# How long does it take to get a building permit in Los Angeles?

**Short answer:** Expect roughly two to eight months to get a building permit in Los Angeles once complete plans are submitted, and considerably longer when a project needs discretionary review. Minor work can clear over the counter in a day. Most custom residential projects go through full plan check and two or three correction cycles before approval.

## Key facts

| Fact | Value | Source |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Over the counter work | Same day to a few weeks |  |
| Full plan check | Roughly 2 to 8 months from submittal to issuance |  |
| Correction cycles | Two or three is normal on custom residential |  |
| Discretionary review | Adds months and is measured in hearings |  |
| Parallel approvals | Grading, sewer, fire, planning, public works, utilities |  |

## Nobody can give you one number, and here is why

The honest answer to this question is a range with conditions attached, and any
builder who gives you a single date has either done this exact project in this
exact jurisdiction recently or is guessing.

Los Angeles is not one permitting environment. It is dozens. The City of Los
Angeles, unincorporated County areas and each independent city inside the county
run their own departments, their own queues and their own review standards. A
project in Santa Monica, a project in Pasadena and a project in an
unincorporated hillside area are three different processes with three different
calendars.

Within any one of those jurisdictions, the timeline is driven by three things:
which review track the scope qualifies for, how complete the first submittal is,
and how many other agencies have to clear the project in parallel.

## Two tracks, and the gap between them

**Over the counter.** A plan checker reviews the drawings while you wait, or
within a short administrative window, and the permit issues immediately. This
track exists for scopes that are small and standard: like for like replacements,
reroofs, water heaters, some electrical and mechanical work, minor interior work
with no structural change. Eligibility is defined narrowly, and a project that
looks small can fall out of the track over one structural detail.

**Full plan check.** The submittal enters a queue, gets assigned to reviewers in
several disciplines, and comes back as a written correction list. The design team
responds, resubmits, and waits again. This is the track for essentially every
new house, addition, structural remodel and commercial tenant improvement.

The difference between these two tracks is not a difference in degree. It is a
day versus a season. The first question worth asking about any project is which
track it lands in, because that answer alone accounts for most of the variance
in permit timelines.

## Correction cycles are the real clock

Once a project is in full plan check, the calendar is not one review. It is a
loop, and the number of times you go around it is what sets the date.

| Cycle | What happens | Where time goes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| First review | Plans assigned to each discipline, corrections written | Queue position, then review time |
| Response | Design team revises drawings and writes responses | Consultant availability |
| Resubmittal | Corrected set re-enters the queue | Queue position again |
| Second review | Reviewers check responses, often find new items | Review time |
| Approval | Remaining holds cleared, fees paid, permit issues | Other departments |

Two or three cycles is normal on a custom residence. One is rare enough that it
should make you suspicious of how thin the review was. Five or six usually
means the first submittal was incomplete, and each additional loop costs both
review time and queue time, which is why the total can double from one project
to the next with no change in complexity.

The practical implication is that the biggest lever available to an owner sits
before submittal, not after. A complete, coordinated, internally consistent set
does not skip the queue, but it dramatically reduces how many times you have to
stand in it. For more on what reviewers are checking and how correction lists
work, the [permitting topic](/insights/topics/permitting) covers that process in
detail.

## What pushes a project into discretionary review

Ministerial review asks a single question: does this comply with the code. If
the answer is yes, the permit is issued. Discretionary review asks whether the
project should be approved at all, and that question gets answered by planners,
commissions or hearing bodies rather than by a plan checker.

Common triggers include:

- A variance or any request to deviate from zoning standards
- Coastal jurisdiction, where a separate development permit process applies
- Hillside and grading thresholds, especially with significant earth movement
- Historic designation, or work adjacent to a designated resource
- Environmental review requirements on sensitive sites
- Neighborhood or specific plan overlays with their own design standards
- Projects that attract appeals, which restart parts of the process

Discretionary review is measured in hearing dates and noticing periods, not in
correction cycles. That is why it changes the answer to this question so much:
a hearing calendar has a rhythm nobody can accelerate, and one continuance can
move a project by a month or more.

