No, not for the cabinets. Taking your old boxes out and putting new ones back in the same places counts as an ordinary repair under 780 CMR 105.2.2, so nothing gets filed. Move a pipe, a circuit or a wall and that changes.
This is the paperwork question you put to Custom Cabinets Lynn most often, and it feels murky because a kitchen job is usually two jobs under one name. Your cabinet half is exempt. Whatever moves behind it may not be.
The building code has a section for ordinary repairs, and your swap sits inside it. So does refacing, painting, or changing your doors and drawer fronts. None of them touches anything holding your house up, so none of them needs a permit or an inspection.
What changes the answer is a service moving. Moving your sink is plumbing. A dedicated circuit for a range, or a run of lights under your wall cabinets, is electrical. Taking out the wall between your kitchen and your dining room is structural. Blocking or narrowing a doorway is an exit question. Any one of those puts a filing back on the table, and none of them is about your cabinets.
One of these catches people out quietly. Along a kitchen counter you need an outlet at least every four feet. A new run of wall cabinets or a taller backsplash that buries one leaves you with counter that no longer meets that. Putting an outlet back is an electrical line on your quote rather than a surprise at the inspection.
The one filing you might still owe is not a building permit at all. If your home went up before 1978 and the work disturbs more than 6 square feet of paint in one room, the state lead-safe rules apply, and the higher-risk grades of that work get notified before anybody starts. The lead rules have a page of their own.
Where your job sits on the line, your local building inspector decides, and we would rather have that in writing before we start than after. Our cabinet cost guide has the ranges, and what an estimate should itemize shows where an electrical line lands on the sheet.
Related questions
Does replacing a countertop need a permit?
Not on its own. It becomes a question once your sink moves or the new counter buries an outlet, because that is plumbing and wiring rather than joinery. A bathroom vanity swap works the same way, and those run $400 to $2,200 fitted.
What about a kitchen island with power in it?
That one is electrical from the start, so we scope it that way rather than as a cabinet with an outlet in it. We flag it at the estimate rather than on fitting day, because an island circuit changes your floor as well as your box.
Do lead-safe rules apply even without a permit?
Yes, and they are a separate question. If your home went up before 1978 and we disturb more than 6 square feet of paint in one room, the state rules and the federal one behind them both apply. That adds $350 to $1,200 for sealing the room and cleaning it down.