Missouri decides this locally, all the way down. There is no statewide building code, county zoning exists only where voters approved it, and the same container can be routine in one township and a permit application one county over.
Shipping container permits in Missouri work differently from most states, and the difference is worth understanding before you make a phone call. In Georgia or Michigan there is one state building code and the only local variable is zoning. Missouri has no general statewide building code at all. Each city, county and fire protection district decides for itself whether to adopt one, and which edition, usually by incorporating a model code by reference under RSMo 67.280.
That means the honest first question in Missouri is not "what does the code say." It is "whose code applies to my address, and is there one." Bills to create a statewide building code have been filed in recent legislative sessions and none has become law (St. Louis Public Radio). The International Code Council put the same fact plainly in its review of building codes across the New Madrid Seismic Zone: Missouri relies on local jurisdictions to adopt and enforce their own codes, and the state requires only that projects for state-owned facilities follow the current International Building Code (ICC).
So there are still two questions, they are just both local. The building code question asks whether this structure needs a permit and an inspection from whoever enforces construction here. The zoning question asks whether a container is an allowed thing to put on this particular lot, in this district, in this position. Kansas City has a written rule that names portable storage containers directly. Springfield regulates them through a portable buildings framework. The City of St. Louis is working from a zoning code adopted in the 1950s that is being rewritten right now.
The four numbers that decide most Missouri answers. A standard 20ft container has a 160 square foot footprint (8ft by 20ft) and stands 8 feet 6 inches tall. A 40ft container is 320 square feet at the same height. A 40ft high cube is also 320 square feet but stands 9 feet 6 inches. Missouri permit and accessory-structure thresholds are commonly written around 100, 120, 200, 260 and 400 square feet, and around 8.5 and 10 feet of height, so those are the numbers to hold in your head when someone reads you a local rule.
Kansas City has the most specific container language of our three cities, and it is genuinely useful because it tells you exactly what the city is regulating: the job, not the object.
Under Sec. 88-370-07 of the Zoning and Development Code, temporary portable storage containers are an allowed temporary, accessory use on lots containing a dwelling, subject to all of the following. On lots developed with detached houses, a container is permitted for a period not to exceed a total of 30 days within any consecutive 6 month period, may not exceed a cumulative gross floor area of 260 square feet, and may not sit in a setback abutting a street unless it is on a driveway or other paved surface. On lots developed with residential buildings other than detached houses, the window drops to 72 hours within any consecutive 6 month period and the cap drops to 130 square feet for each dwelling unit. Containers may not exceed 8.5 feet in height. Rail cars, semi-trailers and similar structures may not be used for temporary or permanent storage on lots containing a dwelling. The directors may extend the time periods for natural disaster or casualty damage.
Now run the arithmetic, because this is where the rule becomes concrete. A 20ft container at 160 square feet fits comfortably inside the 260 square foot cap for a detached house. A 40ft container at 320 square feet does not. And the height cap of 8.5 feet is exactly the external height of a standard container, which means a standard box sitting flat on a driveway is right at the line, a 40ft high cube at 9 feet 6 inches is over it, and any container set up on blocks is over it too.
Sec. 88-370-07 governs temporary use. A container you intend to leave in place is judged as an accessory structure instead, and the numbers change. Under Sec. 88-305-02, accessory buildings and structures may not exceed 10 feet in height, except that detached garages may be up to 16 feet and allowed carriage houses up to 28 feet or two stories. Accessory structures must keep a minimum distance from property lines, 1.5 feet from rear lines other than alleys and 1.5 feet from interior side lines, and may not be placed in front or street side yards except for customary landscape features. The total combined footprint area of all detached accessory buildings and structures may not exceed 40 percent of the actual rear yard area.
Read that 40 percent clause the way a plan reviewer will. A 40ft container is 320 square feet, and 320 square feet is 40 percent of an 800 square foot rear yard. On a compact lot in Waldo or Brookside that arithmetic decides the question before anyone looks at the container.
