Do I need a permit for shed or accessory structure in Winston-Salem?

It depends. Whether shed or accessory structure needs a permit in Winston-Salem comes down to the details of your project.

North Carolina does not use a square-footage exemption, which is why the national "under 120 square feet and you are fine" advice does not apply here. Section R101.2.1 of the North Carolina Residential Code states that accessory buildings with any dimension greater than 12 feet shall meet the provisions of the code, so the test is dimensional, not area based. The code also allows an accessory building to be built without a masonry or concrete foundation, except in coastal high hazard or ocean hazard areas, provided it does not exceed 400 square feet or one story, sits on an approved wood mudsill of at least 2 inch by 6 inch or 3 inch by 4 inch under Section R317, and is anchored against overturning and sliding with at least one ground anchor at each corner, with total resisting force equal to 20 psf times the plan area. Local practice varies widely. Some jurisdictions exempt a small shed from the building permit but still require a zoning or land use permit for placement, and a few require a permit for accessory structures generally. Any electrical or plumbing run to the shed needs its own permit even if the structure is exempt, and under NCGS 160D-1110 work that adds or redesigns electrical, plumbing, HVAC or load-bearing structure falls outside the $40,000 exemption regardless of cost. Zoning setbacks, easements and lot coverage limits apply to an exempt shed just as they do to a permitted one. Forsyth County's own permitting office is the Forsyth County Inspections Division, reachable on 336-727-2624 at https://www.cityofws.org/343/Inspections-Division. Its online permit portal is https://buildit.cityofws.org/wsfcpermit. It issues permits for the unincorporated county. If your city does not run its own building department, this is the office that will handle the job, and that is more common in North Carolina than most states: the county is often the building authority even inside city limits, with the city handling only zoning. Ask specifically about the size that triggers a permit and about setbacks, since those are set locally and are the two things people most often get wrong on a shed. Permits and inspections here run through the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Inspections Division, a joint city and county office in the Planning and Development Services Department, so you are not bounced between a city desk and a county desk the way you are in most North Carolina metros. Confirm the trigger for your structure with the Inspections Division at 336-727-2624 or askinspect@cityofws.org before buying or pouring, and note that walk-in hours are limited to Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9am to 2pm. North Carolina has no statewide 200 square foot shed exemption. Running electrical or plumbing to the structure requires its own permit regardless of the shed's size, since those are express exceptions to the NCGS 160D-1110 exemption.