Fence laws in Albuquerque, New Mexico
What the Albuquerque municipal code says about fences, one topic at a time, with the section number and a link to the document behind every line. Where Albuquerque sets no rule of its own, the New Mexico rule is shown in its place and marked as such.
Fence laws in Albuquerque, New Mexico, question by question
The short version
- Who pays on the line
- Walls may be constructed anywhere on a lot, including in any front, side or rear setback area, and without any setback from a property line, and the answer turns on what the setback is buying, if anything. The figure is 0 feet, for setback required from a property line for a wall or fence.
- How tall
- Table 5-7-1 gives a wall in a front or street side yard three feet and a wall anywhere else on the lot eight, in the residential, mixed use and NR-C or NR-BP categories alike, with the heavy industrial categories getting six and ten instead, and the answer turns on the zone category, the yard, how open the wall is and what street it faces. The figure is 3 feet, for maximum wall height in a front or street side yard in most zone categories.
- Permits
- A wall may be erected only after obtaining a permit, and the IDO runs two of them, and the answer turns on how tall the wall is and where it stands.
- Pool barriers
- New Mexico puts a pool barrier rule in its statewide residential building code. The figure is 48 inches, for minimum height of a residential pool barrier.
- Spite fences
- Albuquerque has no spite fence statute. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide this one.
- Measured from what
- New Mexico prints a measuring rule in its own residential code, and it is the only fence height in state law that says which side of the fence the tape goes on. The figure is 48 inches, for top of a pool barrier, measured above grade on the side facing away from the pool. It reaches a barrier around a residential outdoor swimming pool, spa or hot tub only.
- Corner lots
- Albuquerque leaves corner clearance to the Albuquerque Development Process Manual, which sets the clear sight triangle requirements.
- Retaining walls
- New Mexico throws out the national code's test for a wall that holds back earth and writes its own. The figure is 36 inches, for unbalanced fill a retaining wall may hold back with no permit.
- Materials
- The acceptable list is long and open: concrete masonry units or other structural materials, stabilized adobe, split face and slump blocks, brick, stone, glass block, curved interlock blocks, wood, tubular steel, wrought iron bars, chain link, other grill work, or a combination, and the answer turns on the material, the zone district and whether the wall can be seen from a public place. The figure is 50 percent, for most of a street-facing wall that may be exposed flat-faced CMU.
- Livestock
- New Mexico is a fence out state, and the state livestock agency says so plainly.
Who owns the fence between two properties in Albuquerque?
Compare fences on the property line across all 50 states
Albuquerque answers this, but the answer changes depending on what the setback is buying, if anything.
Walls may be constructed anywhere on a lot, including in any front, side or rear setback area, and without any setback from a property line. Four things can still stop them, and the code lists them each time: the IDO itself, the technical codes at Articles 14-1, 14-2 and 14-3 of the 1994 city code, the Development Process Manual, and the clear sight triangle requirements. Two hard limits follow. A wall may not encroach into any public right-of-way without the prior written approval of the City Engineer, and it may not encroach onto adjacent property without the prior written approval of that property owner. Where a wall is allowed to be taller only if it moves back, the distance is stated rather than implied: five feet from the property line for a low-density street side wall reaching six feet, and ten feet from the street lot line as the line between the shorter and taller corner lot figures.
Walls may be constructed without any setback from a property line
The answer turns on what the setback is buying, if anything.
- any lot line
- No setback. 0 ft
- a public right-of-way
- Only with the City Engineer in writing.
- the neighbor land
- Only with that owner in writing.
- a clear sight triangle
- It overrides the general permission.
Also on fences on the property line in Albuquerque
- left to the townNew Mexico has no statewide rule splitting the cost of a fence on the boundary. The words "partition fence" appear once in the whole of New Mexico law, in the list of things a town is allowed to write an ordinance about. So the rule, where there is one, belongs to the town. Outside a town the fence out rule does the work instead: the owner who wants animals kept off builds the fence. NMSA 1978 Section 3-18-6New Mexico · Statute
How tall can a fence be in Albuquerque?
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Albuquerque answers this, but the answer changes depending on the zone category, the yard, how open the wall is and what street it faces.
Table 5-7-1 gives a wall in a front or street side yard three feet and a wall anywhere else on the lot eight, in the residential, mixed use and NR-C or NR-BP categories alike, with the heavy industrial categories getting six and ten instead. The gap between three and eight is the largest in this project and the code supplies a graded way across it. View fencing at most fifty percent opaque may be added above three feet, reaching five feet within ten feet of the street lot line and six feet beyond that. Low-density residential development gets a separate route: six feet in a street side yard where that yard faces a collector, arterial or interstate and the wall is set back at least five feet from the property line. On a corner lot, the part of a rear yard wall facing the front yard of a residential district is held to three feet within ten feet of the street lot line and six or eight feet beyond it.
