What permits do you need to open a childcare centre in Salt Lake City?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 11 records listed for a childcare centre in Salt Lake City, UT, 5 apply to every business of this type and 6 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 5 that always apply, 1 carry a flat fee, coming to $165.00. That is a floor, not a total. 4 of the 11 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 2 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

General Business Licence: A base Commercial licence fee of $193/year (risen from $187 before September 2025), plus $28/year for every full- or part-time employee once the business has more than one. Several specific trades owe a further named-category fee on top — see the individual industry records below.

Building Permit (Commercial): Priced by total project valuation on a stepped table: $54.55 flat up to $500; $54.55 plus $4 per additional $100 (or fraction) from $500.01-$2,000; $114.55 plus $20 per additional $1,000 (or fraction) from $2,000.01-$25,000; $574.55 plus $14 per additional $1,000 from $25,000.01-$50,000; $924.55 plus $10 per additional $1,000 from $50,000.01-$100,000; $1,424.55 plus $8 per additional $1,000 from $100,000.01-$500,000; $4,624.55 plus $7 per additional $1,000 from $500,000.01-$1,000,000; and $8,124.55 plus $5 per additional $1,000 (or fraction) above $1,000,000. A plan review fee of 65% of the building permit fee applies separately.

Zoning Verification Letter: $84 filing fee, plus $61 per hour of additional research time if the review extends beyond the first hour.

Child Care Centre Licence: $62 licence fee, plus $200 for a new centre and $1.75 for every child of licensed capacity

Permits for a childcare centre in Salt Lake City, UT come from 6 separate offices: City of Salt Lake City Finance Department, Business Licensing Division, City of Salt Lake City, Department of Community and Neighborhoods, Building Services Division, City of Salt Lake City, Planning Division, Salt Lake County Health Department, Environmental Health Division (Food Protection Bureau), Utah Division of Corporations and Commercial Code, Utah Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Licensing and Background Checks. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Salt Lake City Finance Department, Business Licensing DivisionIssues 2 permits on this page: General Business Licence, Business Licence Add-On — Childcare Facilities451 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 535-6644www.slc.gov/Finance/business-licensing
• City of Salt Lake City, Department of Community and Neighborhoods, Building Services DivisionIssues 2 permits on this page: Building Permit (Commercial), Certificate of Occupancy451 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 535-6000www.slc.gov/buildingservices/building-permits
• City of Salt Lake City, Planning DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: Zoning Verification Letter451 South State Street, Room 406, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 535-7757www.slc.gov/planning/zoning
• Salt Lake County Health Department, Environmental Health Division (Food Protection Bureau)Issues 1 permit on this page: Residential Care (Adult and Child) Food Service Inspection788 East Woodoak Lane (5380 South), Murray, UT 84107 · (385) 468-3845www.saltlakecounty.gov/health/food-protection
• Utah Division of Corporations and Commercial CodeIssues 4 permits on this page: General Business Licence (not required by Utah), Certificate of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual Renewal160 East 300 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 530-4849corporations.utah.gov
• Utah Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Licensing and Background ChecksIssues 1 permit on this page: Child Care Centre Licence195 North 1950 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116 · (801) 538-4242dlbc.utah.gov/home/office-of-licensing/child-care

Mandatory for anyone conducting business — even temporarily — within Salt Lake City's corporate limits, per the Finance Department's own description; the licensing review itself is what confirms zoning, fire-code and building-code compliance rather than a separate stand-alone certificate. A commonly repeated '$100 non-refundable application fee' appears on several third-party small-business sites but does not match the city's own Consolidated Fee Schedule, which is used here instead.

Risen from $160 before September 2025. This is on top of, not instead of, the Utah Division of Licensing and Background Checks (DLBC) child care facility licence recorded at the state layer, and separate again from the county health department's food-service inspection recorded below if the facility serves food.

Applied for through the Citizen Access Portal, with plans submitted through ProjectDox. Electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits are priced on their own separate tables within the same Consolidated Fee Schedule rather than folded into this figure. New structures, additions, commercial changes of use, and historic-district work should start at the Planning Counter (801-535-7700) before applying.

No fee is published for this certificate anywhere this research could find — Building Services' own page confirms the office issues Certificates of Occupancy and gives a direct contact (801-535-6000), but neither that page nor a section-by-section read of the Community and Neighborhoods portion of the Consolidated Fee Schedule (which otherwise itemizes building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, fencing and boarding-registration fees individually) names a separate dollar figure for it. It may be folded into the building permit fee already paid rather than charged again; confirm treatment for a specific project directly with Building Services before assuming it is free of charge.

An advisory letter documenting a property's current legal use, whether that use conforms to current zoning, and whether the building can be rebuilt, open permits, or associated variances exist — most often requested by lenders, buyers or appraisers rather than required to open a business. Submitted through the Citizen Access Portal; the Planning Division's own process states a 1-2 day turnaround once a planner is assigned. The Consolidated Fee Schedule prices a similarly-scoped 'Administrative Interpretation' at a slightly lower $81, which this file records as a related but distinct product rather than assuming it is the same fee under a different name.

This is the Health Department's own kitchen/food-service inspection for a childcare centre that prepares or serves food, additional to and separate from the Utah DLBC state child-care licence and the city's own Childcare Facilities business-licence fee recorded above — easy to miss because it is filed with the county health department rather than the childcare licensing agency, matching the pattern this project's Birmingham (Jefferson County), Alabama file already documents.

No fee, because Utah's state-level structure is entity registration rather than business licensing — the Division of Corporations frames the question as whether another unit of government requires registration, not as a licence the state itself grants for the right to operate. A city or county licence is the thing that actually functions as a general business licence for most Utah businesses.

Fifty-nine dollars, the same figure whether the entity is domestic or registering in from out of state. A corporation costs the identical $59 to form.

The same $59 as an LLC, and a nonprofit corporation costs the same again.

Eighteen dollars a year, the same figure for an LLC or a corporation, due in the entity's own anniversary month rather than a single date shared statewide. Missing it is not immediately fatal: the statute gives sixty days from the division's notice to cure before administrative dissolution follows, and reinstating after dissolution costs $54 for an LLC or a corporation. A dissolved entity's name, and any assumed names filed under it, cannot be reused by anyone else for two years afterward.

The base licence fee is a flat $62 whether a facility is a family home or a centre, but a centre pays two further charges a home does not: $200 as a one-time fee for a new centre or a change of location, and $1.75 for every child of approved capacity, applied at both first issue and renewal — a fifty-child centre pays $87.50 on that line alone. A family or home-based provider pays only the flat $62. Renewing more than thirty days late adds a $31 penalty plus, for a centre, seventy-five cents per child. Fingerprinting for a required background check is billed separately, at $42 per person.