How much does an Austin building permit cost? The adopted fee schedule, line by line

Last verified September 5, 2026 against the Austin Land Development Code · Kimbrough Gray · KiliGray Homes

Austin does not publish one permit price. The FY 2025-26 Development Services fee schedule, effective 1 October 2025, prices a one- and two-family house across five separate trade permits — Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing and Energy — each with its own base fee and per-square-foot rate, with plan review charged separately on top.

Applies to: Plan review and permit fees charged by Austin Development Services for one- and two-family dwellings, read from the FY 2025-26 residential fee sheet effective 1 October 2025. It does NOT cover the commercial, site plan, subdivision, zoning or code compliance sheets, which the City publishes separately and which were not retrieved for this page. It does NOT cover Austin Water tap or capital recovery fees, parkland dedication, or utility connection costs, which are not in this schedule at all. The sheet's own headings read "One & Two Family Dwellings" and "Single Family, Duplex, Townhouse, and other Residential Structures"; it does not name three-unit residential use, so this page does not say which sheet prices one.

The schedule this page reads is the FY 2025-26 schedule, effective 1 October 2025. Austin re-adopts its Development Services fee schedule with the budget every year, and the new one takes effect on 1 October. Every figure below is read out of the adopted residential sheet, whose footer reads "Updated: 7/15/2026 - Effective: 10/01/2025". If you are reading this on or after 1 October 2026, the FY 2026-27 schedule has replaced it and these numbers are last year's. That sentence is the one thing to check on any page quoting Austin permit fees, including this one.

There is no such thing as "the" Austin permit fee, and the schedule says so by its layout

Search for what an Austin building permit costs and you will get a single confident number, usually to the cent. It is worth understanding why those numbers disagree with each other so wildly, because the reason is structural rather than a matter of anyone being careless.

Austin prices a house across five separate permits. The residential fee sheet, under the heading Single Family, Duplex, Townhouse, and other Residential Structures, sets out Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing and Energy as five distinct lines. Each has its own base fee. Each has its own rate per additional square foot. And the square-foot bands step at 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 square feet.

The sheet prints no total for them. This is the detail that explains the whole mess. Sheets 1 through 4 of the schedule each carry a Total column. The five-trade table on sheet 5 does not — it lists the five lines and stops. So every "Austin permit costs $X" figure you have read is somebody's arithmetic over some subset of those lines, plus or minus plan review, plus or minus the per-case charges further down. None of them is a number the City publishes, and none of them says which subset it added.

Plan review is charged separately, and earlier. The schedule states that the review fee is payable at the time of submittal and is non-refundable unless collected in error, while the permit fee is payable at the time of permit issuance for building and trade permits. Two payments, at two different moments, from two different parts of the schedule. A quote that gives you one number has silently merged them.

Trade permit	Base fee	1,001–2,000 sq ft	2,001–3,000 sq ft	3,001–4,000 sq ft	4,001–5,000 sq ft	5,001+ sq ft
Building	$289.53	$289.53 + $0.05760/sq ft	$347.12 + $0.0576/sq ft	$404.70 + $0.04570/sq ft	$450.37 + $0.02810/sq ft	$478.50 + $0.02879/sq ft
Electrical	$166.99	$185.94 + $0.0234/sq ft	$209.38 + $0.02340/sq ft	$232.82 + $0.02340/sq ft	$256.26 + $0.01250/sq ft	$268.76 + $0.01969/sq ft
Mechanical	$116.07	$116.07 + $0.0137/sq ft	$123.88 + $0.0053/sq ft	$129.15 + $0.0123/sq ft	$141.48 + $0.02470/sq ft	$166.17 + $0.01233/sq ft
Plumbing	$200.43	$203.17 + $0.02880/sq ft	$231.96 + $0.02880/sq ft	$260.74 + $0.02680/sq ft	$287.51 + $0.01880/sq ft	$306.26 + $0.02750/sq ft
Energy	$65.80	$65.80 + $0.00/sq ft	$65.80 + $0.00/sq ft	$65.80 + $0.00/sq ft	$65.80 + $0.00/sq ft	$65.80 + $0.00/sq ft

Sheet 5 of 6, "Single Family, Duplex, Townhouse, and other Residential Structures". In each band the per-square-foot rate applies to area over the band floor — over 1,000 sq ft in the 1,001–2,000 band, over 2,000 in the next, and so on. The first column is headed simply "Base Fee" in the schedule, with no square-foot range printed against it. The schedule prints no combined total for these five lines.

