Ontario building permits
VerifiedDepartment contacts, adopted codes, permit types, fees, and gotchas for Ontario, California.
Last verified 2026-09-19 · Source · Embed this page’s badge · Version history
Building department
- Address
- City Hall, 303 East B Street, Ontario, CA 91764
- Phone
- (909) 395-2023
- Office hours
- "Monday - Thursday : 7:30 AM-5:30 PM", "Friday : 8:00 AM-5:00 PM" - a genuine five-day counter, which is uncommon among the California cities in this corpus. BUT IT SHUTS TWICE ON A RECURRING SCHEDULE INSIDE THOSE HOURS: "The Building Counter is closed for staff meetings every Tuesday from 7:30-9:00 am and the first Thursday of every month from 8:00-10:00 am".
- Website
- Official site
Codes adopted
California publishes its building standards as Title 24, adopted by state agencies and republished on a three-year cycle. A city or county may change those standards only after its governing body makes an express finding that the change is reasonably necessary because of local climatic, geological, or topographical conditions, and no change becomes operative until the finding and the change have been filed with the California Building Standards Commission.
- 2025 California Building Standards Code (Cal. Code Regs., Title 24) - published July 1, 2025 by the California Building Standards Commission, effective January 1, 2026. Health & Safety Code 18938(b): building standards adopted into the California Building Standards Code "shall apply to all occupancies throughout the state and shall become effective 180 days after publication."
- THE CITY'S OWN ADOPTING ORDINANCE WAS NOT READ FOR THIS RECORD, so no Ontario ordinance number or local effective date is asserted here.
Permit types & fees
Ontario's permit history isn't searchable here yet
This page covers what the permit requires. What we don't have for Ontario yet is the record of permits actually issued — the history you'd search by street address. That is a gap in our coverage, not a statement about any particular property.
Your email, and the place — never an address. We only use it to tell you when Ontario lands. Privacy.
Tips & gotchas
- THE COUNTER IS OPEN FIVE DAYS AND STILL SHUTS TWICE A WEEK-ISH, BOTH TIMES AT THE START OF THE DAY. "The Building Counter is closed for staff meetings every Tuesday from 7:30-9:00 am and the first Thursday of every month from 8:00-10:00 am." Tuesday's closure covers the counter's entire first ninety minutes; the first-Thursday one covers two hours. Arriving at opening time on either day is the failure mode.
- THE TWO CLOSURES HAVE DIFFERENT WINDOWS AND ARE EASY TO CONFLATE: Tuesday is 7:30-9:00, first Thursday is 8:00-10:00. Remembering "mornings are risky" is not enough to plan a trip.
- A FIVE-DAY COUNTER IS THE EXCEPTION IN THIS CORPUS, NOT THE RULE. Ontario runs Monday to Friday while Fontana closes every Friday, Stockton and Santa Ana close alternating Fridays, and Rancho Cucamonga has no counter issuance at all. Ontario's Friday also starts half an hour later than its other days, at 8:00 rather than 7:30.
- THE EMAIL IS IN THE PAGE SOURCE BUT NOT IN ITS RENDERED SUMMARY. buildingcounter@ontarioca.gov appears in the department page's markup; a summarising fetch of the same page reported no email at all. Reading the source is what produced it.
- NO FEE SCHEDULE OR PLAN-CHECK TURNAROUND IS RECORDED HERE, because neither was published on the page read. The department links a Building Department Fees resource which was not opened for this record, so nothing is taken from it at second hand.