Two Kansas City specifics worth raising on that call. The city has an extensive boulevard and parkway system with its own standards in Sec. 88-323, which restricts where accessory structures may sit relative to a boulevard frontage. And the metro is split by the state line, so a Kansas City, Kansas address is a different city in a different state with a different code. Our Kansas City container delivery page covers access and placement on the Missouri side.
St. Louis is the simplest jurisdictional question in Missouri and the most interesting zoning question.
Simple first. The City of St. Louis is an independent city. It sits in no county and has not since 1876. That means one zoning code, one building division and one set of answers for every address inside the city limits, which is unusual and genuinely helpful. Cross the city line into St. Louis County and you land in one of 88 separate municipalities or in unincorporated county, each with its own ordinance. The single most valuable minute you will spend on a St. Louis area container is establishing which government your parcel is actually in.
Now the interesting part. The city's zoning code is Title 26 of the Revised Code, and its bones date to the 1950s. In September 2025 the city began an 18 month process to rewrite it, the first major update to the zoning ordinance and map since that era, branded the Zoning Upgrade or ZOUP (St. Louis Public Radio).
That history explains something readers often find confusing. A code written in the 1950s does not contain the phrase "shipping container," because containerized shipping was barely getting started. So in St. Louis a container is not prohibited by name and not permitted by name. It gets read into whatever existing category fits: accessory building, accessory structure, outdoor storage, or a temporary use. The practical consequence is that the answer depends on how your zoning reviewer classifies it, which is exactly why you ask them rather than guess.
The second practical consequence is timing. If your project runs into 2027, the rules you are designing to may be superseded partway through. Ask Zoning where the rewrite stands and whether anything in the draft touches accessory structures or outdoor storage. Confirm the operative text in Title 26 before you rely on it.
Separately from zoning, the city right of way is its own permission. A container placed on a street, alley or public way in St. Louis is not the same question as a container placed in your own back yard, and it is handled by a different permit. If your only viable placement is the alley, raise that first, because it changes who you talk to. Our St. Louis container delivery page covers alley width, wire height and gangway access, which are the three things that actually decide a city delivery.
Springfield does not name shipping containers either, but it does something more useful than most Missouri cities: it publishes a clear portable buildings standard, and a container lands squarely inside it.
The city defines a portable building as any prefabricated structure assembled off site and delivered to the site as a complete unit, or a building purchased in kit form. Structures exceeding 100 square feet require a building permit and a site plan. For structures over that threshold the city requires that the structure be set on a permanent foundation or piers capable of carrying and distributing all imposed loads, that the foundation bear on undisturbed soil a minimum of 2 feet below the finished grade, and that wind uplift be prevented by trailer tie-downs or permanent attachment (City of Springfield, Portable Buildings).
Then there is the line that surprises commercial buyers. All portable structures used for nonresidential uses must be certified by a third party that the structural system meets the loading criteria set forth in the building code, and that certification must bear the seal of a registered Missouri engineer and be submitted with the building application. If your container is going behind a shop, a clinic or a job trailer rather than behind a house, budget for that certification as part of the project rather than discovering it at the counter.
On the accessory structure side, Springfield tiers its submittal requirements by size. A structure between 100 and 399 square feet needs a plan showing all setbacks and the distance from existing structures. A structure of 400 square feet or more needs a site plan, a foundation and footing plan and an elevation plan. A maximum of four accessory structures are allowed on any lot. In residential districts accessory structures keep a minimum of 10 feet from the rear lot line, side yards match what the principal structure requires, and no accessory structure is permitted in any required front yard (City of Springfield, Accessory Structures).
The arithmetic here is friendlier than Kansas City's. Both a 20ft at 160 square feet and a 40ft at 320 square feet clear the 100 square foot permit line, so a permit is in play either way, but both stay under 400 square feet and therefore in the simpler submittal tier. Set two 40ft containers side by side and you are at 640 square feet, which crosses into the full site plan, foundation plan and elevation package. See our Springfield container delivery page for grade and access detail in the Ozarks.
Missouri has 114 counties plus the City of St. Louis, which belongs to no county at all. Outside city limits, the rule you are looking for may simply not exist, and that is a feature of Missouri law rather than an oversight.
