Permits & Costs · San Diego

How Much Are Building Permit Fees in San Diego for a Remodel or New Home? (2026)

The City of San Diego calculates plan-check fees from a base charge plus a per-square-foot rate that changes by project type. Here is exactly how that math works for a remodel and for new construction, using the city’s own fee schedule.

What “building permit fees” actually cover

“Permit fees” is really a stack of separate charges, not one number. The City of San Diego’s Development Services Department collects a submittal fee when you apply, a plan-check fee while staff reviews your drawings, and a set of issuance fees when the permit is finally released. Trade permits for electrical, plumbing and mechanical work are billed separately from the building plan-check fee. None of this includes the cost of design, engineering, materials or labor — it is strictly what the city charges to review and inspect the work.

Every figure below comes from two current city publications: Information Bulletin 501, Fee Schedule for Construction Permits-Structures (effective August 2026), and Information Bulletin 103, Fee Schedule for Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing/Gas Permits (effective May 2026). Both are linked in the sources section below so you can check the current numbers before you budget.

How the city calculates your plan-check fee

San Diego’s plan-check fee is a base charge that already covers a set amount of square footage, plus a per-square-foot rate once your project crosses that threshold. The formula is different for a remodel than for new construction, which is why an addition and a ground-up build are not priced the same way.

Notice that the remodel base fee stays flat for anything up to 2,000 square feet. A small kitchen or bathroom project almost never triggers the per-square-foot increment at all — the increment mostly matters on a large whole-home remodel or an addition that pushes the remodeled area past that line.

Example: a kitchen-and-bath remodel

Say you are remodeling a kitchen and two bathrooms, and the remodeled floor area totals under 2,000 square feet. Under the Tenant Improvement/Remodel formula in Table 1, that project pays the flat $2,532.77 plan-check fee — the per-square-foot rate does not apply because the project stays under the 2,000-square-foot threshold built into the base charge.

If the remodeled area runs larger — say a whole-home remodel touching 2,600 square feet — the math adds the increment for the extra 600 square feet (600 sq ft × $1.33 per sq ft = $798 increment), for a plan-check total of roughly $3,331 before any MEP permits are added. (See the MEP section below — a kitchen or bathroom remodel almost always needs those too.) For permit-specific guidance on a kitchen project specifically, see our kitchen remodel permit guide and bathroom remodel permit guide.

Example: a new single-family home

New construction uses a different base and a different threshold. A new single-family home under 3,000 square feet pays the flat $8,085.26 base plan-check fee from Table 1. Above that size, the city adds $4.10 for every additional square foot. A 3,800-square-foot custom home, for example, would add 800 square feet worth of increment (800 sq ft × $4.10 per sq ft = $3,280 increment) on top of the base, for a plan-check total near $11,365. That figure is the plan-check fee alone; it does not include issuance fees, MEP permits, or any impact fees discussed below.

These examples use round, hypothetical square footages purely to show how the formula works. Your project’s actual fee depends on the exact plan-checked area the city assigns to your drawings.

MEP permits: the fees added on top

Electrical, plumbing and mechanical work is not included in the building plan-check fee — it is billed as a separate MEP (mechanical/electrical/plumbing) permit. Every MEP permit starts with a small mapping fee, then adds a charge per circuit, fixture or piece of equipment.

A kitchen remodel that relocates a sink, adds circuits for new appliances and installs a range hood will typically cross several of these line items at once. The bulletin lists the full fixture-by-fixture and equipment-by-equipment schedule; the rows above are the ones homeowners ask about most.

Other city and state fees to budget for

Beyond the plan-check and MEP fees, a handful of smaller charges are collected when the permit is issued. These do not depend on project type the way the plan-check fee does — they are based on your project’s construction valuation or the age of the structure.

• Lead Hazard Prevention Fee — $58.00 flat, applies only to structures built before 1978.
• State Seismic Fee — $0.13 per $1,000 of construction valuation for single-family homes and duplexes.
• State Building Standards Fee — $4.00 per $100,000 of construction valuation, with a $1.00 minimum.
• Mapping fee — $12.16, charged once on the building permit in addition to any MEP mapping fees.

Depending on your project, the city may also collect water and sewer capacity charges, school district fees, or one of several development impact fees. Those are calculated case by case and are not fixed dollar amounts in the published bulletins, so Development Services staff should confirm them for your specific address and scope before you finalize a budget.

When design work triggers extra requirements

Some projects need an energy compliance report — a HERS rating — before the city will issue a permit. Per Information Bulletin 103, that requirement applies to new residential construction, major HVAC replacements, additions larger than 1,000 square feet, and any project installing more than 40 feet of new ductwork. If your remodel or addition falls into one of those categories, budget time in the design and engineering phase for that report — it is a separate scope item from the plan-check fee itself, and it needs to be resolved before drawings go to the city for review.

Permit fees vs. total project cost

It’s worth separating the permit fee from the price of the project itself. Even the largest plan-check fee in this guide is a small fraction of what a remodel typically costs to design and build. For scale, the table below shows average total job costs from an independent industry report — not permit fees, and not San Diego-specific numbers, but a useful reference point for how far a permit fee goes relative to the overall project.

Against those job-cost figures, even a fully-loaded plan-check and MEP fee package for a mid-size remodel typically lands in the low thousands — real money, but not the number that should drive your go/no-go decision on a project. For a broader look at how to scope a project before it reaches the permit counter, see our guide on choosing between a full and partial remodel.