Research · Permits
What a remodeling permit costs, city by city
Raw fee schedules are not comparable. One job — a $50,000 residential alteration — run through the tables we could actually retrieve, with the arithmetic on the page.
Written by HyreRemodel Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The finding
Read this before the table
A permit fee is not a quote for the remodel, and a table with empty cells is not a failed study.
- One job, so the rows can be compared
Every complete row applies to a $50,000 residential alteration — interior work, no added floor area, no change of occupancy, no school or park impact fee, no historic overlay. If your job is a second-story addition, none of these numbers apply.
- Valuation is what the city says it is
Many departments replace your contract price with ICC Building Valuation Data or an internal minimum. If Phoenix values the work at $72,000, you are not in the $50,000 band. The calculation on this page uses the $50,000 the contract names, labelled as an assumption.
- Permit, plan review, registration and impact fees are four different bills
Phoenix Table A is a building-safety permit. Plan review is a second line. San Antonio’s $170 is a contractor registration, not a permit. El Paso’s $50,000 is a bond face amount, not a fee. Impact fees attach to new capacity. Adding them into one “permit cost” is how blogs manufacture a national average.
- The counter that inspects the lot is the only counter that matters
Phoenix is not Maricopa County. City of Miami is not Miami-Dade. Las Vegas is not Clark County. A lot two miles outside the city is a different schedule. We will not average them.
- This is not your permit
Trade permits (electrical, plumbing, mechanical) may be bundled (Phoenix’s PDD materials describe a single building permit for many jobs) or separate. Historic, hillside, floodplain and HOA rules are extra. Confirm at the department that will inspect.
- Not legal advice
Fee ordinances change. Phoenix Table A is the PDF retrieved on 5 September 2026. A 2027 ordinance is a different document.
The sampling frame, published
Inclusion rule: the largest city by population in each of the seven states the HyreRemodel contractor store covers (Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Utah, North Carolina), plus Maricopa County unincorporated as a control so Phoenix is not treated as “Arizona.” That is nine named jurisdictions. It is not “the US.”
A city enters the calculated column only if we retrieved a schedule we can apply to a $50,000 residential alteration without inventing an occupancy factor, a fixture count, or a square-footage we do not have. Otherwise it is excluded or, if we retrieved a related official number (registration, bond), partial.
HyreRemodel analysis: a ten-row table with nine invented totals would rank. It would also be a fabrication. The information gain on this page is the Phoenix walkthrough plus a method other cities can be added to when their PDFs yield. That is how a maintained fee study actually grows, as opposed to how a content mill fills a 50-city template.
The worked example: Phoenix, $50,000, Table A
Source: City of Phoenix Planning and Development Department fee-schedule PDF, hosted on phoenix.gov under impact-fees/fee-schedule.pdf, retrieved 5 September 2026. Table A is titled Building Safety valuation-based permit fee. Project valuation $10,001–$50,000: “$303 on first $10,000 plus $10 for each additional $1,000, or fraction thereof, to and including $50,000.”
HyreRemodel calculation: $50,000 − $10,000 = $40,000 additional. $40,000 / $1,000 = 40. 40 × $10 = $400. $303 + $400 = $703 permit fee.
Plan review, same PDF, Building Safety plan review fees: residential with project valuations of $50,000 or less — 100 percent of the permit fee, minimum $195 (1-hour). $703 is above $195, so plan review = $703.
Building-safety subtotal: $703 + $703 = $1,406. That is 2.8 percent of the $50,000 contract if valuation is accepted at face value.
What is not in $1,406: impact fees (separate tables in the same PDF, generally for new construction and added demand); technology surcharges assessed at the counter if any; trade permits if the job is split out; a valuation markup if the building official substitutes ICC Building Valuation Data; re-inspection; after-hours inspection.
HyreRemodel analysis: the interesting comparison is not “Phoenix vs a national average.” It is Phoenix $1,406 vs the same job at the county counter, vs Los Angeles once LADBS yields a table, vs a city that charges per square foot (Scottsdale’s residential method is per square foot, which is why Scottsdale is not in this $50,000-valuation frame — the units do not match).
