National Building Code of Haiti

The 2025 national building code of Haiti, issued by the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communications as an update of the 2012 code. It is built in two parts. Part 1 is an application document for the International Building Code 2021, adapting that code to Haiti and carrying the country-specific design values, including seismic response spectral accelerations at 5 percent damping for a 2 percent probability of exceedance in 50 years and the design wind speeds. Part 2 is a set of prescriptive directives for small buildings, covering new masonry construction, the strengthening of existing small masonry buildings, extension and progressive construction, building services, site safety, and new housing in load-bearing timber frame with infill or cladding.

The preface states the problem the code is written against: most Haitian housing is built informally, outside established norms and without qualified supervision, in hollow concrete block without structural tie elements in urban areas such as Port-au-Prince and in timber frame with stone masonry infill in rural ones. Non-residential construction is more formal but budget pressure pushes designers and contractors toward cheaper choices. The two-part structure follows from that: an engineered code for what engineers build, and prescriptive rules an owner or mason can follow for the buildings that make up most of the stock.