What a permit costs, from the city’s own fee schedule
PermitFees turns published municipal and county fee schedules into a clear cost estimate — with the formula, the official source, and the date we last checked it. No guessing, and no averaging two cities together.
How it works
From a published schedule to a number you can check
Four steps, in this order, for every jurisdiction. A city only appears on this site when all four are done.
- 01
Find the authority
/texas/Usually the city, but sometimes the county — a Houston address outside the city limits is not Houston’s permit to issue. The page names the authority that applies.
- 02
Read the schedule
/texas/houston/Each line of the fee schedule becomes a separate rule with its own conditions: residential or commercial, valuation thresholds, per-unit charges, minimums and caps.
- 03
Calculate in the open
/texas/houston/building-permit-cost/Every component, its formula, and the intermediate values, so the arithmetic can be followed by hand. Nothing is rounded into a headline number.
- 04
Record the check
/texas/houston/Every claim carries a source document and a verification date. When a schedule changes the old rule is closed and a new one added; the history is not overwritten.
Sourcing
Every figure starts with an official document
A permit fee is not a market price. It is set by an ordinance, printed in a fee schedule, and applied by a specific department. So we treat it that way: we find the document the jurisdiction publishes, record what it says, and link to it.
That is also why we refuse to estimate a jurisdiction that publishes nothing. “We cannot find a published fee schedule for this city” is a useful answer. A plausible number with no source behind it is not, especially when someone is deciding whether they can afford to build.
The rule we hold ourselves to
If we cannot cite the document a number came from, we do not publish the number. Where a jurisdiction publishes no schedule, the page says so and points you at the department instead.
Limits
What an estimate is not
Our calculation is arithmetic applied to a published schedule. It is not a quote, and it is not the permit office’s number. Real invoices differ for reasons we can name: a jurisdiction may compute valuation differently from your contractor, add school or utility impact fees we do not model, charge for revisions, or apply a policy that is not written in the schedule. Every estimate says what it left out.
Where a schedule contradicts itself, both readings are kept and the disagreement is published rather than resolved in our favour. Where a rule is still being checked, it is marked as such on the page instead of being presented as settled.
Coverage
What we cover
The same four questions come up in every city. They are priced differently everywhere, which is the entire reason this site exists.
- Building permits
- The structural permit that covers the work itself. Almost always the largest single fee, and the one most often quoted as a percentage of project valuation.
- Electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits
- Trade permits, sometimes priced separately and sometimes folded into the building permit. Which of the two applies is a local fact, not a general one.
- Plan review fees
- Charged for reviewing the drawings, usually calculated on top of the permit fee and often as a percentage of it or of the project valuation.
- Add-on and per-unit fees
- Technology and automation charges, per-dwelling-unit fees, state surcharges and inspection fees that appear as separate lines on the actual invoice.
The directory is being built one city at a time
A city only appears once its fee schedule has been read and verified against the official document. States without published cities are not listed at all, so nothing here leads to an empty page.
Where to start
To put your own project's numbers in, use the permit fee calculator — it applies the same published schedules with your valuation, area or counts, and shows every step. If you already know your city, the state directory is the fastest route. If you want to know how a number was produced before you trust it — which is the right instinct — read the methodology. If a figure looks wrong, tell us and we will re-check the source.