Los Angeles
Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety
In short
Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety issues 4 permits we publish for Los Angeles, last verified 2026-09-03. Each carries the fee as the agency publishes it, with a link to the schedule it was read from.
What this agency issues
| Permit | Issuing agency | Fee | Renews | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automotive Repair Garage Annual Inspection | Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety | $457 a year | annual | 2026-09-03 |
| Sign Permitonly if it applies to you | Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety | 3.5 per cent of the total value of the sign construction, never less than the $90 minimum inspection fee, plus plan check at 50 per cent of that permit fee | one-time — the sign must be installed within six months | 2026-09-03 |
| Certificate of Occupancyonly if it applies to you | Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety | No fee — the certificate itself is issued without charge | permanent — it supersedes every certificate previously issued for that space | 2026-09-03 |
| Building Permit and Plan Checkonly if it applies to you | Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety | Charged on the total valuation of the work: $65 to $2,000, then $40 plus $1.25 per $100 to $20,000, $170 plus $6 per $1,000 to $50,000, $195 plus $5.50 per $1,000 to $100,000, $395 plus $3.50 per $1,000 to $500,000, $520 plus $3.25 per $1,000 to $1,000,000, and $920 plus $2.85 per $1,000 above that — plus plan check at 90 per cent of the permit fee | one-time, per project | 2026-09-03 |
Fees shown as a range or formula are set that way by the issuing agency — we do not average them into a single number.
About each permit
Automotive Repair Garage Annual Inspection
A recurring City charge that has nothing to do with the state Bureau of Automotive Repair registration and is easy to miss when budgeting. LADBS collects $457 a year from the property owner or the business operator of every automotive repair garage and used vehicle sales area in the City, including premises that existed before the requirement began in 1990. It is not optional and it is not tied to any application — it is levied on the use. Penalties are steep by comparison: $200 for a repeat violation, $750 on a notice of intent to revoke or on failure to pay.
Sign Permit
Signs are priced entirely differently from buildings: a flat 3.5 per cent of construction value rather than the banded Table 1-A, and plan check at 50 per cent rather than the 90 per cent that applies to buildings. Getting that second number wrong nearly doubles the estimate. Pre-inspection, where required, is $121 and can be waived. Approval to build a sign is not approval to put it anywhere — placement is governed separately by the sign article and by any sign district, specific plan or supplemental use district over the site, any of which can forbid a sign the building code would allow. Check the zoning before paying for fabrication.
Certificate of Occupancy
The certificate is free, and the code says so in those words — the cost is whatever building permit and plan check the change of use requires. Do not confuse it with the $150 Certificate of Occupancy for Use of Land, which is a different instrument for land with no building work, and which is itself waived whenever a building permit is pulled. What triggers a new certificate is a change of occupancy group or division, and the code is explicit that this applies whether or not any alteration is required — so retail to childcare, retail to auto repair, or retail to a clinic all trigger one, while a new tenant in the same use does not. A temporary certificate costs $453 plus $98 per floor for a business, mercantile, factory or storage occupancy, and lasts no more than six months. Zoning comes before all of this and is not uniform: a salon is by right in C1 and up, childcare is by right in the commercial zones but needs a conditional use permit in residential, agricultural and manufacturing zones, auto repair is by right in C2 and less restrictive zones only if it meets a long list of operating conditions — spray painting is expressly not one of them — and an animal hospital is not a listed permitted use in any commercial zone at all, being first permitted in MR1.
Building Permit and Plan Check
Two things about this table are routinely got wrong. The second band is charged per $100, not per $1,000 — a factor of ten. And the multiplier applies to the whole valuation, not only to the amount above the band floor; each band's formula lands exactly on the next band's boundary, which only works that way. On top of the permit fee come plan check at 90 per cent, a $27 issuing fee, a plan maintenance fee of 2 per cent capped at $300, a fire hydrant fee of 0.22 per cent once valuation reaches $50,000, and add-ons of 10 per cent for energy compliance and 12.5 per cent for disabled access work. The minimum inspection fee is $90, and $180 where a project needs more than one inspection. Valuation itself is set from the department's own square-foot table rather than from what you paid the contractor, and no part of the work may be excluded because another agency also permits it. Note too that every fee in the Building Code is adjusted for inflation each 1 July, so the counter figure can exceed the printed one.
Contact
- Jurisdiction
- Los Angeles
- Phone
- (213) 473-3231
- Website
- dbs.lacity.gov/
Contact details are taken from the agency’s own site or its published fee schedule. Where we have not verified a phone number we leave it blank rather than guess.
Sources
Every fee and term above was read from one of these government pages on the date shown.
- Los Angeles Municipal Code section 91.107 — permit, plan check and sign feesCity of Los Angeles · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Los Angeles Municipal Code section 91.109 — certificates of occupancy, including the temporary certificate feeCity of Los Angeles · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Los Angeles Municipal Code section 91.113, Table 1-A — building permit feesCity of Los Angeles · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Los Angeles Municipal Code section 91.8203 — change of occupancy requires a new certificate of occupancyCity of Los Angeles · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Los Angeles Municipal Code section 98.0402 — annual inspection fee for automotive repair garagesCity of Los Angeles · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-03
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