Planning Department — Building Safety Division
- Phone
- 505-924-3320
- Hours
- 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday (building permits and plan review); inspections and trade permits counter 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday
New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM permit fees and requirements
Albuquerque prices a building permit off one raw fee ladder — Table 112-A of the City's Uniform Administrative Code — and then multiplies the result by a regional modifier: .67 for apartments, public and commercial construction, .50 for one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses, renovations and additions included. Each modifier carries a printed $23.50 minimum, taken after the multiplication, which is why the commercial column of the City's own handout stops falling below the floor at an $801 valuation and the residential one at $1,201. Plan review is 65% of the permit fee under §112.3 and is charged in addition to it, paid when the plans are submitted. Electrical and plumbing permits use per-item tables — a $47.00 administrative charge, $1.50 for each of the first 20 outlets, $10.00 for a plumbing fixture including its drain and vent — at a modifier of 1.0, with plan review at 25% of the permit fee.
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 Albuquerque permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Albuquerque building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-25 |
| Albuquerque electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-25 |
| Albuquerque plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-25 |
Local context
What is specific to Albuquerque
Albuquerque's fee schedule is one document with three layers, and reading it in order is what keeps the arithmetic honest. The first layer is the raw ladder of Table 112-A, printed once: $23.50 for the first $500 and $3.05 for each additional $100 or fraction to $2,000, $69.25 plus $14.00 per $1,000 to $25,000, $391.75 plus $10.10 to $50,000, $643.75 plus $7.00 to $100,000, then $993.75 for the first $100,000 plus $5.60 for each additional $1,000 or fraction with no upper bound. Nobody pays those numbers. The second layer is §112.2.1's regional modifier, which the legislative body sets: .67 for apartments, public and commercial construction and .50 for one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses — "including renovations, alterations and additions" — and 1.0 for every other table in the section. The third layer is the $23.50 minimum, printed in parentheses beside each Table 112-A modifier.
That structure means the published handout and the code are the same thing computed twice. The Division's "Plan Review and Building Permit Fees" handout prints the four columns a reader would want — commercial, residential, and the 65 percent plan review against each — and every one of its 335 rows is the raw ladder times the modifier, rounded half up, floored at $23.50. This site computes that product directly, which has one consequence worth knowing: the handout stops at a $321,000 valuation because its typesetting stopped, while the UAC's sixth band does not end. Valuations above the handout's last row are extended by the City's own $5.60-per-$1,000 formula rather than by an invented bracket, and the page says so.
Plan review is where Albuquerque differs from cities that fold it into the permit. §112.3 charges it "at the time of submitting plans and specifications for review", states the percentages — 65 percent of the building or sign permit fee, 25 percent of the electrical, mechanical and plumbing permit fee — and then says the part that matters: these are "separate fees from the permit fees specified in Section 112.2 and are in addition to the permit fees". The Building Safety Division's FAQ says the same thing from the counter: "Plan review fees are paid at the time of submittal. They are 65% of the permit fee, plus zoning and hydrology fees." So it is a real charge on this site, gated behind the plan-review input rather than assumed, because §112.3 only charges it when §§110.2 and 110.3 require plans to be submitted.
Two smaller mechanics are worth carrying into any reading of the tables. Work started without a permit does not just get priced: §112.4.2 collects an investigation fee "in addition to the permit fee", equal to the permit fee itself, "whether or not a permit is then or subsequently issued" — a second permit fee by the code's own definition. And the trade tables are not on the modifier's schedule: §112.2.1 sets the electrical, mechanical, plumbing, sign, wall and re-roof modifiers all at 1.0, so Table 112-B and Table 112-D rows are charged exactly as printed.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
The basis is valuation, and §112.2.1 defines it in the applicant's own words before giving the City the last one: "The applicant for a permit shall provide an estimated permit value at time of application. Permit valuations shall include total value of work, including materials and labor, for which the permit is being issued, such as electrical, gas, mechanical, plumbing equipment and other building service equipment." The same subsection lets the Building Official reject an estimate that looks low — the permit "shall be denied, unless the applicant can show detailed estimates to meet the approval of the Building Official" — and closes with "Final building permit valuation shall be set by the Building Official." Table 112-A's left column is headed TOTAL VALUATION, and the fee is charged on that figure, never on a square-footage rate: there is no square-foot fee basis anywhere in Section 112.
The trade tables do not use valuation at all. Table 112-B is priced per device and per item — outlets, fixtures, panels, meter loops, sign connections — and Table 112-D per fixture, per device and per flat connection, which is why a $400 service upgrade and a $400,000 office remodel can carry the same $47.00 administrative charge plus the same per-item rows. Valuation enters the electrical and plumbing pages only through the 25 percent plan review, which is a percentage of the permit fee the item rows produce.