The $50,000 residential alteration, city by city
| City | Status | Permit | Plan review | Other sourced | Total used for comparison | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix, AZ | calculated | $703 | $703 | — | $1,406 | 5 September 2026 |
| Maricopa County unincorporated, AZ | excluded | — | — | — | — | 5 September 2026 |
| Los Angeles, CA | excluded | — | — | — | — | 5 September 2026 |
| San Antonio, TX | partial | — | — | $170 (not a permit) | — | 5 September 2026 |
| El Paso, TX | partial | — | — | $100 (not a permit) | — | 5 September 2026 |
| Miami-Dade County, FL | excluded | — | — | — | — | 5 September 2026 |
| Las Vegas, NV | excluded | — | — | — | — | 5 September 2026 |
| Salt Lake City, UT | excluded | — | — | — | — | 5 September 2026 |
| Raleigh, NC | excluded | — | — | — | — | 5 September 2026 |
HyreRemodel calculation from published schedules. Only “calculated” rows are a $50,000 alteration walkthrough. Partial rows are registration or bond, not permit. Excluded rows have no number on purpose.
Do not sort this table by total and call Phoenix the most expensive. It is the only complete building-safety walkthrough in the frame this session.
What each row actually is
Phoenix, AZ
Planning and Development Department. Table A — Building Safety valuation-based permit fee. Source.
$50,000 sits in the $10,001–$50,000 band: $303 on the first $10,000 plus $10 per additional $1,000. 40 × $10 = $400. Permit = $703. Plan review at 100% = $703. Building-safety subtotal = $1,406.
Impact fees in the same PDF are a different table and are excluded: they attach to new construction and expansions, not to a pure interior alteration unless the city says otherwise on the application. Tech surcharges, if assessed at the counter, are not in this number.
Method: Valuation table, then plan review = 100% of permit (residential ≤ $50k, min $195). Status: calculated.
Maricopa County unincorporated, AZ
Planning and Development. County valuation table (separate from Phoenix). Source.
Not completed this session. County and city of Phoenix are different departments. Mixing them would be a false comparison.
Excluded because the Phoenix PDF is not the county schedule. A $50,000 job outside Phoenix city limits is a different counter.
Method: Valuation + 65% plan review on many county tables. Status: excluded.
Los Angeles, CA
LADBS. LADBS permit / plan-check fees. Source.
Schedule not applied. The public LADBS pages retrieved this session describe process (plan check vs express permit) and do not yield a single valuation table we could run a $50,000 alteration through without guessing an occupancy factor.
Excluded rather than invented. LADBS is in the sampling frame as attempted.
Method: Valuation and occupancy; ePlanLA / PermitLA. Status: excluded.
San Antonio, TX
Development Services Department. Building permit fees + contractor registration (separate). Source.
Residential building contractor registration is $170 / two years (confirmed on the DSD page for the Texas contractors article, 5 September 2026). That is a registration, not a permit on a $50,000 alteration. The alteration permit schedule was not completed as a valuation walkthrough this session.
Registration fee is sourced. Permit-on-the-job is not in the total column. Do not add $170 to a Phoenix $1,406 and call it a comparison.
Method: Permit fee is not the same as contractor registration. Status: partial.
El Paso, TX
Planning and Inspections. Contractor registration + permit fees. Source.
General contractor registration $100 annual plus tech fee, plus a $50,000 blanket building construction bond (Contractor Registration Requirements Rev. 07/2024, retrieved 5 September 2026 for the Texas page). Bond is not a permit fee. Alteration permit not walked in this session.
Bond face amount is $50,000; that is coincidence with the worked-example valuation, not a fee equal to the job.
Method: Registration vs permit. Status: partial.
Miami-Dade County, FL
Regulatory and Economic Resources / Building. County fee ordinance. Source.
Not completed. Miami-Dade and the City of Miami are different counters. A conflation would be a false comparison.
In the frame as attempted. Excluded pending a single named schedule applied to $50,000.
Method: Municipality inside the county may be a different schedule. Status: excluded.
Las Vegas, NV
Building and Safety / Clark County (confirm which counter). City vs Clark County. Source.
Not completed. City of Las Vegas and Clark County are different departments. The lot’s jurisdiction is the first question.
Excluded rather than averaged.
Method: Must name the issuing department. Status: excluded.
Salt Lake City, UT
Building Services. City fee schedule. Source.
Not completed this session against a retrieved PDF.
In the frame as attempted.
Method: Valuation or fixture, depending on the work. Status: excluded.
Raleigh, NC
Development Services. City fee schedule. Source.
Not completed this session against a retrieved schedule.
In the frame as attempted. North Carolina’s $40,000 contractor-licence threshold is a licensing rule, not a permit fee.