What the "Base Fee" column is, and what the document actually says. The schedule heads that first block Base Fee and gives it no square-foot range. The obvious reading is that it prices the first 1,000 square feet — the next block, 1,001–2,000 sq ft, repeats the identical Building figure of $289.53 and adds a rate on area over 1,000. That reading is ours, not the City's. We have flagged it rather than quietly printing "0–1,000 sq ft" in a column header the document does not contain.

Plan review: the other half of the bill, paid at submittal

Plan review sits on sheet 1 of the residential schedule and is charged on its own square-foot ladder, in different bands from the trade permits. For new construction the steps are at the same thousand-foot marks, but the rate is an order of magnitude larger: $0.18 per square foot in every band up to 5,000 sq ft.

Every project also pays a $106.72 Residential Plan Review Application Processing Fee before any of this. And on a project with more than two structures or more than two dwelling units, plan review adds $130.68 per additional structure and $130.68 per additional dwelling unit beyond the second — which is worth knowing before you decide how many units to build.

Plan review — one and two family dwellings	Fee
Residential Plan Review Application Processing Fee	$106.72
Express Residential Plan Review	$106.72
New construction — base fee	$896.50
1,001–2,000 sq ft	$1,075.80 plus $0.18/sq ft over 1,000
2,001–3,000 sq ft	$1,255.10 plus $0.18/sq ft over 2,000
3,001–4,000 sq ft	$1,434.40 plus $0.18/sq ft over 3,000
4,001–5,000 sq ft	$1,613.70 plus $0.18/sq ft over 4,000
5,001 sq ft and above	$1,793.00 plus $0.018/sq ft over 5,000 — as printed
each additional structure over 2	$130.68
each additional dwelling unit over 2	$130.68
Addition / remodel — base fee	$179.30
101–200 sq ft	$358.60 plus $1.35/sq ft over 100
201–300 sq ft	$537.90 plus $1.35/sq ft over 200
301–400 sq ft	$717.20 plus $1.35/sq ft over 300
401–500 sq ft	$896.50 plus $1.35/sq ft over 400
501 sq ft and above	$1,075.80 plus $0.135/sq ft over 500
Interior remodel — base fee	$120.78
101–200 sq ft	$120.78 plus $1.08/sq ft over 100
201–300 sq ft	$241.56 plus $1.08/sq ft over 200
301–400 sq ft	$362.34 plus $1.08/sq ft over 300
401–500 sq ft	$483.12 plus $1.08/sq ft over 400
501 sq ft and above	$603.90 plus $0.54/sq ft over 500
Small projects garage conversions, carport and porch enclosures, amnesty CO, fences, pools	$132.86 each
Resubmittal	$532.52
Minor plan revision administrative changes needing no graphic exhibits	$84.15
Major plan revision revised plans, or modified calculations	$532.52

Sheet 1 of 6 (plan review ladders and small projects) and sheet 2 of 6 (resubmittal and revisions); the minor/major revision definitions are the schedule's own footnotes A and B on sheet 6 of 6. The $0.018 in the top new-construction band is reproduced exactly as printed — the same one-tenth step appears in the addition/remodel ladder ($1.35 then $.135), so it is the sheet's pattern rather than a stray decimal.

One worked total, with the arithmetic shown

Here is the part every competing page gets to skip. Below is a single total for a 2,400 sq ft new house — 400 square feet into the 2,001–3,000 band — built by adding seven printed lines. This is our arithmetic, not a figure the City publishes. That is exactly the point: the only honest way to state an Austin permit total is to show which lines went into it, so you can re-add them or swap in your own square footage.

Line	Sheet	Arithmetic	Amount
Residential Plan Review Application Processing Fee	1 of 6	flat	$106.72
Plan review — new construction, 2,001–3,000 sq ft	1 of 6	$1,255.10 + 400 × $0.18	$1,327.10
Building permit	5 of 6	$347.12 + 400 × $0.0576	$370.16
Electrical permit	5 of 6	$209.38 + 400 × $0.0234	$218.74
Mechanical permit	5 of 6	$123.88 + 400 × $0.0053	$126.00
Plumbing permit	5 of 6	$231.96 + 400 × $0.0288	$243.48
Energy permit	5 of 6	$65.80 + 400 × $0.00	$65.80
Added together	—	our arithmetic — the City publishes no such total	$2,458.00

Every input is a line item from the archived FY 2025-26 residential fee sheet; only the addition is ours. What this figure excludes: Austin Energy service fees, fire review and the fire certificate of occupancy inspection, tree review and inspection, any floodplain or engineering review, every reinspection, and everything outside this schedule entirely — Austin Water tap and capital recovery fees, parkland dedication and utility connection costs. It also assumes all five trade permits are pulled; the schedule prices five lines but does not say a project must take all five.

