Check out building codes in popular Vermont counties and cities. This is the best way to discern the legality of your tiny home in the Green Mountain State.
It’s also important to note that, like many other states, tiny houses on wheels are not considered traditional dwellings in Vermont. Your tiny house on wheels will be recognized as a recreational vehicle and must follow the American Safety Institute Standard.
It is illegal to live in your tiny house on wheels full time in the state of Vermont. Check out this list of RV parks in Vermont to decipher where you can park your THOW while on the road.
Tiny House Laws in Key Vermont Counties: Local Zoning Ordinances
Vermont is made up of 14 counties, 279 cities, towns, and villages, and 159 special districts (Read the PDF here). Each local jurisdiction has the ability to create their own building laws in order to accommodate the needs of their specific area. Let’s take a look at what they’ve done.
Windham County, Vermont
Windham County prohibits tiny homes by requiring that all one-story homes have a minimum square footage of 650 feet and two-story dwellings have at least 500 square feet. This makes it difficult to live tiny in Windham County.
However, there is a loophole that many tiny house enthusiasts take advantage of. You can build an accessory dwelling unit on a lot that already has a home, which can be smaller than the dimension requirements for a one- or two-person dwelling.
Windsor County, Vermont
Windsor County addresses the tiny community explicitly. Their safety codes bill (Read the PDF here) mentions and creates rules around tiny homes.
The law states that tiny houses shall be subject to the same requirements as other types of single-family dwellings for purposes of building codes, zoning, and taxation. This means that in Windsor, the dimensions and requirements for traditional dwellings should also be applied to tiny homes, whether on wheels or foundation.
Tiny House Building Codes In Key Cities Of Vermont
Many cities in Vermont have their own set of building laws that are separate from their individual county, or have added sections to their laws that permit or prohibit tiny houses in Vermont.
Burlington, Vermont
The city of Burlington, Vermont, has its own set of rules regarding accessory dwelling units. Burlington permits tiny houses as ADUs with no minimum square footage, which cannot be said of all cities or counties in Vermont.
Brattleboro, Vermont
Brattleboro is a town in Vermont that is especially accommodating to tiny homeowners. The Brattleboro Land Use Regulations (Read the PDF here) has a section that specifically explains that moveable houses are allowed. The law allows for mobile homes, modular homes, and prefabricated homes.
These types of dwellings are allowed in Brattleboro under the same terms and conditions as conventional homes in Vermont. In addition. mobile home parks are allowed under the same terms and conditions as other residential subdivisions or developments. This is a win for the tiny community.
Williston, Vermont
The city of Williston, Vermont, specifically addresses tiny houses, unlike many cities in Vermont. For a home to be considered a tiny house in Williston, it must have a maximum of 1,500 square feet. Otherwise, it cannot be considered a tiny home in the city.
Tiny House Building Codes In Vermont:
Tiny House Laws In Vermont:
*Disclaimer: The information provided on this website should not be taken as an expert opinion, consultation, or advisement of any kind. Building codes, home building, zoning, local laws etc are complicated and ultimately your responsibility to execute legally and safely. You must do your own research, consult with and verify with all applicable authorities, local officials, regulatory bodies, code and zoning officials, and city/state/federal governments. See our full legal page for further information here: https://thetinylife.com/about-us/legal/
building house in orwell but until its 6 months occupied their are no laws to it . I want to move it to Fairhaven Vermont so as to be close to my grandchildren and daughters and son in laws of who live in FH. so how are FH laws ? also both FH and Casleton have Mobile home parks but I dont want to live in park have eyes on piece of land .