Guides
October 22, 2026
Most tent advice online says 400 square feet. Nassau County says 200, and your village may say less. Here's how the layers stack up on an estate lawn.
You’ve got a date, a guest list north of a hundred, and a lawn that looks like it was made for this. Then a friend mentions a permit, and the tent company tells you one thing while the village website tells you another.
If you’re planning a Bar Mitzvah, a Bat Mitzvah, or a wedding on private property in Nassau County, you’re dealing with more than one office, and nobody hands you the whole list up front. We’d rather you hear it early. Here’s how it actually works, starting with the rule most people have wrong.
Search for tent permits on Long Island and you’ll see the same line again and again: you need a permit for anything over 400 square feet. Rental companies repeat it so often it sounds official. It isn’t quite.
Nassau County’s Fire Prevention Ordinance sets the line at 200 square feet for a tent or membrane structure. The 400-square-foot number applies to open canopies. Any tent or canopy where cooking happens needs a permit no matter how small, which matters the minute your caterer wants a cooking tent behind the dinner tent.
County fees run $60 for tents over 200 square feet with sidewalls on more than 25 percent of the perimeter, $110 for tents over 400, and $150 for cooking tents. The application is due at least three business days before installation, and a copy of it and the permit stay on site, attached to the tent.
The Nassau County Fire Marshal sets the baseline, but it’s rarely the only office involved. Under the Fire Code of New York State, a temporary structure over 400 square feet needs approval from the Fire Code Official (the Nassau County Fire Marshal) and from the Building Official in your town, village, or city. Nassau County has 64 incorporated villages, each running its own building department with its own forms.
Old Westbury, NY requires a village permit for tents larger than 10 by 10 feet. The application asks for a Nassau County Fire Marshal permit, proof of workers’ compensation, flame certification, and a general liability certificate naming the village as additional insured. Lead time is where it gets interesting: the application form says one week before setup, while the village code says two weeks’ written request. Call the village and ask which one they’ll hold you to. Tents staying up longer than seven days go to the Board of Trustees after a public hearing.
Kings Point, NY starts even lower. Fees are $250 for tents from 100 to 400 square feet and $1,000 for anything over 400. The contractor has to carry liability, disability, and workers’ compensation insurance. Electrical work needs a contractor licensed in the Town of North Hempstead, and the permit expires seven days after approval. If you’re using valet, the company needs its own valid operating permit, and the village wants at least seven days’ notice.
If your lawn is in Muttontown, Oyster Bay, Sea Cliff, or anywhere else in Nassau County, the pattern holds. The County rule is the floor, and your local building department tells you what sits on top of it.
Here’s the part rental blogs skip: tents that are connected or within 10 feet of each other count as contiguous, and each separate tent still needs its own application and payment.
A Mitzvah on an estate lawn rarely stays in one tent. You might have a cocktail tent for the adults, a dinner tent, a lounge or activity tent for the kids, and the caterer’s cooking tent out back. A dinner tent over 400 square feet is $110 at the County level, and a cooking tent is $150 on its own application. Add whatever your village charges and the paperwork starts to look like its own vendor.
The County form also asks about portable generators, electrical power, heaters, propane stored or used on site, and whether the event will reach 50 people. You can’t answer any of that honestly until you know how many tents you have, how big they are, and where the kitchen sits. A floor plan comes before the permit, not after it.
That’s where we start. Lawns are a footprint puzzle before they’re a design project. When we turned a client’s backyard into a Coachella-style festival, space was the limit, so we drew a floor plan that fit activities, dining, and dancing, then built an acrylic dance floor over the pool. The same thinking tells you how many tents your lawn can really hold before anyone fills out a form.
Want live answers?
Connect with a Debbie Hart Celebrations expert for fast, friendly support.
If you’re comparing a hall with a lawn, ask a few questions before you fall for the lawn photos. One Long Island rental guide describes estate and garden venues, Planting Fields in Oyster Bay among them, as close to empty. Tables, chairs, linens, tents, and permits are the renter’s job.
Nothing wrong with that, but you should know which one you’re buying. A venue with a beautiful lawn and no in-house setup gives you design freedom and privacy, and it hands you the compliance work. A hall with its own licenses usually takes that off your plate.
So ask three things before you sign: who files the tent permit, who pays the fees, and who’s responsible if the village wants changes. Get the answers in writing. The same questions apply if the lawn is your own.
Short answer: ask, and get it in writing. The Nassau County application has a “Business/Tenant/Resident Name” field, which means the host is usually the named party on the paperwork. Plenty of tent companies will help you fill it out, and you should take them up on it. Helping isn’t the same as being responsible.
Then there’s everything the permit leans on. The tent needs a flame-retardant certificate, typically to NFPA 701, and some codes want the label permanently attached to the fabric. Villages like Old Westbury and Kings Point want a certificate of insurance naming them. Kings Point wants a licensed electrician. Generators and heaters have to be disclosed. If you live in an HOA, it can restrict temporary structures separately from any municipal permit.
This is where an event planner earns a seat. Our founder, Debbie Hart, spent more than 12 years as Director of Sales and Events on the catering side, so she knows what happens when a kitchen tent lands on the path the trucks need. One client wrote that she “solved problems before I knew they existed.” With permits, that means knowing which certificate comes from which vendor, which office wants it, and what has to be on site the morning the tent goes up.
We build that sequence with your tent company, your caterer, and Richie Hart Events for music and entertainment, so everyone arriving on the lawn is working from the same plan. Whether you need a wedding planner or a party planner for a Mitzvah, the permit question belongs in the first conversation.
Earlier than feels necessary. Many Mitzvah families lock in a date up to two years ahead, and that’s the moment to have the lawn conversation, not after the caterer is booked and the invitations are designed. UJA-Federation of New York’s 2023 study counts about 101,000 Jewish households and 45,000 Jewish children in Nassau County, so the vendors you want are juggling a lot of families.
The permit itself is the short part: three business days for the County, a week or two for a village like Old Westbury. The long part is fitting it around everyone else. The tent crew needs an install window. The caterer needs the cooking tent in the right spot. In Kings Point, the permit expires seven days after approval, so a long setup and teardown has to fit inside it. A permit that lapses before the party doesn’t help anyone.
A few things are worth settling early: Can your lawn actually hold the tents and a dance floor? Where does the generator go? Is there a path for the caterer’s trucks? Does anything underground need marking out before stakes go in? Long Island Tent & Party Rental lists utility mark-outs as a planning item, and it’s easy to forget until install week.
Already inside a few months? It can still work. Families have made changes right down to event day with our team, and we made it work. But permit timelines don’t flex the way a centerpiece does, so call sooner rather than later.
The short version: Nassau County’s tent rule starts at 200 square feet, not 400. Cooking tents need a permit at any size, and your village probably adds forms, fees, and timing of its own. Multiple tents mean multiple applications, and your venue or tent company may not be holding the paperwork unless you ask.
None of this means you should skip the lawn. Just sort out the order of operations before you fall for a date. Fees and rules change, so confirm everything with the Nassau County Fire Marshal and your village building department. This is a planning guide, not legal advice.
If you’re weighing a Bar Mitzvah, a Bat Mitzvah, or a wedding on your own property in Nassau County, reach out to Debbie Hart Celebrations. We’re based in Syosset, NY, we plan events across Nassau County, Long Island, Westchester, and New York City, and we’ll talk through your lawn, your date, and who needs to file what.
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