How Long Does a Building Permit Take in Los Angeles?
The first question on almost every build-out call we get is the opening date. The crew part is easy to estimate. A storefront refresh or an office refit is a few weeks of work. What nobody can promise is how long the drawings sit at the Department of Building and Safety before anyone is allowed to pick up a hammer.
So we pulled every building permit the City of Los Angeles issued over the past 12 months, 64,404 of them, and measured how long each one took. Here’s what the numbers say, and what we’d do with them if it were our lease.
Short answer: A commercial alteration permit in the City of Los Angeles took a median of 81 days from submittal to issue over the past year. Jobs that fit counter plan check came out in a median of 27 days. Jobs sent to regular plan check took 133. If your scope can honestly fit the counter, design it to fit.
Last verified: October 2026
How Long Does It Take to Get a Building Permit in Los Angeles?
For a business, plan on about three months for a typical interior alteration and over a year for a new building. That’s the median. Half the jobs took longer.
About 42 percent of the permits LADBS issued this past year (26,891) were express permits. Those cover simple work like a reroof or a house kitchen remodel with no structural changes. There’s no plan review, so they come out the day you apply. The other 37,491 went through some form of plan check, and that’s where the waiting happens. Across all of them the median was 70 days.
| Permit type | Permits | Median | Slowest 25% took more than | Over a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial alteration or repair | 4,177 | 81 days | 165 days | 7% |
| Commercial demolition | 206 | 213 days | 405 days | 29% |
| Commercial addition | 102 | 378 days | 582 days | 54% |
| New commercial building | 238 | 401 days | 931 days | 55% |
| Home alteration (house or duplex) | 10,541 | 18 days | 62 days | 3% |
| New single-family home | 4,209 | 154 days | 286 days | 19% |
Source: LADBS Building Permits Issued (data.lacity.org), permits issued Oct 25, 2025 to Oct 24, 2026, days from submittal to issue; analysis by The Handy Geeks
One thing to keep in mind. The clock runs from the day plans are filed to the day the permit is issued. It includes the weeks your architect spends answering corrections, so some of that time is on the applicant side, not the city’s.
What Are the Plan Check Paths at LADBS?
LADBS sorts every submittal into one of four paths, and the path decides your wait more than anything else.
- Express permit. No plan review. Issued online or at the counter for a fixed list of simple jobs.
- Counter plan check. For small, simple jobs an engineer can check in 45 minutes or less. Over the counter, often the same day.
- Expanded counter plan check. For jobs that take up to about 2 hours to check. LADBS says corrections typically come back in 5 to 7 business days.
- Regular plan check. Everything else. Your plans go into a queue.
| Path | Permits | Median | Slowest 25% took more than | Slowest 10% took more than |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Counter plan check | 16,214 | 14 days | 55 days | 151 days |
| Expanded counter | 7,382 | 78 days | 162 days | 318 days |
| Regular plan check | 13,893 | 155 days | 310 days | 721 days |
Source: LADBS Building Permits Issued (data.lacity.org), permits issued Oct 25, 2025 to Oct 24, 2026, days from submittal to issue; analysis by The Handy Geeks
28 percent of counter plan check permits were issued on the day they were filed. On regular plan check, none were, and 21 percent took more than a year.
For commercial work specifically, here’s the same split. A storefront or office alteration that qualifies for the counter came out in a median of 27 days. The same kind of job sent to regular plan check took 133.
So what qualifies? LADBS’s own bulletin (P/GI 2026-011) lists commercial jobs that generally fit counter plan check: non-structural tenant improvements of about 1,500 square feet with no change in use, storefront alterations, non-bearing partitions, suspended ceilings, and disabled access improvements with no change in parking. Expanded counter takes tenant improvements under 3,000 square feet per floor, even with a change of use, as long as parking and structure stay the same.
Both counter paths exclude buildings with unreinforced masonry and A, E, I and H occupancies. A restaurant with 50 or more occupants is usually an A occupancy, which is why so many restaurant jobs end up in regular plan check.
Which Commercial Jobs Take the Longest to Permit?
Restaurants and change-of-use jobs took the longest, at a median of 142 and 143 days. Office work was the quickest at 84. We sorted the 4,177 commercial alteration permits by the words in their work descriptions to get these.
The restaurant number isn’t a mystery once you look at the paths. Of 346 restaurant permits, 149 went to regular plan check. Change of use was the same story: 362 of 694 went to the regular queue. Those jobs bring in fire, health and parking questions that the counter isn’t set up to answer.
