San Francisco roofing is not a shingle business. The housing stock is Victorian, Edwardian and postwar, overwhelmingly flat or low-slope, packed shoulder to shoulder with shared party walls and no side access. That geometry — not the weather — is what makes this the most expensive roofing market in California. This page lists roofers serving San Francisco.
What San Francisco roofers handle
Flat and low-slope membrane roofing, the dominant system across the city.
Torch-down, TPO and single-ply replacement and repair.
Parapet, party wall and firewall detailing, where most leaks actually begin.
Roof drain and scupper work, since a flat roof with a blocked drain is a pond.
Victorian and Edwardian repair, including the complex junctions around bay windows and light wells.
Deck and structural repair exposed once the membrane comes off.
Licensing in California
California requires a C-39 Roofing Contractor licence from the Contractors State License Board on any roofing work worth more than $500 including materials — low enough that every real job is covered.
Behind that licence sits four years of journey-level experience, a trade exam, a law and business exam, and a $25,000 contractor’s bond. Verify any number at cslb.ca.gov before signing.
One detail specific to this trade: C-39 is among the classifications that cannot claim a workers’ compensation exemption. A roofer claiming to be exempt is either unlicensed or misinformed, and either way the liability lands on you if someone is hurt on your roof.
Two codes govern the work, and a re-roof can be caught by both.
- Title 24, Part 6. The 2025 Building Energy Efficiency Standards took effect 1 January 2026 and set thermal emittance, three-year aged reflectance and Solar Reflectance Index values for roofing materials. Cool-roof compliance applies to most re-roofing, not only new build.
- The California Wildland-Urban Interface Code (CWUIC). Also effective 1 January 2026, under Title 24 Part 7. It replaced Chapter 7A, which was deleted from the Building Code and relocated wholesale. It requires a Class A fire-rated roof assembly for re-roofing on any property in a mapped Fire Hazard Severity Zone.
A house in a mapped zone must satisfy both at once — a Class A assembly that also meets the cool-roof values for its climate zone. Ask which zone your address sits in before comparing quotes.
What’s specific to San Francisco
Party walls and parapets are where it leaks. In a city of attached buildings the failure point is rarely the middle of the roof — it is the junction with the neighbour’s wall, the parapet cap and the flashing around it. A quote pricing only the field of the roof has priced the easy part.
Access is a genuine cost, not an excuse. No side yard, no driveway, street parking that has to be permitted, and materials that go up and debris that comes down by hand or by crane. Two identical roofs, one in the Sunset with a garage and one on a Mission Victorian, are not the same job.
Fog and damp, not heat. Constant marine moisture, minimal UV, and long stretches where nothing dries. Ventilation and drainage matter more than reflectance, and organic debris on a north-facing roof stays wet for months.
Ponding is the failure mode. Low-slope roofs on settled hundred-year-old framing rarely drain as designed. Standing water ages the membrane, and correcting the fall is often the real fix rather than a new covering laid over the same dips.
Seismic work sometimes surfaces here. Roof-to-wall connections and parapet bracing get raised on older buildings, so it is worth knowing whether the roofer’s scope stops at the membrane.
Pricing expectations
San Francisco figures for 2026, as published by local roofing companies:
- Full replacement: the two guides read differ sharply — $10,239–$22,586 (average $16,109) on one, $15,000–$45,000 on the other
- A standard 1,500–2,000 sq ft home: $15,000–$25,000, or $20,000–$28,000 on the higher guide
- Asphalt shingle: $6–$8 per square foot on one, $8–$14 on the other; architectural $8–$12
- Flat, modified bitumen or TPO/PVC: $7–$15 per square foot
- Metal: $9–$22; clay or concrete tile $9–$30; cedar shake $16–$26; slate up to $30
- City permit: $256.62 for single-family homes and duplexes, $386.22 for all other building types
The permit is the one hard number here — SF publishes a flat reroofing fee rather than a range, which almost no other city on this site does. Everything else is wide, and one local guide explains why: it puts San Francisco roofing labour at around $100 an hour, roughly 90 percent above the national average, and at 55 percent of the total bill on the other guide. That is not the shingle. It is Victorian rooflines with multiple slopes, chimneys, skylights and ornate detailing, steep hills, and row-house access that leaves nowhere to put a skip or a crane. A quote here is mostly buying labour, so the spread between two bids will be about crew and access, not product.
These are ranges local roofing companies publish for this metro rather than survey data, so treat them as a bracket to check a quote against, not a price list.
Two contract items: how the crew is getting materials up and debris down, since access is most of the cost here, and whether the quote covers the flashing at every chimney, skylight and pipe, priced individually.
Neighborhoods served
Roofers listed here work across San Francisco, including the Mission, Noe Valley, the Sunset, the Richmond, Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, the Excelsior, Glen Park, Pacific Heights and SoMa.
Most also serve nearby cities — Daly City, South San Francisco, Brisbane, Oakland, Berkeley, San Mateo and Pacifica.
How this directory helps
Every roofer here is listed with business name, address and phone so you can verify them yourself.
Three questions sort San Francisco contractors. Ask for the C-39 number and check it at cslb.ca.gov. Ask what the quote covers for parapets and party-wall flashing, because that is where these roofs fail. And ask whether they have walked the access route — on these lots it sets the price.