Indiana
Indianapolis, IN permit fees and requirements
Indianapolis prices a structural permit as three components:
a $40.00 additional service fee for applying, a plan review, and the permit fee itself — selected by one of nine subtypes and priced by the square footage inside it, never by a valuation. A new Class 2 primary structure is $40.00 + $175.00 + $750.00 up to 2,000 square feet plus $25.00 and $100.00 per additional 500; a new Class 1 structure is $40.00 + $200.00 + $1,000.00 up to 2,500 square feet plus $150.00 per additional 1,000. Electrical and plumbing are one figure per subtype — $202.00 for a new electrical installation, $169.00 for a residential electrical repair, $185.00 for new residential plumbing, $153.00 for a residential plumbing repair, and $182.00 for up to 10 commercial fixtures plus $23.00 per additional 5.
Permit costs we have worked out
Each page shows the fee components, the formula the jurisdiction uses, and a worked example you can follow by hand.
Estimate your potential Indianapolis permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Indianapolis building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-26 |
| Indianapolis electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-26 |
| Indianapolis plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-26 |
Local context
What is specific to Indianapolis
This is the first schedule in the dataset delivered as a spreadsheet, and the format turns out to be the mechanism. Read as a workbook, the Permits sheet's header row says what the PDFs elsewhere only imply: "Permit Type | Subtype/Description | Application Fee | Review Fee | Issuance Fee". Every Structural Permit row fills all three — $40.00 for applying, a review figure, an issuance figure — and every Plumbing, Electrical and Heating/Cooling row fills only the first, with the two cells beside it empty. That is not a formatting accident: it is the department saying that a structural permit has three components and a craft permit has one.
The $40.00 has a section number, and the adopted ordinance is where it is legible. Proposal No. 239, 2025 amends "536-619 Additional service fee for applying for all demolition, master, sign, structural, and infrastructure related permits" from $32.00 to $40.00 — which is why the improvement location and floodplain rows on the same sheet still carry $32.00, and why this schedule cannot be read as a single rate card. The same ordinance places the plan review ("536-620 Plan review of a new primary or accessory Class 2 structure ... one hundred and seventy-five dollars ($175.00) for structures less than 2,000 square feet") and the $250.00 administrative fee ("536-609 Administrative fee $215.00 $250.00").
What the ordinance does not mention is the interesting part: the plumbing, electrical and heating/cooling rows appear in no amendment, which is the fee page's "Craft permits, such as electrical, HVAC, and plumbing, did not change" in documentary form. Those three trades were priced when they were priced and left alone through a cost-of-service review that raised almost everything else — including penalties set in 1988. Their rows still read as the older generation of the schedule does: one flat figure per subtype, or a figure plus a block, with no components to decompose.
Two readings are worth naming because they look like errors and are not. The residential new-structure Issuance Fee cell reads "$750 (≤2,000 sqft) 2,000 sqft; $100 per additional 500 sqft" — the stray "2,000 sqft" is a typo in the workbook, and the figure is the one the sentence beside it states. And the last row of the electrical section prints "Self-Certification Tags ... 22" with no unit: no "each", no "/tag". It is charged once under its own subtype, and the page says so rather than multiplying a count the schedule never names.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
None of the three pages reads a valuation. That is the single most distinctive thing about Indianapolis in this dataset: Minneapolis, Saint Paul, South Bend and Nashville all price at least one component against a job value, and this schedule prices none. A structural permit reads a subtype and a square footage; the nine subtypes fix the arithmetic and the square footage prices it. Electrical and plumbing read a subtype, and the plumbing commercial row reads a fixture count — the only count in either trade.
The square footage is defined by the sheet rather than by the applicant, at least on the one row where it matters most: "Sqft calculations include the area of an attached garage or carport, and the area of a finished basement or attic, but excludes the area of an unfinished basement or attic." A building's paperwork footprint is therefore not what is charged; the row says which area counts.
