Short answer: San Francisco building permits are issued by the Department of Building Inspection (DBI). Simple work can be filed online or over the counter and issued fast; larger projects go through full plan review and are often routed to Planning, Fire, and Public Works as well. That multi-department routing — not the code — is what makes San Francisco one of the slower big-city permit processes in the country.
San Francisco has a reputation among contractors, and it’s mostly earned: the code isn’t unusual, but the number of hands a project can pass through is. Knowing which lane your job belongs in is the difference between a same-day permit and a three-month saga.
Who Issues the Permit
DBI is the authority having jurisdiction for building, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits in San Francisco. Most filing runs through DBI’s Permit Center, in person or online. The catch is that DBI often isn’t the only reviewer — depending on scope and location, your application also gets routed to:
- Planning — for anything affecting use, facade, or a historic resource
- Fire — for life-safety, sprinklers, and certain occupancies
- Public Works (DPW) — for work in the public right-of-way
Which Lane Is Your Project In?
The single biggest predictor of your timeline is which review path your scope triggers.
| Path | Typical scope | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Over-the-counter (OTC) / online | Water heaters, furnaces, HVAC, re-roofs, like-for-like replacements, minor work | Same day to a few days |
| Plan review at DBI | Additions, structural work, larger remodels | Weeks |
| Multi-department (DBI + Planning / Fire / DPW) | Facade changes, historic properties, change of use, new construction | Weeks to months |
Processes and routing reflect publicly available information as of August 2026 and change. Confirm current requirements with DBI before filing.
What It Costs
San Francisco fees are valuation-based and sit at the high end nationally. Small trade permits are typically a few hundred dollars; remodels and additions commonly reach $1,000–5,000+ once plan review, Title 24 energy compliance, and DBI surcharges stack up; new construction runs into five figures with impact fees. See our building permit cost guide for how valuation-based fees are calculated, and the Bay Area HVAC permit cost breakdown for trade-specific numbers.
Trade Work: The Fast Lane
If you’re replacing a water heater, furnace, or HVAC system, you’re usually in the over-the-counter lane — permits required, but issued quickly and without full plan review. Electrical and plumbing changes tied to the work may need their own permits. Our guide to filing an HVAC permit in San Francisco walks through this path in detail.
Where Contractors Lose Time
- Underestimating the routing.A job you thought was OTC touches Planning and suddenly it’s a multi-week review. Scoping this correctly up front is everything.
- Historic resources.San Francisco has a lot of them, and they add review layers that aren’t obvious from the address alone.
- Incomplete plan sets. The most common reason a plan-review project bounces — see the filing mistakes that repeat.
- Title 24. Missing or mismatched energy code documentation is a routine correction, not an edge case.
Filing Checklist
- Confirm the scope and which review path it triggers (OTC vs. plan review vs. multi-department).
- Verify your contractor license and any San Francisco registration are active.
- Prepare the application, plans, and Title 24 documentation for the scope.
- File through DBI’s Permit Center — online or in person.
- Pay the permit and plan-review fees; track the application across every department it routes to.
- Schedule and pass inspections to close the permit.
For contractors filing across the whole Bay Area, San Francisco is just one of many jurisdictions with its own quirks — see how it compares in our LA vs. Bay Area guide. Handling all of them by hand is exactly the case for permit automation.
We File San Francisco Permits For You
DBI filings, Title 24 documentation, and multi-department routing — handled. $25–100 per permit, pay-as-you-go, human-backed. Book a 15-minute call and we’ll file your first one.
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