View fencing at most 50 percent opaque may be added above 3 ft. to increase the total height of the wall as follows:
Section 14-16-5-7(D)(3)(a)2, Table 5-7-2
The answer turns on the zone category, the yard, how open the wall is and what street it faces.
- a front or street side yard
- Three feet. 3 ft
- anywhere else on the lot
- Eight feet. 8 ft
- view fencing above three feet
- Five or six feet, by distance from the street. 50%
- a low-density street side yard on a collector
- Six feet, set back five. 5 ft
Also on fence height in Albuquerque
- no rule, documents checkedNew Mexico does not limit how tall a fence at a house can be. The state residential building code and the statewide permit rule both reach every house in New Mexico, and neither one caps fence height. Cities and counties set the height rule. 14.7.3 NMACNew Mexico · Building code
Do I need a permit for a fence in Albuquerque?
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Albuquerque answers this, but the answer changes depending on how tall the wall is and where it stands.
A wall may be erected only after obtaining a permit, and the IDO runs two of them. The minor permit is the ordinary route for a wall that meets the table. The major permit is what a low-density residential owner needs to build a front or street side wall taller than the three feet the table allows, where the taller wall meets the height and location standards of Table 5-7-2. Anything taller than both the table and the exceptions takes a Variance instead, decided by the Environmental Planning Commission where the wall belongs to a Site Plan and by the Zoning Hearing Examiner in every other case, and a wall approved that way has to carry articulation, meaning pilasters every twenty feet or decorative columns every sixty. The permit rules reach repairs as well, because the standards apply to new walls and to the replacement or repair of existing ones.
A wall shall be erected only after obtaining a permit
The answer turns on how tall the wall is and where it stands.
- a wall that meets the table
- The minor wall or fence permit.
- a taller front wall on low-density land
- The major wall or fence permit.
- taller than the exceptions allow
- A Variance, and articulation with it.
- repairing an existing wall
- The same standards apply.
Also on permits in Albuquerque
- set in state lawNew Mexico runs one permit rule for the whole state through the Construction Industries Division. That rule opens with a list of work that needs no permit. On the commercial list are sheds under 120 square feet, small walls that hold back earth, low sidewalks and a few other items. A fence does not appear anywhere on it. 14.5.2.9 NMACNew Mexico · Building code
- set in state lawFor a house, the New Mexico permit rule points at section R105 of the International Residential Code and then edits the list of exemptions item by item. Item 2 is deleted, so that exemption has no force in New Mexico. Items 5 and 6 are deleted as well, and items 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are kept. 14.5.2.9 NMACNew Mexico · Building code
Pool fence requirements in Albuquerque
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New Mexico answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
New Mexico puts a pool barrier rule in its statewide residential building code. An outdoor pool, hot tub or spa needs a barrier all the way around it. The top of that barrier stands at least 48 inches above the ground, measured on the side facing away from the pool.
This one is New Mexico law, not Albuquerque law. All New Mexico findings
The top of the barrier shall be at least 48 inches (1219 mm) above grade measured on the side of the barrier which faces away from the swimming pool.
48 inminimum height of a residential pool barrier
Also on pool barriers in Albuquerque
- set in state lawThe same New Mexico section limits the gaps in a pool barrier. No opening may let a four inch ball through. Other parts of the section hold the gap under the barrier to two inches and set mesh limits for chain link. 14.7.3 NMACNew Mexico · Building code
Spite fence laws in Albuquerque
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Albuquerque law has no rule about this. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide it instead.
New Mexico has no spite fence statute. A full text search of New Mexico Statutes Annotated 1978 on the site the Compilation Commission runs returns nothing for the phrase, and neither does a search of the New Mexico appellate reports. Chapter 77 Article 16 is the only fence article the state has, and it is about keeping livestock out: what counts as a lawful fence, and who can recover when animals get in. Nothing in it turns on why a fence was built.
