Is Epoxy-Coated Rebar Being Banned? What Changed and Why

No, epoxy-coated rebar is not banned. It is still manufactured under ASTM standards, still allowed under CSA A23.1 when a project specifies it, and still used on Canadian and US structures. What has changed is that some large owners stopped specifying it on their own work. The best-known example is the Florida Department of Transportation, whose current design guidelines tell engineers not to specify it, and Ontario's Ministry of Transportation has moved its harshest highway exposures to other bar types.

Not a ban, but owners have moved

It helps to separate two things that get blurred online:

• A ban would be a law, regulation or building code provision that prohibits the product. Nothing like that applies to epoxy-coated rebar in Ontario or anywhere else we are aware of.
• An owner specification is a rule a highway agency, municipality or developer sets for its own projects. Agencies decide which reinforcement they will accept on the bridges and roads they own, and they change those rules as their experience builds up.

When people say epoxy-coated rebar "got banned", they are almost always describing the second. It matters, because an owner spec only binds work for that owner. A parking garage in Mississauga or a water tank in Guelph follows its own drawings and specification, not Florida's bridge rules.

Where the doubts started: the Florida Keys

Epoxy coating became the standard corrosion strategy for North American bridge decks through the late 1970s and 1980s. The idea was simple: a continuous plastic film keeps chlorides and oxygen off the steel, so the bar does not rust even when deicing salt or seawater gets into the concrete.

The first major warning came from bridges in the Florida Keys. According to NCHRP Report 370 (Transportation Research Board, 1995), corrosion damage in epoxy-coated substructure members there was reported in 1986, only about six years after construction. The members were in the splash zone, exposed to salt spray, wetting and drying and high temperatures. Corrosion showed up first where bars had been bent after coating and later on straight bars too.

That research program went on to look at structures across the US and Canada, including two Ontario bridge decks near expansion joints and a precast noise barrier along Highway 401 with low cover. Its conclusions were blunt for the time:

• Coatings were often not good enough to stop corrosion-causing substances from reaching the steel.
• Coatings carried defects from manufacturing and handling, and corrosion that started at a defect spread under the film.
• Epoxy-coated bar, as it was being made and placed then, could not be relied on for long-term (50-plus year) protection of salt-contaminated transportation structures, and other protection methods should be used instead of or alongside it.

The same report also summarized studies where epoxy-coated bar clearly outperformed plain bar. The disagreement has never fully gone away: defenders point to good performance where coatings are intact, critics point to how hard it is to keep them intact through fabrication and construction.

What Florida's rules say today

The Florida DOT's Structures Design Guidelines (January 2026 edition, Section 1.4.1) instruct designers not to specify epoxy-coated reinforcing steel. The commentary is worth reading because it is more nuanced than "it failed":

• It says the 1980s problems, gaps and manufacturing defects in the coating and coating loss at bends, have since been minimized.
• It says other concerns remain: the steel under the coating does not get the passivating benefit of direct contact with concrete, and coating damage from transport, handling and installation can lead to localized corrosion and spalling.

So Florida's position is about risk in its own very aggressive marine environment, not a finding that the product does not work anywhere.

Where Ontario and Canada stand

Ontario was an early adopter. NCHRP Report 370 notes that Ontario standardized epoxy-coated steel for the top mat of bridge decks, curbs and barrier walls in 1978. Since then, the Ministry of Transportation has shifted its most exposed elements toward stainless steel and GFRP. Our post on when epoxy-coated rebar is required covers MTO's history and the current Ontario specifications in more detail.

Outside highway work, the picture is ordinary:

• CSA A23.1 treats epoxy-coated, galvanized and stainless reinforcement as special reinforcement used when the owner specifies or approves it.
• CSA A23.3 still includes design factors for epoxy-coated bar. The coating reduces bond, so development and lap lengths are increased (the coating factor is 1.5 or 1.2 depending on cover and spacing).
• Industry practice still covers it. The Reinforcing Steel Institute of Canada's Manual of Standard Practice (2020) sets out handling, storage and placing practice for epoxy-coated bar, including non-metallic or coated chairs and tie wire, covered storage away from sunlight and patching of visible damage.
• Parking structures designed under CSA S413 can use protected reinforcement as one of several durability options, so epoxy shows up on some garages and not others.

In short, if a Canadian project specification calls for epoxy-coated bar, it is a legitimate, code-recognized choice. If it does not, nothing requires it.

How long does epoxy-coated rebar last?

There is no reliable single number, and anyone quoting one without context is guessing. Service life depends on:

• Coating condition when the concrete is placed. Nicks, cuts and crushed coating at bends are where corrosion starts. RSIC practice is to patch all visible damage and to keep total repaired damage under 2% of the bar's surface area per metre.
• Concrete cover and quality. Deeper cover and dense, low-permeability concrete delay chlorides reaching the bar, coated or not. See our guide to concrete cover under CSA A23.1.
• Cracking. Cracks give chlorides a direct path to the steel.
• Exposure. A heated parking deck with salt-laden slush or a marine splash zone is far harsher than a buried footing.

Epoxy coating buys time against corrosion, it does not stop it permanently, and how much time it buys depends heavily on site handling. Our comparison of epoxy-coated and standard rebar goes through the advantages and the failure modes.

What this means for your project

For most building work, the practical rules are:

1. Follow the specification. If the drawings call for epoxy-coated bar, it is required on that job. If they call for plain bar, adding epoxy is a design change, because of the longer laps and development lengths.
2. Do not substitute without the engineer. Swapping epoxy for galvanized, stainless or GFRP, or the other way round, changes bond, laps, bend limits and sometimes cover. The engineer of record has to approve it.
3. Treat the coating as fragile. Padded slings, no dragging, coated or plastic supports, coated tie wire and patch material on site. Most of the problems in the field studies came from damage, not from the epoxy itself.
4. Consider the alternatives early. Galvanized bar, stainless steel and GFRP each solve the corrosion problem differently. Our galvanized vs epoxy-coated rebar and GFRP vs steel rebar posts compare them.

Getting corrosion-resistant rebar priced

If your project specifies corrosion-resistant reinforcement, send us the drawings and the specification section so we can see exactly what is called for. We detail, cut and bend steel rebar from 10M to 55M and supply GFRP bar; we don't supply epoxy-coated, galvanized or stainless bar. Request a quote or see our rebar products.