## The parallel approvals people forget to schedule

Owners think of permitting as a single application. It is usually a set of them,
and the building permit cannot issue until the others clear. These run alongside
plan check, and any one of them can become the long pole.

**Grading and drainage.** Any meaningful earth movement, retaining or drainage
change draws a separate review and often a separate permit, with its own
engineering and its own correction cycles.

**Sewer and wastewater.** Capacity availability, connection permits and, on some
properties, a septic evaluation. On hillside lots this can involve a private
sewer extension, which is a project of its own.

**Fire.** Access dimensions, turnarounds, hydrant flow, sprinkler requirements
and defensible space in fire severity zones. Fire department conditions have
killed more site plans than any other single agency comment.

**Planning and zoning.** Setbacks, height, floor area limits, parking and
overlay standards. Planning clearance frequently has to precede building plan
check rather than run beside it.

**Public works and right of way.** Driveway approaches, curb and gutter, street
trees, sidewalk work, encroachment permits for anything touching the public way.

**Utilities.** Power service, meter location, transformer requirements, gas and
water service. Utility work runs on a corporate schedule that has no relationship
to the building department's, and it is the one people consistently apply for
too late.

None of those clearances belong to the architect or the builder by default,
which is exactly how they end up unowned until someone notices the building
permit is being held by a sewer sign-off nobody applied for. Running that full
set of agency applications in parallel, and tracking the conditions attached to
each one, is the kind of coordination that sits inside
[specialty services](/specialty-services) on a complicated site.

## How to read a permit schedule without fooling yourself

**Ask which jurisdiction and which track.** Those two facts determine more than
everything else combined. If nobody has confirmed the review track, the schedule
is decoration.

**Ask how many correction cycles are assumed.** A schedule built on one cycle is
an optimistic schedule. Two or three is a realistic one.

**Ask which parallel approvals apply and when each was filed.** Grading, sewer,
fire and utility applications should have their own dates on the schedule, not
be buried inside a single permitting bar.

**Ask what happens if the design changes after submittal.** The answer is that
the revised set re-enters the queue, and knowing that in advance tends to keep
late changes from happening.

**Ask who is tracking it week to week.** Applications sit. Someone has to be
calling, checking status and responding within days rather than weeks, because
a correction list that waits two weeks for a response has just added two weeks
to the project.

## What to plan around

For budgeting purposes, treat a straightforward permitted project in a
cooperative jurisdiction as a few months and a complex one as most of a year.
Then build the schedule so that permitting is not the only thing happening
during that window: finalize selections, order long lead items, and complete
the constructability review that would otherwise generate field questions later.

The permit is not a document you wait for passively. It is a process with a
response time on your side of it, and the projects that clear fastest are the
ones where the design team turns corrections around in days rather than weeks.
Plan on two to eight months, plan on corrections, and name the person whose job
it is to chase the file. Every week an application sits unanswered is a week
added to the move-in date, and that week is the only part of the calendar
entirely within your control.

## Frequently asked questions

### Can a permit expediter actually speed things up?

A good one shortens the administrative parts: knowing which counter to stand at, which department needs to sign first, how to book appointments and how to keep a resubmittal from sitting. What an expediter cannot do is make an incomplete drawing set pass review. If corrections come back because the plans are thin, the expediter is waiting on the design team like everyone else.

### Does an ADU get permitted faster than a house?

Usually, yes. California law pushes local agencies to act on accessory dwelling unit applications within a defined window and limits the discretionary hurdles they can impose, so a compliant ADU often moves faster than a comparable custom residence. That advantage disappears if the design deviates from the standards that qualify it for streamlined handling.

### What is the difference between a permit being issued and a project being approved?

Approval means the plan checker has signed off that the drawings comply. Issuance means fees are paid, any conditions of approval are satisfied, other departments have cleared their holds and the permit card exists. Projects frequently sit between the two states for weeks while a school fee, a sewer clearance or a planning condition is resolved.

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Source: https://www.tricanagroup.com/insights/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a-building-permit-in-los-angeles
Topic: Permits & Entitlements
Author: Hagop Sargisian, Tricana Group
Area served: Los Angeles County, CA; Orange County, CA
Published: 2026-05-28T09:00:00-07:00