Des Moines
City of Des Moines Development Services Department, Permit and Development Center
In short
City of Des Moines Development Services Department, Permit and Development Center issues 3 permits we publish for Des Moines, last verified 2026-09-10. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Certificate of Occupancy | City of Des Moines Development Services Department, Permit and Development Center | $51.50 flat | one-time, no expiration | 2026-09-10 |
| Building Permit (Commercial) | City of Des Moines Development Services Department, Permit and Development Center | Priced by total construction valuation: less than $2,000 is $66.31 flat; $2,000.01–$25,000 is $66.31 plus $9.33 per additional $1,000 or fraction; $25,000.01–$50,000 is $280.04 plus $7.98 per additional $1,000 or fraction; $50,000.01–$100,000 is $478.95 plus $6.63 per additional $1,000 or fraction; $100,000.01–$500,000 is $810.49 plus $4.00 per additional $1,000 or fraction; above $500,000 is $2,401.19 plus $2.71 per additional $1,000 or fraction. A Plan Checking Fee of 65% of the building permit fee applies to any project valued over $1,000, and an Energy Review Fee of 2% of the building permit fee (minimum $21.75) applies to any building with heated or cooled enclosed space. | one-time, per project | 2026-09-10 |
| Contractor Licensing — State Board Licenses Apply (Des Moines)only if it applies to you | City of Des Moines Development Services Department, Permit and Development Center | No fee | not applicable | 2026-09-10 |
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
Certificate of Occupancy
A Temporary Certificate of Occupancy is priced separately and higher for a commercial space than the standard certificate: $103.00 for commercial, $51.50 for residential. A Permit Extension Fee of $51.50 (commercial) or $25.75 (residential) applies if more time is needed to complete permitted work.
Building Permit (Commercial)
This is the current fee schedule effective 1 January 2026, itself an update of an earlier '2-1-25' schedule — figures rise roughly 3.5% between the two, consistent with an indexed annual adjustment rather than a one-off change. Electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits are priced separately on their own base-fee-plus-unit-fee tables within the same document rather than folded into this figure. Applied for through the Development Services Customer Self-Service Portal.
Contractor Licensing — State Board Licenses Apply (Des Moines)
There is no city contractor license fee, because under the Municipal Code the city has stopped issuing its own contractor licenses. The ordinance text is explicit: § 26-450(c) states 'No new electrical contractor licenses shall be issued by the city,' and §§ 26-550/26-670 permit only a business 'holding a mechanical or plumbing contractor license issued by the Iowa plumbing and mechanical systems licensing board' to pull a permit. In every trade, the city simply checks for the state board license already recorded at the state layer rather than layering a separate city credential on top of it — a genuinely different, simpler answer than several other Iowa cities that do run their own parallel contractor-licensing programme.
Contact
- Jurisdiction
- Des Moines
- Phone
- (515) 283-4200
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.
- Code of Ordinances, Chapter 26 — Buildings and Building Regulations (2023 updates, markup version), including the sign-permit requirement (§ 26-802), the electrical/mechanical/plumbing contractor-license sections (§§ 26-450, 26-550, 26-670) and the general permit-fee provisions (§§ 26-135–26-143)City of Des Moines · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-10
- Permit and Development Center — programme overview, contact information and Customer Self-Service PortalCity of Des Moines, Development Services Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-10
- Permit and Development Center Permit Fees — New Fees 1-1-26 (commercial building-permit valuation table, plan-checking fee, energy review fee, certificate of occupancy fee, permit extension and reinstatement fees, overtime inspection fee, temporary certificate of occupancy fee, wireless tower fees, and right-of-way obstruction permit fees)City of Des Moines, Development Services Department · primary source · retrieved 2026-09-10
Other offices serving Des Moines
The full permit list for this jurisdiction
Industry permit lists that include this agency
Iowa jurisdictions
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