Metro Nashville Department of Codes and Building Safety (Metro Codes)
- Phone
- (615) 862-6500
- Hours
- Permit desk weekdays; inspections are scheduled through the e-permits system.
Tennessee
Nashville, TN permit fees and requirements
A Nashville building permit is four fees added together
and the schedule says so in its first four lines: a $25 zoning examination fee, the building valuation fee ($5.00 per $1,000 for one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses, a four-band ladder for everything else), a codes tech fee of 10% of the valuation fee, and a plan review that is half the permit fee to $275,000 and a printed ladder above it. Plumbing and electrical are price lists with a $75 minimum each — $11 a fixture, $80 a connection, $6.00 for ten or fewer outlets and $1.00 each beyond, $12.00 per meter, $75.00 or $102.00 a service release.
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 Nashville permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Nashville building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-25 |
| Nashville electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-25 |
| Nashville plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-25 |
Local context
What is specific to Nashville
Nashville's schedule is the first in this dataset whose building permit is assembled from four separately stated components, and it states them itself: "The total permit cost for a building permit includes: Zoning Examination Fee of $25 / Building Valuation Fee: See below / Codes Tech Fee: 10% of the Building Valuation Fee / Building Plan Review Fee: See below". Each component reads a different thing. The zoning fee is charged on every permit; the valuation fee reads the job; the tech fee reads the valuation fee and not the job; the plan review reads the permit fee. Which is why the calculator keeps the zoning fee out of the base subtotal entirely — the tech fee is 10% of the valuation fee, and a $25 that sat inside the base would be taxed by 10% of itself.
The commercial ladder is the dataset's recurring seam story three times over. Band 2's printed base is $372.71 where band 1's own rate lands at $372.55. Band 3's is $651.38 where band 2's lands at $651.21. Band 4's printed $2,326.84 is fifty-four cents *below* where band 3's arithmetic reaches $2,327.38. None of the three is derivable; all three are printed; all three are charged as printed, exactly as Minneapolis's two cents, Saint Paul's $23 and the plan review's own $7.22 are.
And the plan review is the sharpest edge in the dataset: to $275,000 it is one-half of the building permit fee, which at that valuation is about $692.32 — and at $275,000.01 it is $1,338.54 plus $0.18 a thousand. That is a 93% step for one dollar of work, printed in the ordinance, and it is charged. Subsection G.2 is where the exemption lives: one- and two-family dwelling permits and townhouse permits pay no plans examination fee at all, so the residential rate of $5.00 per $1,000 is the whole building permit fee, while a multifamily building beside it pays the commercial ladder, the tech fee and the plan review.
Plumbing and electrical are the other shape: price lists with a $75 floor. Plumbing counts fixtures — and counts a fixture *outlet* as a fixture "whether or not the fixture is actually set" — with separate rows for building drains, sewer and water service connections, septic systems and hot water heaters. Electrical prices outlets ($6.00 for ten, $1.00 each beyond), meters, service risers by occupancy ($75.00 residential, $102.00 commercial), signs and a $75.00 minimum, and it carries the dataset's only tripling rule in the text: unpermitted electrical work means "the permit fees shall be tripled".
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
The basis is the total valuation of the work, defined by the code as "the cost of construction including structural, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, gas, interior finish, site preparation and development, architectural and design fees, overhead, and profit ... based on the contract amount", with the City reserving the right to demand the contract when the stated valuation falls below 75% of ICC's national average for that construction type. The fee schedule reprints that ICC Building Valuation Data, so a reader who does not know their valuation can compute one.
Two rates read that valuation: $5.00 per $1,000 for one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses, and the commercial ladder — $40.39 to $2,000; $40.39 plus $6.92 a thousand to $50,000; $372.71 plus $5.57 to $100,000; $651.38 plus $4.19 to $500,000; $2,326.84 plus $2.79 beyond — with every band's chargeable part rounded up to whole $1,000s because each row says "or fraction thereof". The three printed bases that do not match the band below's arithmetic are the schedule's own numbers and are charged as printed.
The other two components read the *fee*, not the job: the codes tech fee is 10% of the building valuation fee, and the plan review is one-half of the building permit fee below $275,000 and then a ladder of its own. Neither is a percentage of the valuation, which is why the four components cannot be collapsed into one rate. Plumbing and electrical read counts rather than cost, and neither touches the valuation at all.
