What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in Salt Lake City?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 12 records listed for a contractor or trade in Salt Lake City, UT, 3 apply to every business of this type and 9 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 3 that always apply, 1 carry a flat fee, coming to $34.00. That is a floor, not a total. 3 of the 12 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 1 has 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.

Permits for a contractor or trade in Salt Lake City, UT come from 5 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, Utah Division of Corporations and Commercial Code, Utah Division of Professional Licensing. 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 — Construction Business451 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 1 permit on this page: Building Permit (Commercial)451 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
• 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 Division of Professional LicensingIssues 4 permits on this page: HVAC Contractor Licence, General Contractor Licence, Electrical Contractor Licence, Plumbing Contractor Licence160 East 300 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 · (801) 530-6628commerce.utah.gov/dopl

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 $32 before September 2025 — a flat annual add-on, not a gross-receipts-based schedule (a claim to that effect circulates on third-party contractor-licensing sites but does not match the city's own published fee). This is the only Salt Lake City-specific licensing touchpoint found for contractors beyond the base business licence: no separate local contractor exam, registration card, or bond was found. A permit applicant must show proof of an active Utah DOPL contractor licence (recorded at the state layer) at business-licence and building-permit application.

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.

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.

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.

The same $175-and-$128 price as Utah's other licensed trades, on the same shared renewal date. Qualifying is more flexible here than for electrical or plumbing: a candidate can pass the state's HVAC trade exam and hold a Certified Natural Gas Technician credential, show four thousand hours of qualified HVAC employment, or qualify through a qualifier who already holds an active Utah journeyman, master or residential plumber licence.

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.

Utah licenses contractors by classification rather than by one general category, and every classification shares the identical $175-to-apply, $128-to-renew price — general engineering, general building, residential and small commercial, electrical, plumbing and HVAC all cost the same. What differs by classification is the path to qualify: a general classification needs two years or four thousand hours of paid construction experience, a twenty-five hour pre-licensure course with an extra five hours of business and law for the general classifications, a passing score on the state's business and law exam, and general liability insurance of at least a million dollars per occurrence and three million aggregate. Every licence renews on the same shared date, 30 November of even-numbered years, regardless of when it was first issued.

Priced identically to general contracting, $175 to apply and $128 to renew on the same shared 30 November even-year date, in either a general or a residential-only classification. The one requirement specific to this trade is that whoever qualifies the licence must already hold an active Utah Master Electrician licence — the contractor licence cannot be obtained on the strength of the business alone.

The same $175-and-$128 structure as electrical contracting, in a general or residential-only classification, and the same design: the licence's qualifier must already hold an active Utah Master Plumber licence rather than the business qualifying on its own.