City of Charleston Building Commission
- Phone
- (304) 348-6833
- Hours
- Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
West Virginia
Charleston, WV permit fees and requirements
Charleston's Building Commission, at 915 Quarrier Street
issues the City's building, electrical, plumbing and HVAC permits. Building work is priced from total job cost on the City's Schedule of Permit Fees: the fee is waived entirely up to $2,500.00, runs a printed ladder to $130.50 at $30,000.00, and adds $5.00 per additional $1,000 or fraction above that. Commercial construction of $50,000.00 or more also pays plan review at 0.075% of the job cost ($37.50 at $50,000). Electrical permits are priced from the Electrical Permit application's own two columns and always carry a $15.00 final inspection fee. The City publishes no plumbing fee table, which the plumbing page states plainly.
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 Charleston permit fee with our Building Permit Fee Calculator.
| Permit | Category | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Charleston, WV Building Permit Cost | structural | 2026-09-27 |
| Charleston, WV Electrical Permit Cost | electrical | 2026-09-27 |
| Charleston, WV Plumbing Permit Cost | plumbing | 2026-09-27 |
Local context
What is specific to Charleston
Charleston is West Virginia's capital and its largest city, and it sits in a river valley where the Kanawha and Elk rivers meet — which is why the Building Commission's permit paperwork carries land-disturbance, stormwater and flood-plain questions alongside the construction details. The City enforces the West Virginia State Building Code and issues a zoning permit through the Municipal Planning Commission before construction permits are issued.
The fee schedule is old and dated: it was enacted effective April 14, 2008 and the City still links it from its permits page, so the amounts here are genuinely current in the only sense that matters — they are what the department assesses today. Electrical amounts live on the permit application rather than in the schedule, and plumbing amounts are on an application the City does not post.
Valuation
How valuation is determined here
Building permit fees are computed from 'Total Estimated Cost (all labor & materials)' — the declared job cost, the figure the residential application asks for by that name. The history is that the printed bands are $1,000 wide with a $5.00 step above $30,000.00; the fraction language is the schedule's own ('Add $5.00 per $1000.00 after $30,000.00'), so a partial thousand pays a whole step.
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 cover City of Charleston building and electrical permit fees only. They exclude:
- Plumbing and HVAC permits, which the City prices on the permit applications and does not publish.
- Zoning permits issued by the Municipal Planning Commission, required before the building permit.
- Land-disturbance and stormwater approvals, and any flood-plain review or elevation certificate.
- Sign permits, priced separately on the permits page.
- Penalties for work without a permit — a minimum $100 fee or twice the normal permit fee, whichever is greater.
- Fire, health and state permits issued by other authorities.
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.
- City websiteCityPrimary source
States that 'Construction permit fees are assessed using the Schedule of Permit Fees and are waived for construction total job cost up to $2,500.00', gives the sign-permit rates and the penalty (minimum $100 or twice the permit fee), and defers electrical, plumbing and HVAC amounts to the permit applications themselves.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
City of Charleston Building Department — Schedule of Permit Fees
EFFECTIVE: APRIL 14, 2008. Image scan with no text layer: read by OCR over a 300-dpi render and reconciled row by row against the printed checkpoints ($60,000 → $280.50, $1,000,000 → $4,980.50). Carries the closing note 'BUILDING PERMIT FEES WILL BE WAIVED FOR TOTAL JOB COSTS UP TO $2500.00' and the plan-review rate. Says in its own text that it does not apply to electrical, HVAC or plumbing permits.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
City of Charleston — Electrical Permit application, REVISED 01-30-2015
Scanned form whose two fee columns (Residential / Commercial) are the City's only published electrical figures. Read cell by cell with OCR over the 300-dpi render. The commercial new-service row's boundary between the $65.00 and $75.00 bands is the one reading the scan left ambiguous; the amounts themselves are certain. Carries the note 'A FINAL INSPECTION FEE OF $15.00 SHALL BE ADDED TO ALL ELECTRICAL PERMITS'.
- Fee schedule (PDF)CityPrimary source
City of Charleston — Residential Building Permit (RBP-1)
Has a text layer. Confirms the building fee is entered from the schedule against 'Total Estimated Cost (all labor & materials)' and that a copy of the executed contract is required for all projects valued at $10,000.00 or more; the form prints no fee table of its own.