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 are Nashville's building, electrical and plumbing permit fees. They are not a project cost, and they exclude:
- The gas/mechanical permit's rows — Metro Code 16.16.400's own permit: a $75 minimum, $11 an appliance beyond the first residential and $16 commercial, $11 a gas meter connection, $21 a hot water heater, $50 for underground fuel lines, and $32 per 100,000 Btuh of connected heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and refrigeration capacity — transcribed in the research record, a trade this site's three pages do not price.
- The class-based electrical rows — motors and generators by horsepower ($2/$8/$14/$20), electric ranges and water heaters by occupancy, electric heat and appliances by kilowatts, dryers, the catch-all row for "any wiring, device, apparatus, appliance or equipment not specifically covered herein" at $9.00, and the distribution/lighting/switch panel ladder by amperage class ($10 to $145, plus $3.00 per additional 100 amperes) — all priced per item by the item's rating class, a shape this dataset's per-unit facts do not yet price, and all transcribed in the research record.
- The moving, sign, trailer and use-and-occupancy rows — $252.00 to move a building, the commercial schedule with a $55 minimum for signs, $55.00 per trailer or mobile home, $55.00 for a use-and-occupancy permit or certificate of compliance where no building permit was issued, $50.00 for a use verification letter and $40.00 for a beer and liquor distance letter.
- The re-inspection fees — $50.00 on each trade, charged when an inspection is repeated rather than as part of a permit's price; the electrical one is carried as an inspection component, the plumbing one is named.
- The unpermitted-work penalty — "the permit fees shall be tripled" for electrical work begun before a permit issued: a multiplier on the fee, not a fee.
- Metro Water Services taps and sewer availability — the water and sewer utility's own charges, not rows in the codes fee schedule.
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.
- OrdinanceCity
BL2022-1215 — the ordinance adopting the current Codes fee schedule
Cited on the fee schedule itself as "The Fee Schedule Legislation", with its Legistar link. The ordinance is the schedule's enactment: it is what makes the Metro Code sections in the PDF the operative fee text rather than a codifier's republication, and its passage date would replace the URL-derived effective date if a reader needs the fees' exact start.
- OrdinanceCity
BL2022-1254 — the ordinance adopting the Codes Tech Fee
Cited beside the fee legislation as "The Codes Tech Fee legislation". The technology fee is the only component of a Nashville building permit with its own ordinance: 10% of the building valuation fee, which is the base this site charges it on — 10% of the ladder's output, not of the whole permit bill.
- City websiteCity
Codes publications list — the page that links the fee schedule and the permit publications
Read 2026-09-25. The publications list is the department's index of instruments: the Permit Fee Schedule, the Building Valuation Table, the group definitions, the contractor licensing and e-permits guides, and the drawing requirements PDF. It is the page that makes the fee schedule the *primary* source rather than a stray file — the City links it as its own fee schedule, and the schedule prints the ordinances behind it.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
Metro Nashville Codes Fee Schedule (Metro Code 16.28.110 – 16.20.250, with ICC valuation data)
Read 2026-09-25 with pdftotext in -layout mode (the text is single-column and reads cleanly). The first four lines are the whole building mechanism: "The total permit cost for a building permit includes: Zoning Examination Fee of $25 / Building Valuation Fee: See below (Valuation Table is on last page) / Codes Tech Fee: 10% of the Building Valuation Fee / Building Plan Review Fee: See below". Then the Metro Code itself: 16.28.110 (building permits — residential $5.00 per $1,000; the commercial ladder; moving $252; signs; trailers; use and occupancy $55; re-inspection $50; plans examination with its $275,000 seam and its exemptions), 16.12.220 (plumbing — $75 minimum, $11 fixtures, the thirty-two-item fixture classification list), 16.16.400 (gas/mechanical — $75 minimum, appliance rows, $32 per 100,000 Btuh), 16.20.250 (electrical — outlets, motors, ranges, water heaters, heat by kilowatts, dryers, signs, services per meter, panels by amperage, the $75 minimum, service releases and emergency reconnection), and the ICC Building Valuation Data (February 2025) with its per-square-foot construction costs and worked permit-fee multiplier example. The sheet cites its own legislation: BL2022-1215 (fee schedule) and BL2022-1254 (codes tech fee).