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 Albuquerque's Table 112-A building fees with the regional modifiers, the Table 112-B and 112-D trade rows, the plan review percentages §112.3 sets, and the §112.4 investigation fee when work started without a permit. They are not a total project cost, and they exclude:
- The zoning and hydrology fees the handout prints under every page of its table — "Zoning: $25 < 4000sqft or $45 > 4000sqft" and "Hydrology: $50". Real charges on a plan-reviewed permit, but the schedule never says what the 4,000 square feet is measured on — lot, floor area or review area — and that ambiguity is the whole fee, so they are named rather than charged.
- The other fee tables in Section 112: mechanical (112-C), signs (112-E), walls (112-F) and re-roofing (112-G), all published in the same section and attached to no page here.
- Demolition, certificates and occupancy: demolition "up to and including 1500 sq. ft. of floor area" at $47.00 plus $10.00 for each additional 500 square feet or fraction, a temporary certificate of occupancy at $50.00, and a certificate of occupancy at $100.00.
- The hourly and recheck review charges §112.3 and Table 112-A publish: inspections outside normal business hours and inspections with no stated fee at $47.00 an hour with a two-hour minimum, additional plan review for changes and revisions at the same $47.00 an hour, rechecking lost or worn-out plans and duplicate plan sets at half the plan check fee, and preliminary and integrated plan review at $75.00 an hour. Albuquerque's re-inspection under §113.5.8 is $47.00 each on the building table and $47.00 an hour on the trade tables — the schedule prints it differently for each, and only the building row is charged here.
- FasTrax, the Division's optional expedited plan review: "three times the cost for the standard plan review", per its own FAQ.
- Electrical rows rated by equipment: motor operated equipment, evaporative coolers, residential fixed appliances, transformers, space heating equipment, communication and signal systems, pre-final inspections and swimming pools — all published in Table 112-B, all priced per horsepower, per unit or per pool, none collected by an input on this site.
- Plumbing rows not collected here: gas line tests, temporary gas, water distribution systems, atmospheric vacuum breakers by count, sewer repair in a public street, roof drains, swimming pools, the fire-protection rows (automatic extinguishing systems, standpipes), utility service lines, fire hydrant inspections, interceptors and sewer ejector pumps, and the catch-all fixture row.
- Anything another authority charges — the utility's own service and tap charges where they are not City permit rows, State licensing, and the Construction Industries Division's statewide jurisdiction.
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.
- Municipal codeCityPrimary source
Read 2026-09-25 from the City's own PDF of the 2024 UAC edition, whose Exhibit A states that the technical codes it amends carry an effective date of January 1, 2025. Section 112 read in full: §112.2's instruction that permit fees be set by Table 112-A and the other tables; §112.2.1's estimated-permit-value rule and the modifier schedule (.67 commercial and apartments, .50 one- and two-family and townhouse, 1.0 for Tables 112-B through 112-G, each with a $23.50 minimum on Table 112-A); §112.3's plan review fees (65 percent of the building or sign permit fee, 25 percent of the electrical, mechanical and plumbing permit fee, 'separate fees from the permit fees ... and are in addition to the permit fees'); §112.4's investigation fee for work without a permit; §112.5 on refunds; and Tables 112-A, 112-B and 112-D line by line. The fee tables themselves are printed inside this document — Section 112 collects no fees anywhere else.
- City websiteCityPrimary source
City of Albuquerque Building Safety Division — Frequently Asked Questions
Read 2026-09-25. The Division answers "Plan review fees are paid at the time of submittal. They are 65% of the permit fee, plus zoning and hydrology fees" — the counter-side of §112.3, and the sentence that settled how plan review is modelled here: it is a charge, it is paid up front, and it is on top of the permit. The same page describes FasTrax as "an optional expedited plan review program ... The fee for this expedited service is three times the cost for the standard plan review", and states that fees "are based on the square footage and valuation of the construction project".
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
City of Albuquerque, "Fee Schedule — Plan Review & Building Permit Handout" (Revised April 2010)
Read 2026-09-25. The seven-page handout the Building Safety Division publishes prints Table 112-A already multiplied out, in four columns: commercial (.67), residential (.50), plan review at 65 percent of each, and the totals. Every one of its 335 rows was reproduced from the UAC's raw schedule times the modifier, rounded half up and floored at $23.50 — the check that pinned down both readings this dataset depends on: the minimum applies after the modifier, and the columns are derived rather than independent. Each page of the handout also carries the zoning and hydrology lines ($25 or $45 by square footage, $50) that this site does not charge, and the columns stop at a $321,000 valuation while the UAC's sixth band does not.