Cambridge Inspectional Services Department (ISD)
- Phone
- (617) 349-6100
- Hours
- Monday 7:00-8:30 a.m. and 3:30-5:30 p.m.; Tuesday through Thursday 7:00-8:30 a.m. and 3:00-3:30 p.m.; Friday 7:00-8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Massachusetts
Cambridge, MA permit fees and requirements
Cambridge prices a building permit on the construction cost
rounded up: $20.00 for each $1,000 or fraction of it, with a $50.00 minimum, or $15.00 at the Exemption rate for a building of three residential dwelling units or less. Plumbing is $50.00 for up to five fixtures and $5.00 for each one after them. Electrical is a price list rather than a ladder — $10.00 per 100 amperes on a service, $1.00 to $15.00 a receptacle by its rating, $5.00 a meter — and its rows stack, one charge per line item on the application.
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 Cambridge permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-25 |
| Cambridge electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-25 |
| Cambridge plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-25 |
Local context
What is specific to Cambridge
One department, three pages, no PDF. The Inspectional Services Department publishes its schedule as three HTML tables — Building Fees, Electrical/Wiring Fees, Plumbing Fees — each headed by the same three ordinance warnings about work started before a permit (the fee "shall be tripled") and about permits taken by employers of permanent electricians and plumbers, and each footed with the department's address, phone number and counter hours. There is no effective date anywhere on the pages, and the only dated instrument found — the DPW announcement of fee changes effective January 1, 2024 — lists sidewalk obstruction permits and utility inspectors' overtime, not these rows, so the schedules are dated to the read date and the announcement is kept visible as a source.
What distinguishes Cambridge from its neighbours is the rounding, printed on the page. Every cost row reads "$20.00 per $1,000.00 or fraction thereof of construction cost" — the phrase Boston's sheet never prints — and Moving buildings says "rounded up to the next thousand" in its own words, so a partial thousand buys a whole step: $18,750 is nineteen steps of $20.00, not eighteen and three quarters. The Exemption line beneath the rate is not a waiver: it charges $15.00 where a building has three residential dwelling units or less, and the standard $20.00 rule is written as the negation of that condition so a reader who does not state a unit count pays the standard rate rather than nothing.
The trades are a price list, and the contrast with Boston is structural, not just in amounts. Boston's electrical sheet branches — by amperage, by device count, by cost — and exactly one branch answers; Cambridge's electrical page is line items that stack, a service and four receptacles paying both rows. Boston's plumbing is $5.00 a fixture from the first; Cambridge's is $50.00 for up to five fixtures and $5.00 after them. Both contrasts are asserted in the two cities' tests so neither can drift into the other.
What is absent is itself a fact. No plan review percentage, no technology fee and no state surcharge appears on any page: the schedule's one plan-review cell is a garbled export — "$100 included in building permit fee$50.00", one cell, two amounts, no legend — and is quoted verbatim rather than charged, and Massachusetts adds no levy of its own to a local permit.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
The basis for building work is the construction cost, and the rounding is part of the rate: "$20.00 per $1,000.00 or fraction thereof of construction cost, $50.00 minimum fee", printed four times over. The phrase means the basis is rounded up to the next whole thousand before $20.00 is applied — $18,750 is nineteen steps of $20.00, or $380.00 — and the minimum is the rule's own floor, which binds below $2,500 of cost: a $2,000 job is two steps of $20.00, $40.00, charged at $50.00.
The Exemption line is selected by the building, not the job: $15.00 per $1,000 or fraction for "three residential dwelling units or less", asked for as a custom fact about the building, with the standard rate charging wherever that fact is absent or above three. Moving buildings takes the $15.00 rate without asking about units, because that is what its row prints. Sheet Metal is the one row priced on a run rather than on cost — $25.00 per 100 linear feet is 25 cents a foot, charged on the exact run because that row, alone on the page, prints neither "or fraction thereof" nor "rounded up".
Electrical and plumbing are priced from counts, not from cost: the service's amperes, the receptacles' rating, the meters, the fixtures. Nothing here derives a cost from square footage: the schedule publishes no conversion, and the pages ask for a dollar figure or a count instead.
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 Cambridge's own building, electrical and plumbing permit fees, as printed on ISD's three fee pages. They are not a project cost, and they exclude:
- The triple fee. Work started before the permit issues triples the fee — a multiplier on a fee that has not been computed, printed as ordinance 15.04.010 on all three pages and quoted in the requirements.