For counties of the second and third class, which is most of Missouri, county planning and zoning could only be adopted after the voters said so. RSMo 64.530 requires the county commission to put the question to the voters before adopting any plan or creating any commission, in substantially this form:
"Shall county zoning (or planning) be adopted?"
Only if a majority of votes cast favor adoption may the commission proceed. RSMo 64.620 then grants the zoning power itself "after approval by vote of the people as provided in section 64.530." Many Missouri counties have never held that vote or never passed it, which is why a container that needs a hearing in one township is simply a delivery two counties away. It is not that anyone is being lax. It is that the county has no zoning ordinance to apply.
This is the most consequential thing a Missouri farm should know about county zoning. Both the first class county provision at RSMo 64.090 and the second and third class provision at RSMo 64.620 carry the same limitation. County zoning does not apply to the incorporated portions of the county, nor to the raising of crops, livestock, orchards or forestry. And both sections say:
"This section shall not apply to the erection, maintenance, repair, alteration or extension of farm buildings or farm structures used for such purposes in an area not within the area shown on the flood hazard area map."
Read the whole sentence rather than the first half. Three conditions have to hold together. The parcel has to be in the unincorporated portion of the county, the structure has to be a farm building or farm structure used for those agricultural purposes, and the location has to sit outside the mapped flood hazard area. Where all three hold, a container used as farm storage on agricultural ground is outside the reach of county zoning. Where any one fails, it is not. A container behind a rural house that is not a working farm is not a farm structure, and a container on bottom ground inside the flood hazard area is a different conversation entirely.
Nearly every Missouri jurisdiction that addresses containers at all separates a container tied to a specific, time-limited activity from a container that simply lives on the property.
Temporary means the container supports an active project: a move, a renovation, a build. Kansas City's rule is the clearest model in the state, and it is instructive because of how tight it is. Thirty days in six months for a house, 72 hours in six months for an apartment building, a size cap and a height cap. That is a rule written for a moving box, not a shed.
Permanent means the container stays, and that is when accessory structure standards apply: setbacks, height, rear yard coverage, screening, surface, and the submittal tier your square footage lands in. If you intend permanence, say so at the counter on the first call. Discovering it later from a code enforcement notice costs more than asking.
One call to the right office, with your property address in hand, settles nearly all of this. In Missouri the first two questions are different from other states, so ask these in this order:
Write down the name of the person who answered. If the answer later turns out to be wrong, that name is worth having.
We sell and deliver containers across Missouri from two in-state depots. We are not your permit office, we do not file applications and we do not interpret your ordinance. What we can do is give you accurate specifications so the conversation with your zoning office is a short one: exact external dimensions, footprint, height, weight, door swing and the clearance the truck needs to set it down.
Missouri delivered pricing, starting at $2,332 for a 20ft wind and water tight container delivered in St. Louis, was captured from Container One on 6 August 2026. St. Louis is cheapest because the depot sits under six miles from downtown, the shortest run in the state. Kansas City and Springfield run higher for the same grade, and the difference is road, not a different business.
| City | 20ft WWT | 40ft WWT | 40ft High Cube WWT | Serving depot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Louis | $2,332 | $2,730 | $2,703 | St. Louis, 5.8 mi |
| Kansas City | $2,438 | $2,703 | $2,756 | Kansas City, 16.3 mi |
| Springfield | $2,681 | $2,946 | $2,999 | Kansas City, 151 mi |
Every price above includes delivery. If you would rather spread the cost, ask about rent-to-own when you call.
If you are thinking beyond storage, our companion guides cover insulating a shipping container in Missouri and container homes in Missouri.
This guide is general information about how Missouri jurisdictions handle containers, not legal advice, and ordinances change. Confirm current requirements with your local planning, zoning and building office before you order.
Tell us the size you are considering and we will send exact dimensions, footprint, height and delivery clearance, so you can answer your planner's questions in one call. Missouri delivered pricing: starting at $2,332 for a 20ft wind and water tight container delivered in St. Louis. Price always includes delivery.