Does outdoor HVAC need GFCI protection? NEC 210.8(F), by jurisdiction

We can answer for 6 of 51 jurisdictions. We researched all 51 and verified 19 against the state’s own documents. Those are deliberately separate numbers. Each of those 19 comes from the issuing agency’s own document, fetched 2026-08-01; the NEC text itself we read from the printed book. Reading a state’s rules does not always produce an honest answer, and for 13 of them it did not, so those refuse with a stated reason instead. The remaining 32 were researched too, and what that research produced was leads rather than readings. We do not publish leads here: checked against the states we did verify, close to a third of them were wrong, and two would have taken required GFCI protection off a live circuit. So those rows say what our weaker compiled source claims and nothing more. We are not adding a national default to raise any of these numbers, because a national default is precisely the error this page exists to avoid.

Alabama

We refuse because Alabama has two building codes and neither one puts NEC 210.8(F) over a house. The State Building Code, which is the instrument that adopts the 2020 NEC, applies only to four things, in its own words at Ala. Admin. Code r. 355-12-1-.04: buildings erected or acquired by or on behalf of the State or any of its agencies or instrumentalities; schoolhouses, meaning public school buildings plus any private building where 25 or more persons are congregated regularly for instruction; hotels of 15 or more bedrooms; and moving picture theaters. A one- or two-family dwelling is none of those. Dwellings instead fall to the Alabama Residential Building Code under Code of Ala. Section 34-14A-12, which is based on a published edition of the INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTIAL CODE, whose electrical provisions are the E3902 series rather than NEC 210.8(F), and which is enforced only by local jurisdictions that run permitting and inspection programs. We hold no IRC primary, and we could not confirm which IRC edition Alabama dwellings are on today, so we will not answer across code books. Ask the local jurisdiction that issues your permit which residential code edition it enforces. Source ›

Alaska

We refuse because Alaska's state electrical code does not bind a detached one- or two-family dwelling, so the September 2026 question does not reach your job through it. AS 18.60.640(b) says these standards "are the recommended minimum standards for all new structures in the state", and the mandatory inspection power is narrower still: AS 18.60.600(a)(2) reaches a "place of employment or public structure", and AS 18.60.660(4) defines public structures as hotels, "resident housing with more than one rental unit", restaurants, taverns, lodging houses, children's homes, auditoriums, town halls and structures used for public assembly. Alaska's own Department of Labor states the practice the same way: commercial structures and dwellings of three-plex and above are subject to inspection. Separately, we were unable to read an official Alaska source for the current text of 8 AAC 70.025, because every state and mirror host either refused us or failed, and we will not publish a verdict off a transcription we could not check. Note that AS 18.60.590(b) preserves municipal authority to be MORE stringent, so a city like Anchorage may bind your dwelling under its own ordinance. Ask your municipality. Source ›

Connecticut

We hold Connecticut’s primaries and still refuse, because an exception survives but it is NARROWER than the NEC's: mini-split-type heating/ventilating/air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment and other HVAC units employing power conversion equipment as a means to control compressor speed. A conventional single-speed condenser is NOT covered and never was. Source ›

Hawaii

We refuse because Hawaii sets the electrical code county by county, and most of it predates the rule you are asking about. 210.8(F) entered the NEC in the 2020 edition. Honolulu is on the 2017 NEC by Revised Ordinances Section 17-1.1, Hawaii County is on the 2017 NEC, and MAUI IS ON THE 2008 NEC by Ordinance 3726, effective 2010-06-06. In all three, 210.8(F) does not exist at all, so there is no exception to expire and no September 2026 event. We could not read Kauai's electrical adoption (403 twice), so we do not characterise it. At the state layer the position is genuinely undecidable rather than merely unread: the State Building Code Council's own listing says the 2020 NEC adopted 2022-03-15, while HRS 107-24(c) automatically adopts a code the Council fails to act on within two years, and the Governor's Twentieth Proclamation of July 2026 recites that automatic adoption has in fact occurred while suspending the Council's power to adopt. Those cannot all be resolved from the documents. One thing worth knowing about the state's own page: it labels its electrical link "2018 NFPA 70", an edition that has never existed, and the document behind it is the 2020 code. Ask your county building department which NEC edition it enforces. Source ›

Maryland

We refuse because Maryland has no binding statewide electrical code for dwellings, so there is no single Maryland answer to give you. Md. Public Safety Section 12-603 says each electrical installation shall conform to either the National Electrical Code or the electrical code and amendments adopted by the COUNTY where the work is done, and it names no edition at all. The statewide building code is mandatory but deliberately hands electrical off: COMAR 09.12.51.04 writes it out of scope twice, once for IBC Chapter 27 and once for IRC chapters 34 through 43, each time pointing at the local electrical code. The state instrument that DOES amend 210.8(F), the Model Performance Code at COMAR 09.12.50, says at .02B(1) that it may not be binding upon any subdivision unless that subdivision adopts it. Here is the part worth carrying to your county: where the model code HAS been adopted, Maryland incorporates the 2020 NEC with its own words added to the 210.8(F) exception, "and heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration equipment that serve the dwelling", and that carve-out carries NO expiry, so a county on the model code likely has no September 2026 cliff at all. Ask your county which electrical code and which edition it has adopted, and whether it took the Maryland Model Performance Code with it. Source ›