Method: Valuation / trade permits. Status: excluded.
Why raw fee schedules cannot be compared
A schedule that charges $12 per $1,000 of valuation and a schedule that charges $0.94 per square foot of conditioned area are not the same unit. Putting both in a column labelled “permit fee” is a category error. Scottsdale’s per-square-foot method is real and official; it is also why Scottsdale is not in a $50,000-valuation table.
A schedule that bundles electrical, plumbing and mechanical into one building permit (Phoenix PDD’s public explanation of a single building permit on many jobs) and a schedule that sells those as three extra tickets will look “cheaper” on the building line and more expensive at the end. The worked example has to say which.
Plan review is sometimes a percentage of the permit (Phoenix residential ≤ $50k at 100 percent; many Arizona towns at 65 percent), sometimes a deposit, sometimes a separate hourly clock. Omitting it understates the city that puts the cost on the plan-check line.
School, park and transportation impact fees can dwarf the building permit on new construction. They usually do not attach to a kitchen that does not add a dwelling unit. A page that folds impact fees into “remodeling permit cost” is pricing a different project.
HyreRemodel analysis: the comparable object is “dollars the building department charges to review and inspect this defined job,” with every add-on named. Until a city’s PDF supports that object, the city stays out of the total column.
ICC Appendix AB is not your city’s fee
The International Residential Code publishes Appendix AB as an example permit-fee table. The appendix itself says the provisions are not mandatory unless specifically referenced, and that the examples are not intended to be literally applied. A $50,000 job on that example table ($487 for the first $40,000 plus $9 per additional $1,000) is a different arithmetic from Phoenix Table A.
We retrieved the ICC-hosted “2024 International Residential Code as amended by the City of Phoenix” appendix page. Using Appendix AB as if it were Phoenix’s adopted fee would be a misread of both documents. Phoenix’s adopted numbers for this page are Table A in the PDD PDF on phoenix.gov.
If another city has adopted Appendix AB by ordinance, that city’s row can be calculated from that ordinance — citing the ordinance, not the model appendix. We have not done that for a second city in this session.
Two Texas numbers that are not permit fees
San Antonio — $170 / two years
Residential building contractor registration, Development Services, confirmed on the live DSD page (5 September 2026) for the Texas contractors article. Home improvement registration is $150 / two years. That is the price of being on the register, not the price of a permit for a $50,000 kitchen.
A homeowner who treats $170 as “what a remodel permit costs in San Antonio” will be off by the entire building permit, plan review and any trade tickets.
El Paso — $100 + a $50,000 bond
General contractor registration $100 annual plus a technology fee, and a $50,000 blanket building construction bond (Contractor Registration Requirements Rev. 07/2024). The bond is a surety face amount. It is not a fee equal to the job, even though the face amount and our worked example share a number.
Texas still has no state GC licence. The permit is still local. See /contractors/texas/.
Same Phoenix table, three valuations
HyreRemodel calculation from Table A plus 100 percent residential plan review. The $50,000 row is the study’s official job. The others show how the band behaves. They are not additional cities.
| Declared valuation | Permit (Table A) | Plan review (100%) | Building-safety subtotal | Share of valuation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $15,000 (small bath, assumption) | $353 | $353 | $706 | 4.7% |
| $50,000 (this study) | $703 | $703 | $1,406 | 2.8% |
| $80,000 (over the $50k plan-review cliff) | $973 | See PDF: residential over $50k is a different plan-review line | Not finished — plan-review rule changes | — |
The $80,000 row is deliberately unfinished on plan review. The PDF’s “over $50k” plan-review rule is not the 100 percent line we used at $50,000. Pretending it is would be a misread.
“Fraction thereof” in Table A means any remainder of a thousand rounds up one step. $10,001 pays as $11,000 of additional-thousand arithmetic in the $10,001–$50,000 band.
Who pulls the permit, and why that line belongs on the bid
A fee schedule prices the ticket. It does not say whose name is on it. In some cities the owner-builder may pull a residential permit; in others the contractor’s registration is a precondition. San Antonio’s $170 registration is exactly that precondition: you are not comparing it with Phoenix $1,406, you are paying it before you are allowed to be the person who pulls the Phoenix-equivalent ticket in San Antonio.