The charges that actually move the number, and the schedule flags them as conditional

Sheet 3 of the schedule opens with a sentence worth quoting in full, because it is the reason no honest quote is a single number: the fees listed there "may or may not apply and are considered on a per case basis in relation to elements involved in the proposed project application packet."

These are the ones that most often turn a predictable bill into an unpredictable one. Whether they apply depends on your lot, not on your house.

Conditional charge	Fee	When it bites
Building Service Planning Application Review Fee Austin Energy	$200.00 + $20.00 AE 10% technology fee $220.00	Electric service planning
Electric Service Application Fee Austin Energy	$200.00 + $20.00 $220.00	New or changed electric service load
Fire residential code permit review	$125.00	Residential fire review
Fire final (certificate of occupancy) inspection	$370.00 plus $148/hour beyond 1 hour onsite	At CO
Wildland urban interface fire plan review	$250.00	Lots in the wildland urban interface
Wildland urban interface fire inspection	$444.00	Same
Tree plan review	$515.39 update fee $277.45	Protected or heritage trees on site
Tree inspection	$569.16 new construction $367.84 all other residential	Same
Heritage tree review variance	$1,196.56 administrative $4,997.48 commission	Removing or encroaching on a heritage tree
Floodplain review	$110.00 initial $470.00 detailed	Lot touches a floodplain
Erosion hazard zone review	$304.97 preliminary $813.26 detailed	Creekside lots
Grading and drainage review	$304.97 preliminary $813.26 detailed	Where required
Floodplain variance	$1,431.00 administrative $4,715.00 Council	Rarely, and expensively
Reinspection	$76.23 per inspection	See below
After hours inspection	$157.34 per hour, 1 hour minimum	Out-of-schedule inspections
Demolition	$97.02 processing · $73.70 permit · $55.00 predemolition inspection	Demolition is its own permit
Relocation permit	$52.80	Moving a structure
Temporary certificate of occupancy building only, expires after 90 days	$71.50 renewal $58.30	Moving in before final
Solar — auxiliary power	$32.47 intake · $111.66 electrical permit incl. AE tech fee · $74.44 inspection, 1–50 kW	Rooftop solar

Sheets 2, 3, 4 and 6 of 6. Sheet 3 states these "may or may not apply and are considered on a per case basis". Several lines are split between Development Services and another department — the Austin Energy rows show the department fee, the 10 percent technology fee and the total the schedule prints.

Reinspection is the fee people are surprised by, and it is avoidable. The schedule says a permit fee includes one inspection per required inspection type. A $76.23 reinspection is charged for every additional scheduled inspection where (1) the work is not complete or is marked partial, (2) corrections from a prior deficiency were not completed, or (3) the site is not accessible. That third limb catches people: a locked gate is a $76.23 line item. On a house with a dozen required inspection types, a habit of calling inspections early is a four-figure habit.

Refunds are narrow, and the review fee is gone the moment you submit. The schedule states the review fee is payable at submittal and is non-refundable unless collected in error. On the permit itself, a refund is 75 percent of the original permit less the minimum permit fee for that permit type — and no refund at all is granted if you have paid only the minimum fee, if any work governed by the permit has been performed, or if an inspection has been performed, scheduled or requested. Requesting an inspection you do not need forfeits the refund. Only active fees may be refunded, and claims must be in writing with a copy of the receipt. See also when a permit expires.

What this schedule is not

Two boundaries matter more than anything in the tables above, because a reader who misses them will budget badly.

This is one sheet of several. The City publishes its FY 2025-26 fees as a set of per-discipline PDFs — commercial, site plan, subdivision, zoning, code compliance, tree, right of way and more. This page reads the residential sheet only. Nothing here tells you what a site plan or a subdivision review costs, and nothing about those sheets can be inferred from this one.

Development Services fees are not the whole bill. Austin Water tap fees and capital recovery (impact) fees, parkland dedication, and utility connection costs do not appear in this schedule at all. On a real infill project they can exceed everything on this page combined. A quote built only from the fee schedule is not a project budget.

One more, smaller: the schedule marks a number of lines with a superscript S, which it defines as "may be applicable for Smart Housing". What the programme does to those fees is not stated in the schedule and is not stated here — see Smart Housing.

What we tell owners about the number

The permit fee is almost never the thing that decides a project. A 2,400 sq ft house adds up to something in the low thousands across plan review and the five trade permits. That is real money and it is not the money that determines whether a build pencils. The conditional lines — a heritage tree, a floodplain edge, an erosion hazard zone — move faster and further than the square-foot ladders do, and they are decided by the lot before anyone draws anything.

