Fresno building department

The City of Fresno’s Building and Safety Division, part of the Planning and Development Department, issues building permits, reviews plans, and inspects construction inside Fresno city limits. Its permit counter is in City Hall, Room 3043, at 2600 Fresno Street. Unincorporated land around Fresno and the county’s other cities have separate building authorities, so confirm which jurisdiction covers the parcel first.

When a permit is required

The Building Permit Center follows California Building Code Section 105.1. You need a permit before you construct, alter, repair, move, or demolish a building, change its occupancy, or install or replace an electrical, gas, mechanical, or plumbing system.

Applying

Applications can be filed 24/7 through Accela Citizen Access (ACA). The city’s older ACA address (lmsaca.fresno.gov) now redirects users to the current Accela-hosted portal. In ACA you can create, submit, and search applications, check status, comments, and due dates, upload back-checks and addenda, pay invoices, and schedule inspections.

If you’d rather go in person, book an appointment at City Hall, Room 3043, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., through the city’s QLess queue. The counter handles general questions, application help, public document review, and California disabled-access questions. It also issues same-day express permits for electrical, mechanical, and plumbing work. Questions about QLess appointments go to Building and Safety at (559) 621-8084.

For residential solar, the city offers SolarAPP+, which issues eligible solar permits instantly online.

For permits that don’t need full plans, the counter accepts a Permit Affidavit Form listing the fixtures and equipment in place of plans. Fees are paid when the permit is issued.

Planning review comes first for some projects

• Custom single-family homes need a Planning Zone Clearance before plans go to Building. It’s a separate fee and takes up to 14 business days from acceptance.
• Standard plans are submitted online through ACA as a “Lot Permit Request.” The Building and Safety Division takes questions at (559) 621-8058 or (559) 621-8105.
• Signs must be approved by Planning before a building permit is issued.
• If you apply for a building permit while a planning entitlement is still pending, the owner and the architect or engineer must first sign a Concurrent Submittal Acknowledgement of Risk.
• Planning, Public Works, Public Utilities, and the Fire Department hold informal preliminary feedback sessions every Tuesday, 1 to 5 p.m., in City Hall Room 3054.

Project levels and review times

Fresno sorts building applications into four levels. Every application gets a completeness review before it’s accepted for plan check. The timelines below come from the city’s Building & Safety process booklet.

Level	Example projects	Review timeline
1	Main electrical panels, HVAC, water heaters, re-roofs, residential solar, city standard patios, standard signs, kitchen hood fire suppression	Up to 3 business days (after a 2–3 business day completeness review)
2	Residential additions and alterations, repairs needing plans (including fire damage), standard-template ADUs, demolitions, commercial tenant improvements, commercial solar, mobile and manufactured homes, grading, pools and spas	Up to 14 business days
3	New custom homes, new apartments and commercial buildings, change of occupancy, new standard tract templates, custom ADUs	Up to 21 business days
4	Complex industrial projects, public utility capital projects, multi-story high-rises, health care facilities	Up to 28 business days

Some simple projects are approved the same day online. Plan check fees invoiced at submittal must be paid before plans are routed for review. If a submittal is incomplete, the record is set to “Additional Information is Required.” You must upload the missing items and notify staff before review begins. Properties in historic or special districts may need Historic Preservation sign-off before routing.

After review, comments from every discipline go into one Plan Check Correction List posted on the record. Back-check resubmittals are reviewed in 10 business days, and addenda or field revisions in 14 business days. To avoid re-routing to every discipline, replace only the revised sheets in the previously stamped set. Approved plans are stamped “APPROVED” and uploaded to ACA once all fees are paid.

Permit expiration

Rule	Detail
Work must start	Within 180 days of issuance
Clock resets	180 days from each approved inspection
Abandoned work	Permit becomes invalid after 180 days with no progress
Inactive one year or more	Permit is null and void
Extension	Up to 180 days, by written request showing justifiable cause, filed before expiration
Renewing an expired permit	25% of the original permit fee; a new permit is required if the codes have changed since it expired

Codes

The 2025 California Building Standards Code (Title 24) took effect statewide on January 1, 2026. That includes the building, residential, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, energy, and green building codes, and it applies to Fresno permits.

Fees

Building fees are set in the city’s Master Fee Schedule, linked from the Applications, Forms & Fees page. The current schedule took effect July 1, 2026, and most building fees are adjusted by CPI every July 1. New construction, tenant improvements, and residential additions are priced from per-square-foot tables by occupancy and construction type. Smaller jobs have flat plan check and inspection fees:

Item	Plan check	Inspection
Re-roof, composition, no tear-off	$102.72	$58.87
Re-roof, other roofs (first 10 squares)	$102.72	$103.98
Deck or patio, non-engineered	$238.02	$266.83
Fence or wall (wood, chain link, wrought iron) over 6 ft, first 100 lin. ft	$238.02	$177.89
Residential remodel, first 500 sq ft	$227.99	$489.83
Residential photovoltaic, first 15 kW	$170.37	$162.85
Residential swimming pool or spa	$102.72	$385.85

Simple plumbing and mechanical items, such as a water heater or evaporative cooler, are $111.50 each. A 12.83% General Plan maintenance surcharge is added to all building permits, along with the state Building Standards Commission surcharge ($1 per $25,000 of valuation). Renewing an expired permit or plan check costs 25% of the original fee, with a $67.65 minimum. Work not covered by the schedule is billed at a $149.07 blended hourly rate.

Inspections and reports

Inspections are scheduled in ACA. The city also runs Voice Permits, an automated phone system for scheduling inspections and checking their status without waiting on hold. The Building Services page hosts the city’s special inspection and testing requirements, plus monthly building activity reports (permits issued) going back to 2013.