- Certificates of Occupancy and Certificates of Inspections — seven rows priced on units, rooms, occupants and square feet ($100 for the first residential unit plus $50.00 each additional; $100 plus $50.00 per 1,000 sq. ft. commercial; assembly groups at $50.00 for 1-50 occupants plus $2.00 each over 50; R-1 at $50.00 plus $5.00 a room over 10; R-2/R-4/R-5 at $100.00 plus $5.00 a unit), read and transcribed in the research record, not attached to a page.
- Signs — $10 per $100 of sign cost rounded up to the next hundred, $20.00 minimum: the rate is a percentage of a *sign cost*, which no basis here reads.
- Building licenses ($50.00 initial for two years, $50.00 renewal, $60.00 late, $10.00 a year after), annual sign inspections ($10.00) and publicly subsidized dwelling inspections ($100.00) — licensing and inspection tariffs rather than permit fees.
- Electrical rows priced by a count this site does not collect: motors by horsepower, heating units by kilowatt, air conditioners by ton, ductless units, solar arrays at $100.00 each (the page prices solar service at the same $10.00 per 100 amperes named in the service rule), maintenance permits quarterly and yearly, data/low-voltage/audio-visual work by occupancy, bounced cheques at $35.00 and shutdowns at $100.00 plus inspection.
- Plumbing rows for individual devices — back water valve, hose bib, irrigation meter, cross-connection devices, dedicated systems, water piping per floor, sanitary waste and vent per floor, sprinkler heads and standpipe valves — read, priced on the page's own table, and named rather than charged: each would need a fact of its own, and the fixture block is the row a plumbing job actually starts from.
- Plan review, technology and state surcharges — none of them exist. The schedule's one plan-review cell is quoted verbatim ("$100 included in building permit fee$50.00") rather than charged, and Massachusetts adds no levy of its own to a Cambridge permit.
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.
- City websiteCity
DPW — "Changes to Construction Permit Fees Effective January 1, 2024"
Read 2026-09-25 for what the only dated instrument found does and does not date: it lists Sidewalk Obstruction Permits (monthly fee) and the Utility Inspectors' Overtime Fee, and says "certain construction permit fees have been revised" after "a review of construction-related permit fees that have not been increased in a decade", with "a complete revised fee schedule … available … on January 1, 2024". It names no ISD row, so it cannot date the three fee pages — which is why those carry the read date as their effectiveFrom, and why this source is held so the possibility stays visible.
- City websiteCityPrimary source
ISD — "Building Fees" (the cost ladder, its Exemption line, Sheet Metal, Moving buildings)
Read 2026-09-25 as a two-column HTML table: the cost ladder ($20.00 per $1,000.00 or fraction thereof of construction cost, $50.00 minimum fee) printed identically under four row names — "All new construction Repairs & Alterations", "Amendments to plans", "Demolition of buildings & structures" and "Preliminary permits for foundation" — with the "Exemption" line at $15.00 for three residential dwelling units or less beneath each. Moving buildings is $15.00 per $1,000 rounded up with the same $50.00 minimum; Sheet Metal is $50 plus $25 per each 100 linear feet, the one row priced in linear feet without a block phrase; signs are priced on a percentage of a sign cost, which no basis here reads. The plan-review cell reads verbatim "$100 included in building permit fee$50.00" — one cell, two amounts, no legend — so no plan-review rule is written.
- City websiteCityPrimary source
ISD — "Electrical/Wiring Fees" (the itemised price list)
Read 2026-09-25: the schedule prices line items rather than applications — "New Service — Per 100 AMPS — $10.00" and the identical "Service per 100 amps" row, receptacles priced five ways by ampere rating ($1/$4/$5/$8/$15 at 15/20/30/50/70 amps) under "Receptacles/air conditioners, check amps", "Meter, each — $5.00", "Generator — $100.00" and "Alarm system (security & fire) — Residential $25.00 / Commercial $75.00". No branch language anywhere on the page: a service and four receptacles pay both rows, which is why the rules here stack where Boston's branch.
- City websiteCityPrimary source
ISD — "Plumbing Fees" (the fixture block and the device rows)
Read 2026-09-25: the fixture list — "Bathtub, Dishwasher, Drinking Fountain, Floor/Area Drain, Food Disposal, Icemaker, Kitchen Sink, Lavatory, Roof Drain, Mop Sink, Shower Stall, Toilet, Urinal, Washing Machine" — marked "Include in Fixture Count", priced "$50.00 for 5 fixtures, $5.00 for each additional fixture"; water heaters at $50.00 (electric/gas/indirect) and $100.00 (tankless); the page's own header lines "Re-Inspection Fee - $50.00" and the triple-fee ordinance warning. Boston prices the same trade straight per fixture, with no allowance — both readings are asserted in their cities' tests.