Permit and Development Center (PDC)
- Phone
- (515) 283-4200
- Hours
- Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. CT
Iowa
Des Moines, IA permit fees and requirements
Des Moines prices construction out of one consolidated Permit and Development Center schedule (effective February 1
2025). New dwellings pay flat fees by finished floor area — $1,050 to $1,750 for single-family, $1,300 to $1,900 per unit for townhouse and two-family — while commercial construction pays a six-band valuation ladder that rounds each excess $1,000 up ('or fraction thereof') and adds plan check at 65% of the permit fee. Trade permits are flat for dwellings ($225 new-construction electrical, $200 plumbing) and base-plus-unit price lists for commercial work.
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 Des Moines permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Des Moines building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-26 |
| Des Moines electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-26 |
| Des Moines plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-26 |
Local context
What is specific to Des Moines
The Permit and Development Center at 400 Robert D. Ray Drive is the single office that issues building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits in Des Moines, and its consolidated fee schedule — 'New Fees 2-1-25' — carries every amount this site charges. A second City document, the Building Division's schedule effective January 2, 2025 under DMMC 14.01.090, prints an older valuation ladder with different rates; the PDC schedule is the newer instrument and the Division sheet is recorded as a superseded secondary source (the conflict and the resolution are in the research record).
The residential rows do not read valuation at all: a new single-family dwelling is priced by total finished floor area, with basements and garages explicitly excluded from the measurement, and additions ($250) and renovations ($150) are flat regardless of cost. The commercial ladder is the opposite — valuation through six bands, the excess in each rounded up to the whole $1,000 — and plan check rides on top at 65% of the computed permit fee for buildings valued over $1,000, with a separate energy review of 2% (minimum $21) for heated or cooled enclosed space.
Trade permits split the same way. A new dwelling's electrical permit is $225 including the temporary power pole and its plumbing permit is $200; alterations to existing dwellings are $75 per trade. Commercial trade permits are the schedule's price lists: a $75 base plus unit fees for circuits ($4 the first ten, $2 through the hundredth, $1.50 beyond), openings ($1.20), fixtures ($7.50 plumbing), and per-100-foot pipe runs ($10 or fraction).
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
Two bases, on two sides of the same schedule. Residential building rows read area — total finished floor area, basements and garages excluded — and pay flat amounts; additions and renovations are flat whatever they cost. Commercial building rows read valuation — total value of the building — through six bands whose excess thousands round up. Plan check reads the permit fee (65% of it, commercial, over $1,000 of value), and energy review reads the permit fee again at 2% with a $21 floor. Commercial trade permits read counts: circuits, openings, appliances, fixtures, service connections, grease interceptors, and 100-foot blocks of private sewer pipe — so a commercial trade total never moves because the job got more expensive, only because it got bigger.
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 Des Moines PDC's own permit amounts for building, electrical and plumbing work. They are not a project cost, and they exclude:
- Mechanical permits. The residential rows ($125 new dwellings, $75 fireplace-only, $75 alterations) and the commercial base-plus-unit list (furnaces $15, boiler $10 + $3 per 100,000 BTU/Hr or portion, cooling $15, dampers, hoods, gas outlets) are read and recorded in the research file without a page in this pass.
- Demolition permits. $50 per dwelling or accessory building, $250 conventional, $500 with explosives, plus $75 sewer/water disconnects — flat rows without rules in this pass.
- Right-of-way obstruction permits ($20/month plus per-100-square-foot tiers), wireless towers ($3,000 new / $500 alteration), permit extensions, reinstatements, overtime inspections and temporary certificates of occupancy — event or administrative fees outside the permit calculation.
- Engineering and Fire review factors. The Building Division's superseded sheet factors Engineering at 35% commercial / 20% residential and Fire at 15%; the consolidated PDC schedule prints only the 65% plan check, which is what these pages charge.
- The 2.7%-style payment-channel and other utility fees charged by other City offices.
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.
- Fee schedule (PDF)City
City of Des Moines — Building Division Permit Fee Schedule, effective 01-02-2025 (DMMC 14.01.090)
Read 2026-09-26. Prints a DIFFERENT, older valuation ladder ($121.00 to $2,000; then $24.26/$18.15/$13.55/$11.13/$9.02/$5.93 per $1,000 or fraction) plus review-fee factors (plan check 65%, Engineering 35% commercial / 20% residential, Fire 15%). Superseded by the PDC consolidated schedule for the permit amounts; kept as a dated secondary source. No figure from this document enters any total — see research/iowa/des-moines.md §3.1.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
Des Moines Permit and Development Center Permit Fees — New Fees 2-1-25 (4 pp.)
Read 2026-09-26 from the City's CMS host (cms2.revize.com serves the PDF unguarded; HEAD-verified HTTP 200 application/pdf). Contains the residential flat building rows by finished floor area, the six-band commercial valuation ladder (every band printing 'or fraction thereof'), plan check 65% of the building permit fee, energy review 2% with a $21 minimum, demolition, residential trade flats ($225/$75 electrical, $200/$75 plumbing, $125/$75 mechanical) and the commercial trade base-plus-unit price lists.