This one is New Mexico law, not Albuquerque law. All New Mexico findings
Documents read before writing that:
- NMSA 1978 Sections 77-16-1 to 77-16-9New Mexico Compilation Commission
- NMSA 1978 Section 3-18-6New Mexico Compilation Commission
How fence height is measured in Albuquerque
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New Mexico answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
New Mexico prints a measuring rule in its own residential code, and it is the only fence height in state law that says which side of the fence the tape goes on. A pool barrier stands at least forty eight inches above the ground, taken on the side facing away from the pool, with no more than two inches of gap at the bottom on that same side. Where the pool wall itself sits above the ground, the barrier may start at the top of the pool wall. Nothing in the code carries that thinking over to an ordinary yard fence.
This one is New Mexico law, not Albuquerque law. All New Mexico findings
The top of the barrier shall be at least 48 inches (1219 mm) above grade measured on the side of the barrier which faces away from the swimming pool.
48 intop of a pool barrier, measured above grade on the side facing away from the pool
Also on how height is measured in Albuquerque
- no rule, documents checkedNone of the heights in Table 5-7-1 or Table 5-7-2 states what it is measured from. No grade is named, no curb, no finished ground level, and nothing says whose side of a boundary a height is read from, which matters in a city built on a slope down to the river and cut by arroyos. A berm is not addressed in the wall section. A retaining wall is addressed, but as a thing with its own standards in Section 14-16-5-7(F) rather than as a base whose height is added to a fence, and the purpose clause folds retaining walls and vertical combinations of walls and fences into the single word wall without saying how to add them up. What the section measures carefully is horizontal: ten feet from the street lot line as the line between the shorter and taller corner figures, and five feet of setback as the price of a taller street side wall. Section 14-16-5-7(D)Albuquerque · Zoning code
Fence rules for corner lots in Albuquerque
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Albuquerque does not set this. It leaves it to the Albuquerque Development Process Manual, which sets the clear sight triangle requirements.
The IDO names the clear sight triangle three times in the wall section and never draws one. Walls may go anywhere on a lot and on any property line unless prohibited by the IDO, by the technical codes, or by clear sight triangle requirements, and the second of those two sentences adds the Development Process Manual by name as the place those requirements live. Elsewhere in the IDO the same point is made for landscaping and for parking, with footnotes saying that at corners and junctions with driveways, drive aisles or alleys, additional clear sight triangle requirements in the DPM may apply. So the leg length, the protected band of height and any exception for an open fence are engineering standards rather than ordinance text. What the IDO does supply at a corner is a height rule instead of a shape, holding the part of a rear yard wall within ten feet of the street lot line to three feet where it faces the front yard of a residential district.
Walls may be constructed without any setback from a property line, unless otherwise prohibited by this IDO, by Articles 14-1, 14-2, and 14-3 of ROA 1994 (Uniform Administrative Code and Technical Codes, Fire Code, and Uniform Housing Code), or by the DPM, including but not limited to, clear sight triangle requirements or standards for alignments and easements.
The code hands this to the Albuquerque Development Process Manual, which sets the clear sight triangle requirements, which is not published in the code itself.
Also on corner visibility in Albuquerque
- set in state lawNew Mexico keeps its view rule in the highway beautification rules rather than in a zoning law. Part 18.21.5 bans a sign placed so that it hides a driver view of traffic coming toward them, merging, or crossing at an intersection. The same part keeps 500 feet clear around an interchange or a street level crossing on a highway with controlled access. Both rules are about signs on state highways, not fences, so a fence at a corner is a city or county matter. 18.21.5 NMACNew Mexico · Traffic code
Retaining wall rules in Albuquerque
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New Mexico answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
New Mexico throws out the national code's test for a wall that holds back earth and writes its own. No permit is needed when the wall holds back less than 36 inches of unbalanced fill and the whole wall stands six feet or less from the bottom of the footing to the top. Unbalanced fill is the difference between the ground level on the high side and the ground level on the low side, so it is a smaller number than the height of the wall whenever dirt sits against the low side. A wall holding back a surcharge, meaning extra weight resting on the ground behind it, needs a permit whatever its size, and so does one holding back class I, II or III-A liquids. The same wording runs on the commercial list and on the house list, and the house list gets there by rewriting item 3 of section R105.2 of the International Residential Code.
This one is New Mexico law, not Albuquerque law. All New Mexico findings
Section R105.2 (3) - Retaining walls that retain less than 36 inches (915mm) of unbalanced fill, and have a total height equal to or less than six feet from top of wall to bottom of footing. Retaining walls supporting a surcharge load or impounding class I, II, or III-A liquids are not exempt from permit.
36 inunbalanced fill a retaining wall may hold back with no permit
Fence materials allowed in Albuquerque
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Albuquerque answers this, but the answer changes depending on the material, the zone district and whether the wall can be seen from a public place.
