How much does a building permit cost? Fees in 20 US cities (2026)

How cities set the fee

There is no national permit fee. Each city or county sets its own by ordinance, and they use one of four methods, sometimes several on one schedule.

Valuation is the common one, and it means the fee follows what the contractor writes on the application. Orlando's schedule uses the ICC "Building Valuation Data" figure or the contracted price, whichever is greater, so the City can use its own number (City of Orlando, 2026 residential fees).

A $20,000 remodel in 12 cities

The building permit fee alone, for a $20,000 alteration of a one- or two-family home, worked out from each schedule. Extra charges are listed but not added in.

Plan review is the line people miss. In Denver a $20,000 job pays $179 plus $89.50; in Citrus Heights the 65% plan check takes $740.14 past $1,200 before the issuance fee.

For scale, the value of the job itself: remodel permits were usually filed at $25,000 in Denver, $17,465 in Cleveland and $16,000 in Saint Paul; on the schedules above, a permit fee is a few hundred dollars on a job of that size.

Trade permits: often a flat fee

Electrical, plumbing, HVAC and solar permits are usually priced per item or flat.

Solar has its own row in most schedules: $50 in Denver for the solar part of a project, $100 per array on a Cambridge electrical permit, $150 in Cary with all trades included, $160 in Scottsdale, $228 in Citrus Heights, and $438 plus a $55.48 administrative fee in Seattle for a system below 12 kW. In California, Government Code 66015 caps a residential rooftop solar permit at $450 plus $15 per kW above 15 kW unless the city adopts written findings to charge more.

New homes and additions

Some cities publish a calculator instead of a simple rate. San Francisco's Table 1A-A charges a plan review fee and an issuance fee, each set by valuation; Chicago sets a $302 minimum on every permit and works the rest out from scope-of-review factors and floor area; Honolulu adds plan review at 20% of the building permit fee, up to $25,000. Use the city's calculator for those.

What a permit fee does not include

• Plan review. A percentage of the permit fee: 25% (Boulder single-family), 50% (Denver, over $2,000), 65% (Saint Paul and Citrus Heights).
• Surcharges. State and technology charges of 1% to 5% each, as in the Orlando and Cincinnati rows above.
• Impact and utility fees. On new homes and additions, charged apart from the building permit (Mesa lists a $311 solid waste development fee as well).
• Penalties for starting early. Triple in Cambridge, double in Boulder, plus 100% in Orlando, and in Cincinnati an investigation fee equal to the permit fee, up to $1,695.

Find your city's fee schedule

Each city guide below quotes its schedule in full, with the usual job values filed there: Anaheim, Arlington, VA, Bismarck, Boulder, Burlington, VT, Cambridge, Cape Coral, Cary, Chicago, Cincinnati, Citrus Heights, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Columbus, Denton, Denver, Elk Grove, Greensboro, Honolulu, Marin County, Miami, Minneapolis, Naperville, Orlando, Palo Alto, Sacramento County, Saint Paul, San Diego, San Francisco, Scottsdale, Seattle, Somerville, St. Louis, Wheaton.

For a single job, the trade guides ("do I need a permit for…") quote the fee line where the city publishes one; start from do I need a permit. If your city is not listed, search "[city] building permit fee schedule" and open the PDF on the city's own site: look for the valuation table, the plan review percentage and the surcharges, the three lines this page uses.

Who pays, and what to ask

The person who applies pays at issue, and on a hired job that is usually the contractor. Three questions for the quote:

1. Does the price include the permit, plan review and any re-inspection fees?
2. What job value will you write on the permit? A low figure trims the fee, but the city may use its own valuation (Orlando does), and the value on the permit is public.
3. Who books the final inspection? A permit left open costs more to sort out later: see why a permit is still open.

To see whether a contractor pulls permits at all, look them up in the permit record: did my contractor pull a permit.

What our numbers cannot tell you

Our permit files carry the job value, not the fee paid, so every fee here comes from a schedule, not from receipts. Schedules change, often each July or January; each one is dated in Sources. The $20,000 column is our arithmetic on the published rates and leaves out plan review and surcharges unless the row says so. Impact, utility and school fees are not covered.

Pick your city and compare contractors by the permits they pulled →