Building Permit — San Francisco, California · Requirements sheet
Verified 2026-09-19 · Source: https://www.sf.gov/departments/department-building-inspection
PermitBase is an independent reference and is not affiliated with any government agency. Requirements change and vary by project — confirm current details with the building department before you submit.
Building Permit in San Francisco, California
A San Francisco building permit is reviewed by the Department of Building Inspection at 49 South Van Ness Avenue. There are three routes in, and which one you get depends on how much plan review your project needs rather than on what you ask for.
Verified 2026-09-19 · Source
When you need this permit
- "Most building permit applications require architectural plans."
- OVER-THE-COUNTER IS DEFINED BY REVIEW TIME, NOT BY PROJECT TYPE: "You can get OTC review for projects that need less than 1 hour of plan review."
- "We review complex projects in-house, accepting them for electronic plan review (EPR) or with paper plans."
Required documents
Check off what you have — your progress is saved on this device.
Fee schedule
Table 1A-A states plainly: "The Building Permit Fee is the Plan Review Fee plus the Permit Issuance Fee." Budgeting from one of the two columns understates the bill. Show full citationHide
Table 1A-A states plainly: "The Building Permit Fee is the Plan Review Fee plus the Permit Issuance Fee." Budgeting from one of the two columns understates the bill. Bands as printed: $1 to $2,000 - plan review "$181 for the first $500 plus $8.60 for each additional $100 or fraction thereof", issuance "$206 for the first $500 plus $4 for each additional $100 or fraction thereof". $2,001 to $50,000 - plan review "$310 for the first $2,000 plus $28.35 for each additional $1,000 or fraction thereof", issuance "$266 for the first $2,000 plus $8.56 for each additional $1,000". $50,001 to $200,000 - plan review "$1,617 for the first $50,000 plus $15.60 for each additional $1000 or fraction thereof", issuance "$677 for the first $50,000 plus $4.83 for each additional $1000".DBI describes a state-mandated fee assessed "at the rate of $4.00 per $100,000 project valuation, and requires a minimum fee of $1.00 from every applicable permit". Show full citationHide
DBI describes a state-mandated fee assessed "at the rate of $4.00 per $100,000 project valuation, and requires a minimum fee of $1.00 from every applicable permit". This is the same statewide charge other California jurisdictions in this corpus print as $1.00 per $25,000 - identical rate, different arithmetic.Review timeline
Inspection process
- 1
Schedule by phone through the Voice Inspection Scheduling System
The department directs the general public to "Call the Voice Inspection Scheduling System at 628-652-3401, available 24/7" and to follow the prompts to "schedule, reschedule, cancel, or get results of an inspection". This route covers building, plumbing, mechanical and electrical inspections on permits that did not come through PermitSF.
- 2
Or request online, for permits issued through PermitSF
For permits whose numbers carry the BLDG, ELEC or PLMB prefixes, the department says you can "request inspections online from your PermitSF dashboard". Plumbing and mechanical inspections outside PermitSF can also be requested through the Permit Tracking System, which the department describes as available to access 24/7.
- 3
NOT PUBLISHED: which inspections your project will need, and in what order
The pages read for this record describe how to SCHEDULE an inspection, not which inspections a given project requires or the sequence they follow. No ordered stage list (footing, frame, final and so on) was published, and none is asserted here. No advance-notice period or daily cut-off time for booking was published either.
See the full San Francisco inspection guide — scheduling & re-inspection fees →
Tips
- THE FILING DATE AND THE ISSUANCE DATE TRIGGER DIFFERENT THINGS, and they can fall either side of a change. The code edition turns on filing - "If you file on or after January 1, 2026, you must use the 2025 California Codes and the 2025 San Francisco Code Amendments." The fee schedule turns on issuance - Table 1A-A applies "to all building permits issued on and after July 12, 2026."
- THE BUILDING PERMIT FEE IS TWO FEES ADDED TOGETHER, not one: "The Building Permit Fee is the Plan Review Fee plus the Permit Issuance Fee."
Frequently asked questions
Sources & verification
Verified against official sources. Last reviewed 2026-09-19.
Fee schedules
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 San Francisco building department before you submit. PermitBase is an independent reference and is not affiliated with any government agency.
Property Access
San Francisco's permit history is searchable by address
1,148,910 permits in our copy of San Francisco's register — searchable by street address, with permit type, status, issued date and valuation where the city publishes them. This is what we hold, not a statement of everything San Francisco has issued.
1,092,203 of these 1,148,910 permits — 95.1% — carry an issued date, and those run from 1906 to 2026. The remaining 56,707 have no date at all.
Building Permit in other cities
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