If you’re opening a restaurant, budget the plan check time the way you budget the build-out. Our tenant improvement cost guide covers the money side.
Does a Bigger Job Take Longer to Permit?
Yes, and steadily. On commercial alterations, jobs valued under $25,000 came out in a median of 48 days, while jobs over $500,000 took 149.
| Declared valuation | Permits | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Under $25,000 | 1,864 | 48 days |
| $25,000 to $100,000 | 1,089 | 90 days |
| $100,000 to $500,000 | 883 | 115 days |
| $500,000 and up | 341 | 149 days |
Source: LADBS Building Permits Issued (data.lacity.org), permits issued Oct 25, 2025 to Oct 24, 2026, days from submittal to issue; analysis by The Handy Geeks
Valuation here is the number the applicant declares on the permit. It runs low compared with what jobs really cost, so read it as a size ranking, not a price list.
Our Call: What Should You Do About the Wait?
Design the job to fit counter plan check whenever the scope honestly allows it. That’s the single biggest time lever you control, and the data puts it at roughly 100 days on a typical commercial alteration.
What does that look like on paper? No structural work in phase one. Keep it near 1,500 square feet. Same use as the last tenant. Don’t touch the parking. Leave out the extra wall or the moved restroom that pushes you into the regular queue if the business can open without it. Don’t try to slice one project into fake small ones, though. Plan check engineers screen for that, and it can backfire.
The one case where we’d flip this: a restaurant built for 50 or more occupants, a change of use that touches parking, or anything structural. Those go to regular plan check no matter how you draw them. Then the move is time, not design. Get drawings submitted before you sign, or negotiate free rent that covers at least five months of plan check. Answer every correction letter within a few days, because that part of the clock is yours.
If a contractor tells you they can start a permit-required job “while the permit comes through,” walk away. Our post on unlicensed contractor liability in California explains what lands on the owner when that goes wrong.
What Work Can Start Without Waiting for a Permit?
Repairs and cosmetic stuff can usually start this week. We paint, put new flooring over old, swap a door closer, rehang a partition door or drop new tiles into the same ceiling grid all the time, and none of it needs plans.
Most of what a store or office needs month to month falls in that bucket, and it’s the bulk of what we do. When a job crosses into permit territory, such as moving walls, new plumbing or electrical runs, or storefront changes, we run it as a licensed general contractor and handle the submittal. See our general contractor services in Los Angeles and our handyman vs contractor breakdown for where that line falls. Our hourly rates and the commercial handyman services guide cover the no-permit side.
How We Got These Numbers
We downloaded the City of Los Angeles open dataset Building and Safety: Building Permits Issued from 2020 to Present (refreshed October 25, 2026) and kept every permit issued between October 25, 2025 and October 24, 2026. That’s 64,404 permits. For each one we counted days from the submitted date to the issue date. Express permits don’t carry a submitted date, so the timing figures cover the 37,491 plan-checked permits. Job types come from keyword matches in the work description, so a few permits will be misfiled.
This covers the City of LA only. Unincorporated LA County, Santa Monica, Glendale, Pasadena and other cities run their own building departments with their own queues.
FAQ
How long do building permits last in Los Angeles?
Under LAMC Section 98.0602, an LA building permit is valid for two years. It expires after 12 months if the work never starts, or if work stops for 12 months straight. A plan check that never turns into a permit expires 18 months after the plans were filed (Section 98.0603).
How much are building permits in Los Angeles?
LADBS fees are set by its fee schedule and scale with the declared value of the job, with separate plan check and permit fees. A small express permit costs far less than a regular plan check job. The plan check engineer gives the exact figure at submittal.
Can I start work before my permit is issued?
Not on work that needs a permit. An inspector can stop the job, and you may have to open finished walls so they can see what’s inside. Repairs and cosmetic work that don’t need a permit can start any time.
Does a tenant improvement need a permit in LA?
Most do. Moving walls, new plumbing or wiring, ceiling work and HVAC changes need plans. Small non-structural TIs of about 1,500 square feet with no change in use generally qualify for counter plan check, which had a median wait of 27 days on commercial jobs this past year.
Why is my LA permit taking so long?
Usually it’s in regular plan check, where the median commercial alteration took 133 days, or it’s waiting on corrections from your side. Check the status on LADBS’s permit lookup and ask your designer when the last correction response went in.
Have a space and a scope? Call +1 818-835-0556 or send us the address and a sketch. We’ll tell you which plan check path it lands in before anyone draws a line.