Two block sizes are used behind the same $23.00 rate, which is easy to miss: the electrical new-structure and plumbing new-residential rows step per 1,000 square feet and the repair rows per 500, so a repair steps at $46.00 per 1,000 where a new installation steps at $23.00. And the allowances differ too — 2,500 square feet inside the base on the new rows, 1,000 on the repair rows, 10,000 on the heating and cooling rows, 2,500 on the commercial new-structure row.
Who to contact
The office that issues the permit, with the details we have verified. Confirm current hours before travelling.
What these fees do not include
The list is not a disclaimer: on a new house the fees left out can outweigh the permit fee several times over. Every entry here is stated on the permit page as well.
Not included in our estimates
These figures are Indianapolis's building, electrical and plumbing permit fees under the schedule effective January 5, 2026. They are not a project cost, and they exclude:
- The improvement location permit (ILP) — the zoning-side permit that precedes the structural one, with a $32.00 application fee of its own and a table of its own (residential new single-family construction at $199.00 metes-and-bounds or $156.00 platted; multi-family at $682.00 plus $29.00 a unit; commercial new construction at $380.00 up to 1,000 square feet plus $122.00 per additional 1,000).
- The sign, encroachment, right-of-way, street, driveway, wrecking, floodplain, drainage and private-provider rows — separate permits with their own bases (a sign from $142.00 to $838.00, right-of-way closures per day, wrecking by ground-floor area, a drainage permit at $650.00 for the first three hours and $200.00 an hour after).
- The inspection table — the sheet's own note is "Unless otherwise noted below, inspection fees are included in the issuance fee", and the rows that are noted are the extras: a reinspection at $175.00, a general construction inspection at $154.00, and the accelerated-inspection options from $187.00 to $750.00.
- The $250.00 administrative fee — 536-609, assessed on a permit for which a Certificate of Completion and Compliance has not been filed, and appealable under the form the fee page links. Stated as a requirement rather than charged on every permit.
- The heating, ventilating and air-conditioning permit (HTG) — a fourth trade on the same schedule with the same one-figure-per-subtype shape ($153.00 for heating or cooling systems to 2,500 square feet plus $23.00 per additional 1,000, $185.00 combined, $156.00 for refrigeration equipment).
- The code-enforcement penalties — the Code Enforcement sheet's violations and administrative fees, which are penalties rather than permit fees.
- The contractor licensing and business licensing tables — general, electrical, HVAC, plumbing and wrecking licences at $247.00 or $142.00 a year, and the business licences beside them.
- The plan-review rows as separate instruments — a Class 1 plan review is $200.00 flat and a Class 2 one is priced by area, and both are components of the permit rather than separate filings.
Official sources for this jurisdiction
The documents these figures are transcribed from. Where a source contradicts itself we keep both readings and say so on the permit page.
- Official documentCity
Administrative Fee Appeal Form — the 536-609 administrative fee and its appeal
Read 2026-09-26 as a one-page PDF, last revised 8/18/2016. It states what the administrative fee is for and when it attaches: "In order to file an Administrative Fee Appeal, you must either submit a Certificate of Completion, or renew the permit. If work on the project is complete, please submit a Certificate of Completion along with the Administrative Fee Appeal Form. If there is still work that needs to be completed, please renew the permit before submitting an appeal form. Renewed permits will still require a Certificate of Completion once the project is complete in order to avoid future fees." It names the section and the forum: "Any person, partnership or corporation shall have the right to appeal an administrative fee assessed in accordance with Section 536-609 of the Building Standards and Procedures of the Consolidated City of Indianapolis. The appeal shall be considered, and shall be ruled upon, by the Administrator of the Department of Code Enforcement, or the Administrator's authorized designee." This is why the $250.00 the schedule's header block prints is stated as a requirement rather than charged on every permit: it is assessed on a permit that has not been closed.
