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What a home project actually owes government

In rough order of when you hit them. PermitPrice covers stage 2. The others are generally governed by separate rules or fee schedules and are usually collected separately, though which office bills what varies by jurisdiction.

1. 1

   Before you file

   Zoning and land-use approval

   Rezoning, special use, variance. Handled by the planning or zoning department. Covered by ZoneFee.com, below.

2. 2

   When you file — you are here

   The building permit fee

   Base fee, plan review, trade lines, and any state levy. Billed by the local building department. This is the number PermitPrice calculates.

3. 3

   Also at filing

   Impact and development fees

   Governed by a separate adopted schedule from the permit, typically through capital programs and utilities. Covered by ZoneFee.com, below.

4. 4

   Every year after

   Property tax on the added value

   A completed project may change assessed value. The responsible assessing and taxing authorities determine any resulting annual change. Covered by CountyTaxTools.com, below.

5. 5

   At tax time

   Federal treatment

   Deductibility, cost basis, and energy credits, settled with the IRS. Covered by NationalTaxTools.com, below.

The gap that catches people out is stages 2 and 3. Both are usually paid at filing, to the same city, sometimes at the same counter — but they come from different adopted schedules, and a permit fee estimate does not include the development fees. On ground-up construction the second number is frequently the larger one.

Why four sites instead of one calculator

Because each row of that table lives in a different document, published by a different authority, on a different revision cycle. A building permit fee comes out of a city fee schedule adopted by ordinance, often revised with the fiscal year. An impact fee comes out of a separately adopted rate study. A property tax rate comes from a county assessor or commissioner of revenue and moves with the annual budget. Federal treatment comes from the Internal Revenue Code and changes when Congress says so.

One combined calculator would have to re-verify all four universes on the slowest common schedule, and every stale number in it would quietly discredit the fresh ones. Splitting them means each site tracks its own sources on its own cadence, and each page can show you the document and effective date behind its figure. PermitPrice's cadence is documented in Methodology, and every source it uses is listed in Sources.

What PermitPrice does not cover

Stating the boundary is more useful than implying there isn't one. PermitPrice covers residential building permit fees only. It does not cover commercial or multi-family permits, standalone trade permits pulled outside a building permit, contractor licensing and registration, inspection scheduling or re-inspection penalties, after-the-fact permit multipliers, or impact and utility connection fees. Where a jurisdiction bundles something unusual into its permit fee, the page says so rather than guessing. Current jurisdiction coverage is listed in full on the Coverage page.