Missouri

We refuse because Missouri has no statewide electrical code reaching a site-built one- or two-family dwelling, so there is no statewide answer to give you. RSMo 64.170 EMPOWERS first- and second-class counties to adopt building regulations rather than requiring it, and counties without a code predating August 28, 2001 need voter approval. RSMo 324.920 is statewide electrical contractor LICENSING, and the only place the National Electrical Code appears in it is as the basis for a written examination, which is exam content and not a construction standard. A full-text search of Missouri's own revisor site does return the National Electrical Code in several statutes, so the absence here is evidence rather than a failed search, and not one of those provisions adopts it as a building code for dwellings. The one statewide instrument that DOES adopt the NEC, 20 CSR 4240-123.080, covers modular units only: it applies to "modular units which entered the first stage of production after July 1, 1976", a modular unit being a TRANSPORTABLE factory-built building unit under RSMo 700.010. For those units Missouri adopts NFPA 70-2020 and states that "the referenced codes do not include any later amendments or additions", in a rule amended April 2024 and effective November 30 2024, which is well after the amendment that created the HVAC exception, so those units never received it. None of that reaches a house framed on site. Ask your city or county which electrical code it has adopted. Source ›

Montana

We refuse because Montana is a case where the practical answer is probably clear and our evidence is not good enough to publish it. Two things are worth knowing regardless. First, Montana is on the 2020 NEC, not the 2023, whatever a tracker tells you: the state's own current-codes page and its own rule both say 2020, and the rule was amended as recently as September 2024. Second, Montana never adopted the amendment that created the listed-HVAC exception, so the exception is not in Montana's code at all. What exists instead is a September 2022 enforcement memo from the Building Codes Program allowing installers to use the exception, and that memo quotes the expiry itself: it lets you "utilize this exception", and this exception expires September 1, 2026 by the very words the memo reproduces. So the relief lapses on that date rather than surviving it. We are still refusing, because the only copy of Montana's adopting rule we have been able to read is a third-party reproduction (the state's own rules site returns 403 to us), and if that rule turns out to pick up tentative interim amendments then this whole reading changes. Ask the Montana Building Codes Program directly, and ask specifically whether the 2022 HVAC memo is still in force after September 1, 2026. Source ›

North Carolina

We refuse because we have read North Carolina's rules and they do not produce a clean answer. The 2023 State Electrical Code, which appends only a submersible-well-pump exception and leaves the NEC sunset intact, is on INDEFINITE DELAY under Session Law 2025-2 (House Bill 47). What is actually in force is the 2020 State Electrical Code, effective November 1, 2021, and it amends 210.8(F) to read "Deleted" while also stating that it does not apply to one- and two-family dwellings. So for most dwelling work the governing document is the NC Residential Code, which we have not been able to read. Ask the NC Office of State Fire Marshal which document governs your job before relying on any national article about the September 2026 sunset. Source ›

Oregon

We refuse because Oregon rewrote 210.8(F) rather than deleting it, and the rewrite cuts both ways at once. The important part first: Oregon STRUCK the listed-HVAC exception, and the sentence "This exception shall expire September 1, 2026" along with it, when it adopted the 2023 Oregon Electrical Specialty Code effective October 1, 2023. So there is no HVAC exception in Oregon, there has not been one under this code, and NOTHING happens there on September 1, 2026. If you have read a national article about the exception expiring, it is about a provision Oregon does not have. What we will not do is tell you whether your particular outlet is covered, because Oregon also rewrote the scope: it struck "For dwellings" so the section reaches every occupancy, and it replaced "outlets" with "general-purpose receptacles" so it no longer reaches hardwired equipment. An outdoor general-purpose receptacle needs GFCI protection in Oregon unconditionally, with no exception of any kind. A hardwired condenser feed is outside the rewritten section, which is a narrowing and not a clearance. Oregon defines "general-purpose receptacle" nowhere: the phrase occurs exactly once in all eighteen pages of Table 1-E, in this amendment. Read OAR 918-305-0105 Table 1-E page 4 and ask the Building Codes Division which side your installation is on. Source ›

South Carolina

We hold South Carolina’s primaries and still refuse, because the state deletes 210.8(F) entirely, so the section imposes nothing there. Source ›

Utah

We hold Utah’s primaries and still refuse, because the state deletes 210.8(F) entirely, so the section imposes nothing there. Source ›

Virginia

We hold Virginia’s primaries and still refuse, because the state deletes 210.8(F) entirely, so the section imposes nothing there. Source ›

West Virginia

We refuse because West Virginia's State Building Code binds only where a local jurisdiction has adopted it. W. Va. Code Section 7-1-3n says the state building code "shall not apply to or affect any territory within the boundaries of any municipal corporation which has not adopted the state building code", and 87CSR4 Section 87-4-7.1 requires each adopting jurisdiction to notify the Fire Commission in writing. So there is no statewide answer to give you. What we can tell you about the state rule, if your jurisdiction has adopted it: West Virginia is on the 2020 NEC, effective 2022-08-01, and its adoption contains no tentative-interim-amendment language of any kind, so the NEC's own listed-HVAC exception never reached it. West Virginia did write an HVAC exception of its own, and it has already expired: 87-4-4.1.m.1 excepted mini-split and power-conversion HVAC "until January 1, 2023". GFCI protection has been required on outdoor HVAC there since that date, and nothing further happens on September 1, 2026. A 2023 NEC package was AGENCY-APPROVED on 2026-07-31 and filed with the Legislative Rule-Making Review Committee, which cannot put it in force and which carries no effective date. Ask whether your city or county has adopted the state building code, and which version. Source ›

Why the last column is not our answer

The edition shown for a jurisdiction we have not read comes from a compiled adoption dataset, not from that state’s own listing, and it is the weaker of the two sources by some distance. Compiled trackers report a single statewide edition even where there is not one: Hawaii sets its code county by county, with Maui still on the 2008 NEC, and the 2023 often quoted for Maryland is an amendment’s effective date rather than the edition in force. That is why the tool refuses whenever the dataset and a state’s own listing disagree, rather than picking a winner.