Building Services Division
- Phone
- (605) 367-8670
- Hours
- Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. CT
South Dakota
Sioux Falls, SD permit fees and requirements
Sioux Falls permits are issued by Building Services under Chapter 150 of the Code of Ordinances and an annually re-adopted fee schedule.
New houses get their valuation derived from square-foot factors — $128/sq ft of finished space — then climb the Table 1-A ladder; commercial work declares its value and climbs Table 1-B. Every band's excess rounds up to whole $1,000 ('or fraction thereof'). Plan review adds 25% of the building permit fee. Since January 1, 2022 the electrical, mechanical and plumbing trades have shared one common valuation ladder, from a $40 flat to a $3,903.75 base above $1,000,000.
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 Sioux Falls permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Sioux Falls building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-26 |
| Sioux Falls electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-26 |
| Sioux Falls plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-26 |
Local context
What is specific to Sioux Falls
The fee schedule is a living document here: the City has reviewed the residential valuation method every year since 1985 and the commercial one since 1992, and the 2026 edition is the sixth re-adoption this dataset's window covers. That discipline shows in the ladders themselves — every seam above the flat bands chains to the cent, the internal check on a read of a forty-year-old document lineage.
The residential regime is unusual: the applicant never declares a value for a new house. The schedule's factors derive it — $128 per square foot of finished habitable space, $79 for finished basements, $41 for unfinished space, $42 attached and $38 detached garages — and the derived total walks the ladder. Remodels are the exception the schedule states in its own sentence: actual bid price, never the factors.
The trades were consolidated in 2022. Before that, electrical priced like a parts list — services by amperage, circuits at $6/$12/$15, openings at a dollar. Since January 1, 2022 all three trades price identically on the trade's own valuation, and the City's one-page MEP form publishes the common ladder the code's three articles describe. The 2024 UPC ordinance's plumbing table prints bases a few dollars higher above $50,000 — an inconsistency inside the ordinance itself; the form a contractor actually files with carries the common figures.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
Three regimes. New residential construction derives its valuation from area at the schedule's factors, then walks the ladder; remodels declare actual bid price. Commercial work declares total construction value — finish work, MEP, elevators and permanent equipment in; site improvements and parking lots out. The trades read the trade's own valuation on the common MEP ladder, substituting the total project valuation only when a building permit covers the same work.
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. They are not a project cost, and they exclude:
- Mechanical permits — priced on the same common MEP ladder, recorded without their own page.
- The flat $40 scope rows — re-shingling, residing, swimming-pool fence enclosures, razing permits, window replacements (sashes only) — named scope rows, not the ladder.
- Administrative flats — the $25.00 homeowner's permit and $5.00 state wiring permit (electrical), wrecking $40, board of appeals $100, late-corrections $100, failure-to-inspect $250.
- Event and hourly fees — the $100/$200 hourly inspection rates, electrical plan review's hourly rows (§ 150.215), additional plan review for changed plans (another 25%).
- The pre-2022 electrical item-price regime and the Table 104.5 plumbing-base divergence — both recorded in the research file.
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)CityPrimary source
City of Sioux Falls Building Permit Valuation/Fee Schedule (2026 edition)
Read 2026-09-26 via reader proxy (siouxfalls.gov 403s plain scripted fetches). Six pages: the square-foot valuation factors for new residential construction ($128 finished habitable, $79 finished basement, $41 unfinished, $42 attached garage, $38 detached garage; apartments $127 Type V / $149 Type III), the residential and commercial building ladders (identical to code Tables 1-A/1-B), and the flat scope rows. The file at /v/2/2025-fee-schedule.pdf carries the internal title '2026 Fee Schedule Clean' and is superseded by /v/3/2026-fee-schedule-01012026.pdf with the same amounts — the Building Permits page links both.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
City of Sioux Falls — MEP Permit Fees (2026 one-page form: electrical, mechanical, plumbing)
Read 2026-09-26 via reader proxy. One page publishing the common eight-band trade ladder ('Electrical/Mechanical/Plumbing Valuation' from $40 at $5,000 to $3,903.75 base above $1,000,000), the $25.00 homeowner's permit and $5.00 state wiring permit administrative rows, and the collection order: 'PLAN REVIEW FEE ONLY: Building permit fees will be collected at the time of permit issuance.' This is the form a contractor actually files with, and it is the resolution of Table 104.5's higher plumbing bases.
- Municipal codeCityPrimary source
Sioux Falls Code of Ordinances, Chapter 150 — Building (§§ 150.017, 150.213, 150.215, 150.302)
Read 2026-09-26 across the amlegal codelibrary nodes. § 150.017 carries Tables 1-A/1-B (the building ladders, agreeing with the schedule PDF to the cent) and Table 1-C row 11 (plan review '25 percent of the building permit fee as specified on Table 1-B … in addition to the building permit fee'). § 150.213 carries the electrical fee table as amended effective 2022 (the valuation ladder) and preserves the pre-2022 item-priced regime in subsection (a); § 150.215 prices electrical plan review hourly; § 150.302 (2024 UPC adoption) carries Table 104.5 whose bases run $31.75–$32 above the electrical and mechanical ladders above $50,000 of trade valuation — an inconsistency inside the ordinance itself, resolved in favor of the common ladder the City's own MEP form publishes.