- OrdinanceCityPrimary source
City-County Council Proposal No. 239, 2025 — the ordinance amending the fee sections
Read 2026-09-26 as a fourteen-page PDF. It is the adopted ordinance behind the 1/5/2026 schedule and it prints every amended section's old figure beside its new one, which is how three readings on this page were settled rather than inferred: "536-609 Administrative fee $215.00 $250.00" (the workbook's "Admin Fees 250"), "536-619 Additional service fee for applying for all demolition, master, sign, structural, and infrastructure related permits $32.00 $40.00" (the $40 per application on every Structural Permit row), and "536-620 Plan review of a new primary or accessory Class 2 structure ... one hundred and seventy-five dollars ($175.00) for structures less than 2,000 square feet. For each additional 500 square feet an additional fee of twenty-one dollars ($21.00) twenty-five dollars ($25.00)" — the review column's own rows. The plumbing, electrical and heating/cooling sections do not appear in the ordinance at all, which is the page's "did not change" statement in documentary form.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
DBNS Fee Schedule — Permits, Inspections, Code Enforcement, Licenses, Misc. (as of 1.5.2026)
The department's fee schedule is a spreadsheet, not a PDF: a workbook with five worksheets headed "Permits", "Inspections", "Code Enforcement", "Licenses" and "Misc.", each stamped "As of 1.5.2026", fetched 2026-09-26 from the asset host behind the fee page. It was read cell by cell with the cell reference printed for every value, because the Permits sheet's three fee columns are the whole mechanism: the header row is "Permit Type | Subtype/Description | Application Fee | Review Fee | Issuance Fee", every Structural Permit row carries "$40 per application" in column C with a review figure in D and an issuance figure in E, and every Plumbing, Electrical and Heating/Cooling row carries its whole figure in column C with D and E empty. Reading the workbook as a spreadsheet rather than as extracted text is what settled that structure; the research file records the cell references. The workbook also carries a header row on the Permits, Inspections, Code Enforcement and Misc. sheets reading "Admin Fees 250", which is the 536-609 administrative fee and not a per-permit charge.
- City websiteCityPrimary source
License and Permit Fees — the department's fee page
Read 2026-09-26 by rendering it in a browser rather than by fetching it: indy.gov serves an application shell to any scripted request ("<div id="app" activity_id="license-and-permit-fees">" and no content), and the page's own text appears only once its JavaScript runs, so it was read from the rendered page and its download link was taken from the rendered DOM. The page states the effective date and the mechanism: "PLEASE NOTE: As of January 5, 2026, the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services has updated many of its service fees. Below, you will find a complete list of fees assessed by our department." It explains the cost-of-service review, records the two public hearings and the October 2025 approvals, answers the transition question ("Only permit applications received on or after new fees took effect will be subject to the new fee schedule"), and states which fees did not move: "Craft permits, such as electrical, HVAC, and plumbing, did not change. Business license fees, zoning permits, and wrecking permits also remained the same." It also links the Administrative Fee Appeal Form.
- City websiteCity
Residential Development Permits — Class 2 requirements, applications and exemptions
Read 2026-09-26 from the rendered page, like the fee page. It names the permitting sequence — infrastructure review (a drainage permit), then the improvement location permit, then the structural permit — and it carries the exemption lists this page states as requirements: the four electrical exceptions ("Replacement of an attic fan, bathroom exhaust fan, range hood exhaust fan, or whole house fan"; a single-phase circuit not exceeding 60 amperes serving specified equipment for which a building permit has been issued; household appliances installed without a new circuit; and temporary power for on-site construction) and the four plumbing ones ("Replacement in kind of piping ... It must not be more than 20 percent of all piping in the structure being replaced"; the initial connection of plumbing to a mobile home not on a permanent foundation in a state-licensed park; "Replacement of appliances, fixtures, traps, and valves in a plumbing system"; and a water heater replaced identically). It also states the structural application's document list and the point of the sequence: "You may be required to secure permits for sewer connection, flood, drainage, wrecking, and improvement location before the structural permit can be released."