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Santa Maria building permits

Verified

Santa Maria, California — as published 2026-09-20.

Verified 2026-09-20 · Source

Codes adopted

NO CODE EDITION OR ADOPTING ORDINANCE WAS PUBLISHED ON THE PAGES READ for this record - the Permits & Licenses index, the eTRAKiT portal and the Friday Hours page. The city publishes a Municipal Code & Documents section which was not opened, so no edition is asserted.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 edition was published 2025-07-01 and took effect 2026-01-01.THIS IS THE EIGHTH RECORD ADDED IN THIS CALIFORNIA BATCH WHOSE PERMIT PAGES NEVER NAME AN EDITION, after Redding, Citrus Heights, Hemet, Manteca, Yuba City, Fairfield and Livermore. That is a count of records written in this batch, not a claim about the corpus as a whole.

Permit types & fees

Building Permit

Verified

Santa Maria runs permits and inspections through an eTRAKiT portal where contractors register by clicking "Forgot Password" - and the city's own link for requesting a building inspection leads to a Page Not Found.

Verified 2026-09-20 · Source

Requirements

THE CITY'S "APPLY FOR BUILDING PERMITS" LINK GOES STRAIGHT TO THE PORTAL, at sntm-trk.aspgov.com/eTRAKiT/, rather than to an instructions page.
PROPERTY OWNERS AND CONTRACTORS REGISTER BY DIFFERENT ROUTES, and the contractor route is counter-intuitive. Verbatim from the portal: "Property Owners: click the 'Setup an Account' link above to create a Public User Account" and "*Contractors: click 'Forgot Password' to register as a Contractor".
AND "CONTRACTOR" IS BROADER THAN IT SOUNDS: "*Contractor accounts are for all design professionals, such as, contractors, developers, surveyors, engineers, architects and other professionals." An architect registering through the property-owner route would be in the wrong account type.
THE PORTAL COVERS THE WHOLE LIFECYCLE: Permits (Apply for a New Permit, Pay Fees, Search for a Permit), Projects (Apply, Search), Contractor search, Property search, and Inspections (Schedule, Cancel, Scheduled).
THE CITY PUBLISHES PORTAL INSTRUCTIONS: "Click here for Instructions on how to use our eTRAKiT-Portal". That document was not opened for this record.

Required documents

Optional
Optional
Optional

Fee schedule

Fee type	Amount	Notes
Permit fees	NOT TRANSCRIBED for this record.	Fees are paid through the eTRAKiT portal, which offers a "Pay Fees" function. No fee schedule was opened and no fee basis is stated on the pages read, so none is asserted.

Sources & verification

Verified against official sources. Last reviewed 2026-09-20.

City of Santa Maria Community Development Department, Building Division — official building department

Online permit portal

Santa Maria eTRAKiT portal (the account routes for property owners and contractors, and the permit, project, contractor, property and inspection functions) - reached from the city's "Apply for Building Permits" link

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 Santa Maria building department before you submit. PermitBase is an independent reference and is not affiliated with any government agency.

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