Building Division (Community Development)
- Phone
- (406) 657-8231
- Hours
- Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. MT
Montana
Billings, MT permit fees and requirements
Billings sets every permit amount in one Council resolution — 26-11315
adopted February 23, 2026 as a 23–31% fee reduction of the 2011 schedule. The building permit climbs one consolidated ladder for both occupancies — $45.00 flat to $2,000, chaining exactly to a $9,529.00 base above $5,000,000 — with commercial plan review at 60% and no residential plan-review fee at all. Electrical splits residential flats from a five-band commercial project-cost ladder; plumbing is a $20.00 issuance plus a unit-price list.
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 Billings permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Billings building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-26 |
| Billings electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-26 |
| Billings plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-26 |
Local context
What is specific to Billings
The February 2026 vote is the story here: Billings' Building Division had been collecting more than it spent, and the council voted 11-0 to give the money back — cutting every schedule 23–31%, consolidating the residential and commercial building ladders into one table, dropping commercial plan review from 65% to 60%, and eliminating the residential plan-review fee outright. A $2.5 million commercial project dropped from about $11,010 to $8,246. The department is deliberately drawing reserves down to roughly 12 months of operating revenue, and staff review the fees each fiscal year.
The consolidated ladder is also the cleanest in this dataset's Montana set: one table for houses and hospitals alike, and every band's printed base equals the band below run to its ceiling — $229.00, $354.00, $529.00, $1,529.00, $2,529.00, $9,529.00 — an arithmetic check that passes at all six seams.
The trades price like parts lists with a twist: residential electrical is a handful of flats keyed on service size ($130.00 for a 100–300 A single-family service, garage included), while commercial electrical climbs a five-band project-cost ladder whose marginal rates (6%, 2%, 0.5%, 0.3%) chain exactly. Plumbing charges $20.00 to issue the permit and then $5.00–$40.00 per item, down to $1.00 for a one-to-five-outlet gas piping system.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
The building ladder reads the higher of total bid price or the ICC Building Safety Journal valuation table — the resolution's own words — so a low bid never dodges the table. Commercial electrical reads project cost (labor plus material) in five marginal bands. The plumbing and residential-electrical rows read counts: fixtures, sewers, water heaters, gas systems, backflow devices, buildings and units.
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 the City's own permit amounts from Resolution 26-11315. They are not a project cost, and they exclude:
- Fire system permits — § 5's own seven-band project-cost table ($45 to $2,000 per system), a separate permit family.
- Mechanical permits — § 4's $20.00 minimum plus $5–$30 per piece of equipment, recorded row by row in the research file.
- Electrical flats outside the three pages — accessory buildings, modular and mobile homes, irrigation wells, temporary services (each $25–$130).
- Event and penalty fees — $75.00/hr inspections outside business hours, reinspection, and additional plan review (½-hour minimum).
- Impact and development fees — none appear in the resolution; system development fees are on separate instruments.
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.
- OrdinanceCityPrimary source
Read 2026-09-26. The adopted PDF (7 pp.) is an image-only scan; its page 1 was read visually in the browser and matches the Gazette's published text-layer draft of the same resolution word for word (identical whereas clauses, building bands, and the 60% commercial plan-review line). The draft's text layer is the amount source: § 1's consolidated eight-band building ladder (chaining exactly at every seam from $45.00 to a $9,529.00 base), the 60% commercial plan review, § 2's residential electrical flats and five-band commercial project-cost ladder, § 3's $20.00 plumbing issuance plus unit rows (read out of the scan by word coordinates), § 4's mechanical rows and § 5's fire-system bands. Adoption (APPROVED 11-0) verified on the February 23, 2026 council agenda; the Gazette reports the operational go-live 'on or after March 2'.