Washington
Seattle, WA permit fees and requirements
Seattle does not publish a table of permit fees.
It publishes a table of index values and then a table of percentages of that index: a $2,000,000 building pays $14,984.00 for its permit and the same $14,984.00 again for plan review, plus a 5% technology fee and the state's $25.00 building code council fee — $31,491.40 in all. Electrical work is priced per service size and per circuit, and plumbing permits are not Seattle's at all: the county health department issues them.
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 Seattle permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle building permit cost | structural | 2026-09-24 |
| Seattle electrical permit cost | electrical | 2026-09-24 |
| Seattle plumbing permit cost | plumbing | 2026-09-24 |
Local context
What is specific to Seattle
Seattle's schedule is the first in this dataset that separates the *index* from the *fee*, and that separation is the whole mechanism. Table D-1 returns a Development Fee Index — 26 bands, from $325 for the first $1,000 of value to $4.50 per $1,000 at the top — and Table D-2 then says what a permit and a plan review are as percentages of it. A building permit is 100% of the index and its plan review is another 100%, so a project pays the index twice; a project processed as subject to field inspection pays 100% for the permit and 40% for the review. Because the fee is a reading of one number, the permit fee and the review fee can never disagree about which band a valuation fell in, and a second review mode is a percentage change rather than a second table.
The index is also exact across its bands. The band opening at $1,500,001 starts at $11,734.00, which is what the band below produces at $1,500,000, and the band opening at $2,000,001 starts at $14,984.00, which is what *its* band below produces at $2,000,000. A $2,000,000 project therefore costs the same whether it is read as the top of one band or the bottom of the next, and those handovers are asserted in this site's tests.
Two charges sit on top and neither is a Seattle invention. The technology fee is 5% of "all fees or charges required" under the fee chapters — the first surcharge in this dataset that is a percentage of the whole bill rather than of one component, which is why the engine gained a `fee_subtotal` basis to express it. And the state building code council fee is $6.50 on a residential building permit and $25.00 on a commercial one, plus $2.00 for each residential unit after the first, set by RCW 19.27.085 rather than by any City ordinance.
Electrical work stands on its own two tables. Table D-15 prices work where plans are not required, by service size ($146.00 up to 125 amperes, $292.00 at 150 to 200, $365.00 at 225 to 350, and "Plan Review Only" above that), by branch circuit or feeder ($26.28 at up to 25 amperes, $43.80 at 30 to 50, $146.00 at 60 to 200, $292.00 at 225 to 350), and by control unit ($17.52 plus $2.92 per device). Table D-14 prices the same work by valuation where plans are reviewed. A $55.48 administrative fee is added to every item except a City Light safety inspection, and there is a $105.12 minimum on a standard self-issued online permit — which matters, because one 20-ampere circuit at $26.28 plus the administrative fee is $85.85, below the minimum.
The plumbing permit is the one Seattle does not price. SMC 22.900G.030 sends plumbing, medical gas and fuel gas piping fees to the Director of King County Public Health, and that program's schedule — the same document that prices plumbing in unincorporated King County — charges $137.00 plus $27.00 per fixture. It is the only case in this dataset where a jurisdiction's own code names another body as the authority for one of its permits, and it means the two Washington jurisdictions on this site share a plumbing schedule while their building fees are set 20 miles apart by different governments.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
Seattle takes a total valuation of the work and reads it against Table D-1 for the Development Fee Index. The subtitle does not require the applicant's figure to be accepted as given; where a project's value is in question the department determines it, and the base fee and SDCI hourly rate exist for work that is charged by time instead.
The pages here compute from the valuation you enter and never substitute a rate for it. What they cannot tell you is whether the department would accept that figure for a given project, because the subtitle prices the consequence of a disagreement — a plan re-submittal, an hourly review charge — rather than the valuation itself.
The electrical permit often does not involve a valuation at all: Table D-15 charges by amperage, by circuit and by device, and the rows on this site's electrical page are those.
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 Seattle's own 2026 Fee Subtitle publishes, computed by this site's engine. They are not a total project cost. In particular they exclude:
- Every hourly charge, including additional plan review beyond what a permit includes, at the SDCI base fee and hourly rate of $292.00 each.
- The $105.12 minimum on a standard self-issued online permit, which is a floor on a channel rather than a component, and therefore is not added by the engine.
- Land use, design review, environmental and shoreline review fees, which are Chapters 22.900B and 22.900C rather than the building chapter, and which run from a $5,510 minimum for administrative design review to $11,020 for full design review.
- Equipment permits priced on their own tables: elevators under Table D-13, refrigeration under D-10, boilers under D-12, and fire and hazardous materials permits, which are not building, electrical or plumbing permits.
- Tenant alteration charges of so much per 100 square feet, blanket permits, and the phased-permit charges where work is divided across permits.
- Electrical work priced under Table D-14 where plans are reviewed, which is a valuation-based schedule and not the one modelled here, and the rows of Table D-15 not modelled: the $146.00 specialty permits (service repair, temporary construction power, underground work, City Light safety inspection), Ufer tests at $292.00, the per-kilowatt heater rows, transformer rows at $20.44 to $219.00, car charger rows from $26.28 to $146.00 and "Plan Review Only" above them, and the $55.48 change fee.
- Plumbing, medical gas, lab gas and fuel gas piping, which are priced by Public Health — Seattle & King County at $137.00 plus $27.00 per fixture, with plan review at $273.00 per hour.
- Water, drainage and solid waste utility charges, which are utility accounts rather than permit fees, and Seattle City Light's service connection charges for actual supply work.
- Anything charged by another authority for the same project: a site outside the city limits is not a Seattle permit, and a site in Tacoma or in Tacoma Power's service area is not the state's electrical territory either.
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
2026 Fee Subtitle — Table D-15, electrical permit fees when plans are not required
The same document as the row above — the same URL, because a fee subtitle is one document — recorded under a second key so that every electrical rule cites the table it actually came from. Table D-15 is the schedule for work where plans are not required; Table D-14, which prices electrical work by valuation where plans are reviewed, is named in prose and not modelled, because the two tables charge the same job differently ($292.00 for a 200-ampere service under D-15 against a percentage of valuation under D-14) and choosing between them is the department's judgement rather than a rule.
- State agencyStatePrimary source
RCW 19.27.085 — Building code council fees
"There is imposed a fee of six dollars and fifty cents on each residential building permit and a fee of twenty-five dollars for each commercial building permit, issued by a county or a city", plus "an additional surcharge of two dollars for each residential unit, but not including the first unit". The City collects it and remits it, and it sits outside the fee chapters the technology fee applies to. Read 2026-09-24 from the official citation. It is the second source in this dataset set by a state statute rather than a local ordinance, after Texas's — and the first where the two rates are split by occupancy rather than by size.