Oregon
Multnomah County, OR permit fees and requirements
Unincorporated Multnomah County's permits are issued by the City of Portland's permitting department
on a schedule it publishes separately — and the two documents are nearly the same. The building permit fee table is identical in both, with the same $167.00 minimum; the electrical and plumbing schedules match amount for amount; the 12% state surcharge is the same. What the county does not have is the City's Development Services Fee, which is why a $250,000 commercial project is $3,508.63 here and $4,159.54 inside the city.
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 Multnomah County permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Multnomah County building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-24 |
| Multnomah County electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-24 |
| Multnomah County plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-24 |
Local context
What is specific to Multnomah County
This is the closest pair of jurisdictions on this site, and the reason is an accident of local government. Portland Permitting & Development is a City bureau, and it also issues building, electrical and plumbing permits for unincorporated Multnomah County, publishing a separate fee schedule under the county's name for each trade. The two schedules are the same documents with different title pages: the Building Permit Fee table is identical row for row — same $167.00 minimum, same $3.59 per additional $100 in the first band, same seams at $220.85, $540.78, $797.28 and $1,137.78 — and the electrical and plumbing schedules match in every dollar amount, which was established by extracting the amounts from both and comparing the sets rather than by reading them.
Three things separate the county from the city. The first and by far the largest is the Development Services Fee: two tables, Commercial and Residential, charged on the same valuation as the building permit fee, present in the city's document and absent from the county's. On a $250,000 commercial project that is $650.91, and it is the whole of the difference between $4,159.54 in the city and $3,508.63 in the county. The second is demolition: the county charges $1,038.00 for a commercial demolition and $1,018.00 for a residential one, against the city's $1,372.00 and $1,352.00 — $334.00 lower on both rows. The third is the title page.
Everything else about the fee is the state's rather than the municipality's. OAR 918-050-0100 mandates the valuation method — the ICC Building Valuation Data Table current as of April 1 multiplied by square footage, with a commercial project paying on "the greater of" that figure or the applicant's stated value — and requires that a plumbing permit for a new house be priced by the number of baths rather than by the number of fixtures. ORS 455.210(4) imposes the 12% surcharge that sits on all three permits, in the county as in the city.
The practical reading is that moving a project across the county line changes the building permit and nothing else. A plumber or electrician working in unincorporated Multnomah County pays exactly what the same work costs inside Portland, and a builder pays $650.91 less on a $250,000 building permit — while a site inside the county still needs the building permit, because the county's own government does not issue it.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
The county's schedule repeats the state's mandate rather than setting its own: the method "is mandated by the State of Oregon in OAR 918-050-0100", a structural permit fee for new construction and additions is calculated from the ICC Building Valuation Data Table current as of April 1, using the occupancy and construction type as determined by the building official, multiplied by the square footage — measured from outside exterior wall to outside exterior wall for each level — and "the valuation used will be the greater of either the above calculated value or the value as stated by the applicant".
Neither document prints the ICC table itself, so the pages here compute from the valuation you enter. What they cannot tell you is which figure the building official would use for a given building, or how a carport, covered porch, patio or deck would be valued: the same rule calculates those separately at 50% of the value of a private garage.
A commercial project therefore cannot lower its fee by submitting a low valuation — the "greater of" wording is a floor as well as a ceiling — while an alteration or a repair is priced on the fair market value of the permitted work as the schedule defines it, which includes the electrical, plumbing, heating, elevator, fire protection and contractor's-profit components of the job.
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 what the unincorporated county's own 2026 fee schedules publish, computed by this site's engine. They are not a total project cost. In particular they exclude:
- Construction excise taxes: Metro's construction excise tax and the City of Portland's Affordable Housing Construction Excise Tax are taxes on permit valuation imposed by other bodies, not permit fees, and their status on county land follows Metro's boundary rather than the city limits.
- The Fire and Life Safety Review Fee, charged at 40% of the building permit fee by the Fire Marshal rather than by the permitting department.
- Every hourly charge: additional plan review, inspections outside normal business hours, investigation fees where work began without a permit, and the county schedule's own inspection hourly rates.
- The deferred submittal fee, at 10% of the building permit fee on the deferred portion, with a minimum of $570.00 for one- and two-family projects and $912.00 for commercial, and 50% of that where the submittal is exempt from plan review under ORS 455.628.
- The re-inspection fee of $167.00 for each inspection beyond a band's allowance; the building table caps included inspections at three in its smallest band and seven in the band below the top.
- Exterior plumbing lines and site work: rain, sanitary and storm drain rows and the water service row at $180.00 for the first 100 feet plus $137.00 for each additional 100 feet, and the schedule's note that sewer cap, erosion control and site review fees "will be added separately".
- The electrical rows not modelled: solar above 25 kVA at $15.52 per kVA, wind generation from $587.00, borderline neon at $309.00 per elevation, wall washing at $1.23 per square foot, the $324.00 additional electrical checksheet, and appeal fees of $346.00 for one- and two-family dwellings and $721.00 for all other occupancies.
- Mechanical permits, which the county prices on its own schedule and which this release does not model, and appliance and equipment permits generally.
- Anything the county's own government charges for the same project: land use, road and right-of-way permits are the county's, and the parking, transportation and system development charges that accompany a project are not permit fees.
- The Development Services Fee — because there is none here. This is the one line the city's pages carry and this one does not, and it is why the same valuation produces two totals on this site.
- The cost of the work itself, and any tax on it.
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)CountyPrimary source
Building and Other Permits Fee Schedule, Unincorporated Multnomah County, effective July 10, 2026
Four pages, sha256 beginning 4211463f0eac9f3e, read 2026-09-24 in three pdftotext modes. Its Building Permit Fee table is identical to the City of Portland's, row for row and figure for figure, which was established by comparing the two documents' full text rather than by reading both. Its two proprietary rows are the demolition fees: $1,038.00 for a commercial demolition with or without a basement and $1,018.00 for a residential one, against the City's $1,372.00 and $1,352.00. It contains no Development Services Fee at all, which is the whole of the difference in ordinary work.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CountyPrimary source
Electrical Permit Fee Schedule, Unincorporated Multnomah County, effective July 10, 2026
Three pages, sha256 beginning ab23308d3994, read in three modes. Every dollar amount in it matches the City of Portland's electrical schedule — checked by extracting the amounts from both documents and comparing the two sorted multisets, which came out identical — and so do the plan review percentage and the rows that are not fee figures. The county's electrical permit therefore costs exactly what the city's does for the same work.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CountyPrimary source
Plumbing Permit Fee Schedule, Unincorporated Multnomah County, effective July 10, 2026
Four pages, sha256 beginning a42ebd9f8969, read in three modes and identical in every amount to the City of Portland's plumbing schedule. A new one- or two-family dwelling is priced by the number of baths — $792.00, $1,187.00, $1,388.00 and $334.00 for each additional bath or kitchen — and everything else at $63.00 per fixture or item. Its plan review row prints "25% of total mechanical permit fee", the same slip in the City's document, read here as 25% of the plumbing permit fee.