Permit fee worksheet
See which fee components apply to your project so you can read the official fee schedule properly. We do not invent amounts.
What this tool does and does not do. It reasons over general US building-code practice and routes you to your own jurisdiction's official page. It does not know your local exemption thresholds, fee amounts or review times, and it does not invent them. The office with jurisdiction is the only authority on those.
Why this is a worksheet and not an estimator
Every site that gives you a dollar figure for a building permit is guessing. Fees are set by local ordinance, revised without notice, calculated from declared valuation on scales that differ by jurisdiction, and layered with surcharges that are listed separately. A national estimate is not approximately right — it is arbitrary.
So this tool does the useful half instead. It tells you which line items your project will generate, so that when you open the official fee schedule you can read it properly and recognise when a contractor's quote has left something out.
The item people most often miss
Impact or capacity fees. They fund the roads, schools, water and park capacity that new development consumes, they apply to new dwelling units and new commercial floor area, and on a new house they frequently exceed the building permit fee several times over. They are also usually published separately from the permit fee schedule, which is why people find them late.
Valuation drives everything
Where fees scale with declared project cost, that declaration determines the whole invoice. Include labour as well as materials even when doing the work yourself — most jurisdictions require a labour value to be imputed, and offices maintain valuation tables they will correct you against. An under-declaration found later is treated as misrepresentation rather than error.
Our guide to permit fees covers refunds, when payment falls due, and why an invoice comes in above the headline number.