So we price the lot's conditions first, and the square footage second. Whether a heritage tree sits in the build envelope changes the fee picture by more than adding a thousand square feet does. So does whether any part of the lot is in a floodplain or an erosion hazard zone. Those are answerable from a survey and a map before a design exists.

And we budget for reinspections rather than pretending they will not happen. $76.23 each, one included per inspection type, and a locked gate counts. On a full build the realistic assumption is not zero.

Then we re-read the schedule in October. These figures change on 1 October every year. Any number we gave you in September is a number we check again in October, and so should any number you found anywhere else.

Common questions

How much does a building permit cost in Austin?

There is no single figure, and the City does not publish one. Under the FY 2025-26 fee schedule effective 1 October 2025, a one- or two-family house is priced across five separate trade permits — Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing and Energy — each with its own base fee and per-square-foot rate, with plan review charged separately at submittal. The schedule prints no combined total for the five lines.

How much is the permit for a 2,400 square foot new house in Austin?

Adding the printed lines for that size: plan review $1,255.10 plus 400 × $0.18 = $1,327.10, the $106.72 application processing fee, and the five trade permits at $370.16 building, $218.74 electrical, $126.00 mechanical, $243.48 plumbing and $65.80 energy. That is $2,458.00 — our arithmetic on the FY 2025-26 schedule, not a City figure. It excludes Austin Energy, fire, tree and floodplain review, all reinspections, and everything outside the schedule such as water tap and impact fees.

What is the residential plan review fee in Austin?

New construction plan review starts at a $896.50 base fee and runs $1,075.80 plus $0.18 per sq ft over 1,000 for 1,001–2,000 sq ft, rising by band to $1,793.00 plus $0.018 per sq ft over 5,000 at 5,001 sq ft and above. Every project also pays a $106.72 Residential Plan Review Application Processing Fee. FY 2025-26 schedule, effective 1 October 2025.

When do Austin permit fees change?

On 1 October. Austin re-adopts the Development Services fee schedule with its budget each year and the new schedule takes effect at the start of the fiscal year. The schedule this page reads is FY 2025-26, effective 1 October 2025; its footer reads "Updated: 7/15/2026 - Effective: 10/01/2025".

Why do different websites quote completely different Austin permit costs?

Because the schedule prices a house across five separate trade lines plus plan review and prints no combined total, every quoted figure is somebody else's arithmetic over some subset of those lines — usually without saying which subset, or which year's schedule. Ask any figure two questions: which schedule, and which lines.

How much is a demolition permit in Austin?

Under the FY 2025-26 residential schedule, $73.70 for the demolition permit itself, plus a $97.02 demolition/relocation processing fee and a $55.00 predemolition inspection. A relocation permit is $52.80. Demolition is a separate permit — a building permit does not authorise it.

What is the reinspection fee in Austin?

$76.23 per inspection. A permit fee includes one inspection per required inspection type; a reinspection is charged each additional time work is incomplete or partial, prior corrections were not made, or the site is not accessible — a locked gate counts.

Are Austin permit fees refundable?

Partly, and narrowly. The review fee is payable at submittal and non-refundable unless collected in error. A permit refund is 75 percent of the original permit less the minimum fee for that permit type, and there is no refund at all if only the minimum fee was paid, if any work has been performed, or if an inspection has been performed, scheduled or requested.

Does the fee schedule cover water tap fees and impact fees?

No. The Development Services fee schedule covers plan review, permits and inspections. Austin Water tap fees, capital recovery (impact) fees, parkland dedication and utility connection costs are not in it, and on an infill project they can exceed everything in the schedule combined.

How much does tree review cost on an Austin residential permit?

Tree plan review is $515.39 with a $277.45 update fee, and tree inspection is $569.16 for new construction or $367.84 for other residential projects, with re-inspections at $293.65. A heritage tree review variance is $1,196.56 administratively or $4,997.48 if it goes to commission.

Want a real number for your project?

We do this research ourselves on every project we take on — zoning, floodplain, watershed, trees, whether it is a legal lot. Send us an address and we will run it and tell you what we find. It works the same whether you own a vacant lot, a house you are thinking of adding a unit to, or a house you are thinking of replacing. No charge and no strings, and if it is a bad lot we will say so.

Talk to us about your build

We are homebuilders, not the City of Austin. This page explains how we read the code in practice — it is not legal advice and it is not an official determination. Always confirm with Austin Development Services before you rely on it for a project. The authoritative text is the Austin Land Development Code; permitting questions go to Austin Development Services Department.