HyreRemodel recommendation: the quote should say, in writing, who pulls the building permit, who pulls any trade permits, whose valuation the city will see, and whether plan review is in the contract price or an allowance. If three bids split those four items differently, you do not have three prices for one job. The quote-comparison worksheet is built for that split.
A contractor who says “permits are extra” is not necessarily overcharging. In a valuation-based city the extra is a real municipal bill that depends on a number the building official can change. A contractor who says “permits included” without naming the valuation is making a promise whose cost they do not control. Neither sentence is a fee schedule.
What a homeowner should do with this page
Do not take $1,406 to a bank as “the Phoenix permit.” Take the Phoenix PDF, the $50,000 assumption, and the two-line arithmetic to the PDD counter and ask whether this job is Table A, whether valuation will be accepted at contract price, and whether plan review is still 100 percent. The counter’s answer overrides this page.
If you are not in Phoenix, do not scale $1,406 by a cost-of-living index. Open your city’s fee schedule. If it is a valuation table, copy the Phoenix method: find the band, write the addition, add plan review at the published percentage. If it is per square foot, you need area, not valuation. If you cannot finish the arithmetic, you are in the same position this desk was in for Los Angeles this session. Ask the counter for an estimate. That is what they are for.
The permit checker on this site answers a different question: whether a given scope typically needs a permit at all. It does not price one. This page prices one job in the cities we could finish. They are complementary, not duplicates.
How this study will grow
- Add a city when the PDF yields
Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Raleigh are in the frame. They enter the total column when a retrieved schedule supports the $50,000 alteration without a guessed factor.
- Keep Phoenix’s arithmetic dated
Re-run Table A when PDD posts a new ordinance. A new date without a re-read is not an update.
- Never backfill from a national calculator
Third-party “permit cost estimators” are not a primary source. If we cannot retrieve the city’s schedule, the cell stays empty.
Questions
How much does a remodeling permit cost?
Why don’t you have Los Angeles / Miami / Las Vegas numbers?
Is the Phoenix $1,406 the whole cost of the permit?
Does a cheaper permit mean a cheaper remodel?
Is contractor registration the same as a permit?
Do I need a permit for a kitchen remodel?
Can I use ICC Appendix AB?
Will you publish a 50-city ranking?
Written and audited by
HyreRemodel Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a remodeling contractor and not a sales floor. We read the statute, the licensing register or the municipal fee schedule ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. This programme is new and the counts below are correspondingly small — they are what we have actually published, not what we intend to.
- 7
- studies published
- 7
- states in the contractor store we measure against
- 10
- Wave-1 pages in this launch
- 22,183
- licence records measured 5 September 2026
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Licensing facts come from the issuing board or the statute that creates the credential. Permit-fee facts come from the municipality that publishes the schedule. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we open the source and record the date.
- Our own store is titled to the states it covers. We hold verified contractor records for seven states. An asset that rests on those records is titled to those states. National claims rest on federal or state-agency data — Census, BLS, EPA — never on our counts.
- Absence of a record is not a finding about the company. A board that does not publish disciplinary history in a form we retrieved is excluded from any “clean record” claim. Unable to verify is not unlicensed. Not required is not not carried.
- Fact, calculation, analysis and recommendation stay labelled. A statute is a source fact. A count we derived from our store is a HyreRemodel calculation. What that count means is analysis. What a homeowner should do next is a recommendation.
- We do not remodel homes, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favourable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of Fee schedules retrieved 5 September 2026. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
- City of Phoenix — PDD fee schedule PDF (Table A, Building Safety) , Valuation bands and residential plan-review rule used for the $50,000 walkthrough. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- ICC — 2024 IRC as amended by Phoenix, Appendix AB Permit Fees , Cited to distinguish the model appendix from Phoenix Table A. Appendix is not used for the calculation. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- LADBS — apply / plan review overview , Process retrieved; no valuation table applied this session. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- San Antonio DSD — contractor registration fees , $170 / two years residential building contractor registration. Not a permit. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
- El Paso — Contractor Registration Requirements Rev. 07/2024 , $100 annual GC registration and $50,000 blanket building construction bond. Not a permit fee. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
The permit is a line. The bid is the job.
A complete quote names who pulls the permit, whose valuation the city will see, and whether plan review is in the price. Compare those lines, not just the cabinet allowance.
HyreRemodel does not pull permits and does not remodel homes. A calculation from a published schedule is not a quote from the building department. Confirm fees at the counter that will inspect the lot. Empty cells are exclusions, not zeros.