Napa building permits

Tips & gotchas

• NAPA HAS NO ONLINE SUBMITTAL PORTAL AT ALL, AND PUTS IT IN CAPITALS AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE: "PLEASE NOTE: THE CITY DOES NOT HAVE AN ONLINE PORTAL FOR SUBMITTALS." Across this California batch the assumption runs the other way - Carlsbad locks you into whichever channel you start in, Murrieta and Antioch route everything through self-service portals, Santa Rosa takes a thumb drive because all submittals must be electronic. Napa is the counter-example, and a guide that said California had gone digital would be wrong here in the plainest possible terms.
• TWO OF THE CITY'S OWN PAGES GIVE DIFFERENT EFFECTIVE DATES FOR THE SAME CODE. The Building Division page says the 2025 code was adopted "effective January 1, 2025"; the Permits and Plan Review page says permits applied for "on January 1, 2026, or after must comply with adopted 2025 California Codes". The second matches the statewide framework - the 2025 code was published on 1 July 2025 and takes effect 180 days later - which makes the first the likelier slip. This record carries both rather than silently correcting one, because a reader who quotes the Building Division page to a plans examiner needs to know the page disagrees with its neighbour.
• THE COUNTER IS OPEN FOUR DAYS A WEEK AND NOT ON FRIDAY IN ANY FORM. Monday to Thursday, 8 AM to 4 PM. Antioch also closes its counter on Fridays but keeps them open by appointment; Napa publishes nothing for Friday at all. With no online submittal route, a Friday is simply not a day on which you can lodge an application.
• AND THE LAST HALF HOUR OF EACH DAY IS NOT USABLE EITHER: "Last submittal and/or permit issuance is at 3:30 PM to allow adequate time for processing before the counter closes." The real window is 8:00 to 3:30, four days a week - thirty hours, in a city with no digital alternative.
• THE 21-DAY FULL REVIEW FIGURE IS IN BUSINESS DAYS, WHICH IS NOT THE SAME AS THREE WEEKS. "Plans are reviewed within 21 business days of submittal" is about 29 calendar days before any public holiday, against Roseville's "approximately 3 weeks" at 21 calendar days. Two cities publishing the number 21 are not offering the same service, and this record converts Napa's figure to calendar days so the comparison holds rather than leaving the units to collide.
• EXPRESS REVIEW IS A GENUINE TEN-MINUTE DECISION, AND THE CITY BUDGETS IT AS ONE: "Plans reviewed at the counter for minor building projects that require a maximum of 10 - 15 minutes to complete." Rooftop PV under 10KW, window and door replacement, seismic upgrades and patio covers all qualify. Bringing three sets at 11 x 17 inches can turn a month into a morning - but commercial tenant improvements are explicitly barred from the track.
• eTRAKiT IS ALIVE HERE AND RETIRED ELSEWHERE. Napa runs eTRAKiT for online inspection scheduling; Richmond, in this same corpus, announces that "eTRAKiT is no longer in service" and has moved to iMS. A contractor working across both cities has one live eTRAKiT login and one dead one, for the same product name.
• THE AUTOMATED INSPECTION LINE NEEDS A CODE NUMBER, NOT A DESCRIPTION. You call 707-257-1063 and select "the inspection code... which applies to your project" - 101 for setbacks, 102 for footings and steel, 110 for slab reinforcement, 301 for underground DWV, 280 for electric service release, and so on through a published table covering underground, underfloor, foundation, pool, masonry and electrical work. Look the number up before you dial.
• TWO OUTSIDE AGENCIES CAN ATTACH THEMSELVES TO A NAPA PROJECT and neither is the city: Napa Sanitation District for sewer-related review, and Napa Valley Unified School District for development fees. Both are described as "an outside agency review from the City of Napa" with their own contact details, so the city is telling you plainly that it cannot answer for either.
• A NEW FIRE HAZARD SEVERITY ZONE ORDINANCE EXISTS AND ITS CONTENTS ARE NOT ON THE PAGE. The city says it "has adopted a new ordinance regarding the Local Responsibility Area (LRA) Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps issued by the State of California" and links the state maps - but publishes neither the ordinance number nor what it requires. If your parcel falls inside an LRA zone, that ordinance is the document to ask for by name.
• THE EXEMPTION LIST IS THE STATE'S, QUOTED AND ATTRIBUTED: "Per the 2025 California Building Code, section 105.2". Napa reproduces it rather than writing a local paraphrase, which means the list moves when the state code moves - and the city adds the warning that exempt work "is required to be done in compliance with applicable codes and ordinances" regardless.