Santa Clara County
County of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development
In short
County of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development issues 4 permits we publish for Santa Clara County, last verified 2026-09-28. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoning Clearance / Discretionary Use Permit / Architecture & Site Approvalonly if it applies to you | County of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development | Application fees are set by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors as part of the Department of Planning & Development's adopted fee schedule and vary by permit type — administrative zoning clearance, discretionary Use Permit, or Architecture & Site Approval — and by project size and complexity; the department's current fee schedule, not a fixed county-code dollar figure, controls the amount charged for any given application. | not applicable — a land-use entitlement rather than a recurring license | 2026-09-28 |
| Alcohol Sales — Zoning Determination / Use Permit (standing establishment)only if it applies to you | County of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development | The zoning/Use Permit application fee is set by the Board of Supervisors as part of the Department of Planning & Development's fee schedule, the same schedule that prices the county's other discretionary land-use permits, rather than a flat alcohol-specific figure. | not applicable — a land-use entitlement rather than a recurring license | 2026-09-28 |
| General Business License — Santa Clara County positiononly if it applies to you | County of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development | No fee | not applicable — per the County Department of Planning & Development, no county business license is required | 2026-09-28 |
| Fire Clearance for State-Licensed Childcare Facilities | County of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development | The inspection fee is set by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors as part of the Department of Planning & Development's fee schedule; the Fire Marshal's Office publishes its current fee alongside the fire-clearance application rather than in the county code itself. | tied to the underlying state childcare license; a new clearance is triggered by a new facility or a licensed-capacity increase | 2026-09-28 |
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
Zoning Clearance / Discretionary Use Permit / Architecture & Site Approval
This is the unincorporated-area-only land-use layer of the county: any new commercial use, change of use, or qualifying construction or tenant-improvement project on unincorporated Santa Clara County land needs a zoning clearance from the Department of Planning & Development, and many commercial uses need a discretionary Use Permit and/or Architecture & Site Approval on top of that; a limited set of low-intensity uses, such as qualifying home occupations, are allowed by right. Auto-repair has an explicit use table under Zoning Ordinance §2.40.020: it is not allowed in neighborhood-commercial or administrative/professional-office zones, is allowed in general-commercial zones with a Use Permit, and is allowed in light- or heavy-industrial zones with Architecture & Site Approval. A childcare centre sited in a residential zone commonly triggers a discretionary Use Permit, with the specific zoning-district threshold set case by case by County Planning. Application fees are set by the Board of Supervisors as part of the department's own fee schedule and vary by permit type and project size rather than by a single flat county-code figure. A food-truck operator only falls under this record if its commissary or base of operations sits on unincorporated county land; each of the 15 incorporated cities runs its own separate zoning process for a business physically located inside city limits.
Alcohol Sales — Zoning Determination / Use Permit (standing establishment)
A restaurant, coffee shop or retail store proposing to sell alcohol on unincorporated Santa Clara County land needs a zoning determination, and often a discretionary Use Permit, from the Department of Planning & Development before the state Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) license can be used at that location — this county zoning/CUP layer applies to the unincorporated area only, since each of the county's 15 incorporated cities runs its own separate zoning and CUP review for alcohol sales within its own limits. Santa Clara County is also a quota-restricted area for certain ABC license types under state rules, meaning new licenses of those types are capped and often require a public-convenience-or-necessity finding, though the quota itself is a state ABC rule rather than a county one. The zoning/CUP application fee is set by the Board of Supervisors as part of the department's fee schedule that prices its other discretionary land-use permits, rather than one flat alcohol-specific figure. This record covers only the county's own zoning/CUP layer; the state ABC license fee itself, and the Sheriff's Office one-day event liquor permit (recorded separately, with a wider service area than this zoning layer), are both outside this record's scope.
General Business License — Santa Clara County position
No fee applies. Santa Clara County's own Department of Planning & Development states plainly that no county business license is required to operate in unincorporated Santa Clara County. This affirmative no-license position covers only the unincorporated area — San Martin and the other unincorporated pockets of the county — because every one of the county's 15 incorporated cities (San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Milpitas, Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Campbell, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga) runs its own separate city business-tax or business-license scheme, which is not covered on this county page. What the County does license and permit is a specific, named list of programs — zoning and use-permit review, DEH's food, body-art, medical-waste and hazardous-materials programs, fire-prevention permits through the County Fire Department, and a handful of others — each listed separately where it reaches one of the ten industries covered here.
Fire Clearance for State-Licensed Childcare Facilities
California law requires a fire-safety inspection and clearance before a childcare facility can receive its state Community Care Licensing Division license, and again before certain later changes such as a licensed-capacity increase — 22 CCR §101171 sets that state-level trigger. In Santa Clara County, the county-level clearance for a childcare facility sited in the unincorporated area comes from the County Fire Marshal's Office, part of the Department of Planning & Development, which states directly that it 'can only inspect your facility if you are located in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County.' A childcare facility inside any of the 15 incorporated cities instead gets its fire clearance from that city's own fire authority — the Santa Clara County Fire Department in the seven cities it serves by contract, or that city's independent fire department in the other eight — not from this county office. The inspection fee itself is set by Board of Supervisors resolution as part of the department's fee schedule rather than by a flat county-code dollar figure. The organizational relationship between this Fire Marshal's Office and the Santa Clara County Fire Department's own Fire Prevention division is not itself the subject of this record; both offices and their described functions are accurately reflected here by geography alone.
Contact
- Jurisdiction
- Santa Clara County
- Phone
- Not verified — use the website
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.
- 22 CCR §101171, fire clearance for state-licensed community care facilitiesCornell Law School Legal Information Institute (state regulation mirror) · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
- Adult Use and Alcohol Sales planning studiesCounty of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
- Fire Clearance for State-Licensed FacilitiesCounty of Santa Clara Fire Marshal's Office · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
- Operate a Business — states no county business licence is required for unincorporated-area businessesCounty of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
- Use Permit FAQCounty of Santa Clara Department of Planning and Development · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-28
Other offices serving Santa Clara County
The full permit list for this jurisdiction
Industry permit lists that include this agency
- Restaurants in Santa Clara County
- Coffee shops in Santa Clara County
- Retail stores in Santa Clara County
- Salons and barbers in Santa Clara County
- Food trucks in Santa Clara County
- Fitness studios in Santa Clara County
- Childcare centres in Santa Clara County
- Contractors and trades in Santa Clara County
- Auto repair shops in Santa Clara County
- Veterinary clinics in Santa Clara County
California jurisdictions
Commercial Compliance Hub publishes information, not legal advice. Requirements change — confirm anything you rely on with the issuing agency before you file.