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Pasadena building permits

Verified

Pasadena, California — as published 2026-09-19.

Verified 2026-09-19 · Source

Codes adopted

THE MANDATORY SET, as the city lists it: "2025 California Building Codes (Effective January 1, 2026)" comprising the 2025 California Building Code (Volumes 1 and 2), Residential Code, Electrical Code, Mechanical Code, Plumbing Code, Energy Code, Wildland-Urban Interface Code, Historical Building Code, Fire Code, Existing Building Code, and Green Building Standards Code (CALGreen).AND A SECOND, OPTIONAL SET THAT EXISTS NOWHERE ELSE IN THIS CORPUS: the same page publishes "Eaton Fire Rebuild Building Codes (Optional)" - the 2022 California Building Code (Volumes 1 and 2), Residential, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, Energy, Green Building Standards and Fire Codes. So for Eaton Fire rebuilds the city publishes an election to the PREVIOUS code cycle rather than the current one. The statutory authority for that election was not read for this record and is not asserted here; what is recorded is that the city publishes it.Health & Safety Code 18938(b) provides that building standards in the California Building Standards Code "shall apply to all occupancies throughout the state and shall become effective 180 days after publication." The 2025 code was published July 1, 2025 and took effect January 1, 2026.

Permit types & fees

Building Permit

Verified

Pasadena runs a one-stop Permit Center at City Hall and is, in this corpus, the disaster-recovery city: alongside ordinary permitting it publishes a numbered series of rebuild bulletins for the 2025 windstorm and wildfire, and an optional election to the previous code cycle for Eaton Fire rebuilds.

Verified 2026-09-19 · Source

Requirements

BRING YOUR CITY BUSINESS LICENCE OR YOU DO NOT PULL THE PERMIT: "A City of Pasadena Business License must be presented at arrival for all contractors and agent to contractors pulling permits." A licence is obtained from a different counter - "email businesslicense@cityofpasadena.net or visit 100 N. Garfield Ave, Suite N106, Pasadena CA".
The Permit Center is described as "a One-Stop-Shop where staff from multiple departments provide all development review and permitting services for customers", and it handles more than construction - the city notes it also processes permits "to film in Pasadena, hold a garage sale, or erect a tent for your garden wedding".
Inspections, plan review status, property research and permit search all run through the city's Permit Center Online application.

Required documents

Optional
Optional
Optional

Fee schedule

Fee type	Amount	Notes
Building permit fee	Valuation-based, using the International Code Council Building Valuation Data table.	This is the clearest fee-basis statement in this corpus and it is the city's own: "Building Permit fees are valuation-based utilizing the most current issue of the 'Building Valuation Data' (BVD)… Show full citationHide This is the clearest fee-basis statement in this corpus and it is the city's own: "Building Permit fees are valuation-based utilizing the most current issue of the 'Building Valuation Data' (BVD) table published by the International Code Council (ICC)." Note how the valuation itself is computed - the city explains the BVD table determines an estimated value of a building "(e.g., Gross Area x Square Foot Construction Cost)", so the valuation is itself derived from floor area.
Where the amounts are	Fees numbered 221 to 363 of the General Fee Schedule.	"Refer to fees 221-363 in the General Fee Schedule for Building Permit fees. Show full citationHide "Refer to fees 221-363 in the General Fee Schedule for Building Permit fees. All fees are subject to periodic adjustments." That is 143 numbered building permit fee lines, held in the city-wide finance schedule rather than on a building-specific page. A separate FY 2026 Planning Fees schedule covers planning applications.
What the city says the valuation is for	Cost recovery, not an appraisal.	The city is explicit that the BVD figure "is only intended to assist us in determining their permit fees so that we can uniformly recover the cost of our services" - so the valuation is a fee-setting instrument and not a statement of what the building is worth.
2025 Disaster fee relief	A fee waiver and refund programme exists for eligible properties.	Bulletin 21 records that "The City of Pasadena has launched a Fee Waiver and Refund Program for eligible properties." Eligibility criteria and amounts were not opened for this record.

Sources & verification

Verified against official sources. Last reviewed 2026-09-19.

City of Pasadena Planning & Community Development Department, Building & Safety Division (Permit Center) — official building department

Fee schedules

Pasadena Permit Center - Fee Schedules (the city's own statement that building permit fees are valuation-based on the ICC Building Valuation Data table)

Codes & ordinances

Department & other records

Fees, timelines, and adopted codes are researched from each jurisdiction's published records — see how we verify. Requirements change and vary by project, so always confirm the current details with the Pasadena building department before you submit. PermitBase is an independent reference and is not affiliated with any government agency.

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