The acceptable list is long and open: concrete masonry units or other structural materials, stabilized adobe, split face and slump blocks, brick, stone, glass block, curved interlock blocks, wood, tubular steel, wrought iron bars, chain link, other grill work, or a combination. Two exceptions narrow it and both are about what the public sees. Exposed flat-faced CMU may not be more than half of any wall facing a public street or a City park or trail. And chain link, with or without slats, is not allowed on any part of a site visible from a public street, a City park or trail, Major Public Open Space or a major arroyo, except in the R-A, R-1, NR-LM and NR-GM districts, with a standing allowance for temporary security fencing during active construction anywhere. Barbed tape, razor wire and barbed wire are prohibited in or next to any Residential or Mixed-use district, with critical infrastructure exempt, and allowed in non-residential districts under five conditions.
Except in the R-A, R-1, NR-LM, or NR-GM zone districts, chain link fencing (with or without slats) shall not be allowed on any portion of a site visible from a public street, City park or trail, Major Public Open Space, or major arroyo.
The answer turns on the material, the zone district and whether the wall can be seen from a public place.
- masonry, adobe, wood or iron
- Acceptable, and the list is open.
- chain link in view of a street
- Only in four districts.
- exposed flat CMU on a street wall
- Half of it at most. 50%
- barbed or razor wire
- Never near housing, and only on tall set-back walls elsewhere.
Also on materials in Albuquerque
- no rule, documents checkedNew Mexico does not say what a fence may be built from. The two rules where a material limit would sit were read in full. The permit rule names sheds, walls that hold back earth, water tanks, sidewalks, pools, shade cloth, playground equipment, awnings and low partitions, and never a fence material. The residential building code runs through foundations, walls, roofs and building with earth, and never uses the word fence. Barbed wire, electric wire and razor wire are neither banned nor required. 14.5.2 NMACNew Mexico · Building code
Livestock and boundary fence law in Albuquerque
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New Mexico answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
New Mexico is a fence out state, and the state livestock agency says so plainly. The farmer builds the fence, not the animal owner. Anyone whose crops or land would be harmed by roaming animals puts up a fence that meets the state definition of a legal fence.
This one is New Mexico law, not Albuquerque law. All New Mexico findings
Every gardener, farmer, planter or other person having lands or crops that would be injured by trespassing animals, shall make a sufficient fence about his land in cultivation, or other lands that may be so injured, the same to correspond with the requirements of the laws of this state prescribing and defining a legal fence.
NMSA 1978 Section 77-16-1, as quoted by the agency
Also on agricultural fencing in Albuquerque
- set in state lawThe same agency page gives the other half of the rule. Where livestock may lawfully roam, keeping them off a piece of land is the job of the person who owns that land. The animal owner does not have to fence them in there. Owners duty to enclose property, as quoted by the agencyNew Mexico · Agency guidance
Documents behind this page
7 documents, of which 1 was published by Albuquerque itself. Each was read on the date shown.
- New Mexico Compilation CommissionNew Mexico Statutes Annotated 1978, Chapter 3, Municipalities
- City of AlbuquerqueAlbuquerque Integrated Development Ordinance, Part 14-16-5, Development Standards, Section 14-16-5-7, Walls and Fences, effective 2026-05-06
- New Mexico State Records Center and ArchivesNew Mexico Administrative Code, 2021 New Mexico Residential Building Code
- New Mexico State Records Center and ArchivesNew Mexico Administrative Code, Permits
- New Mexico Compilation CommissionNew Mexico Statutes Annotated 1978, Chapter 77, Animals and Livestock, Article 16, Fences
- New Mexico State Records Center and ArchivesNew Mexico Administrative Code, Title 18, Chapter 21, Part 5, Outdoor Advertising
- New Mexico Livestock BoardNew Mexico Livestock Board, Frequently Asked Questions, Is New Mexico a fence out state
What this page does not cover
A city ordinance is not the only rule that reaches a fence. The zoning district a parcel sits in can change the height allowed on it, and so can an overlay district, a recorded easement, a fire hazard severity zone or a coastal zone. A homeowner association can be stricter than the city and nothing in the municipal code will say so. None of those appear here.
The rules above are the ones Albuquerque publishes, plus the New Mexico rules that apply where the city sets none. Fence laws in New Mexico has the state layer in full.
This is general information drawn from published government documents. It is not legal advice, ordinances are amended, and the date beside each finding is the date the document was read. How findings are made · What the terms mean