International Code Council

The International Code Council (ICC), also known as the Code Council, is an American nonprofit standards organization sponsored by the building trades, which was founded in 1994 through the merger of three regional model code organizations in the American construction industry. Since 2023, ICC's headquarters has been based at Capitol Crossing in Washington, D.C.

The organization creates the International Building Code (IBC) and International Residential Code (IRC), two model building codes, which have been adopted for use as a base code standard by most jurisdictions in the United States. The ICC's model codes have been criticized for inflating housing costs and reducing housing supply in the United States through arbitrary and stringent standards that do little for safety and are out of sync with best practices in other countries. The IBC has contributed to the spread of 5-over-1 type of buildings across the US and contributed to a lack of medium-density housing (so-called "missing middle housing").

Despite its name, the International Code Council is not an international organization, its codes are rarely used outside the United States, and its regulations do not consistently follow international best practices. According to the ICC, the IBC is intended to protect public health and safety while avoiding both unnecessary costs and preferential treatment of specific materials or methods of construction. According to the Cato Institute, "Building code rules can add significantly to the cost of constructing new housing. Codes have ballooned in length and complexity", additionally, "...building code changes adopted just since 2012 account for 11 percent of the cost of building new apartments..."

According to Open Secrets, expenditures on lobbying for the ICC in 2024 was $712,500. Provided by Wikipedia