How long does a building permit take on average?

Based on our analysis of 1.4 million permits, the median building permit approval time varies widely by city — from 22 days in Austin to 209 days in San Francisco. The national median across these cities is roughly 53 days.

Which city has the fastest building permit approvals?

Austin, Texas has the fastest median building permit approval time at 22 days (P50), based on 514,000 permits analyzed. Miami follows at 27 days median.

Why does San Francisco take so long for building permits?

San Francisco has a median permit approval time of 209 days, with the 90th percentile reaching 621 days. This is driven by extensive environmental review, historic preservation requirements, and multi-layer approval processes.

What is the difference between P50, P75, and P90 permit times?

P50 (median) means half of permits are approved faster than this time. P75 means 75% of permits are approved within this window. P90 means 90% of permits — only the most complex 10% take longer. P90 is the most realistic planning number for complex projects.

How can I speed up my building permit approval?

Submit complete applications with all required documentation, hire experienced expediters in complex jurisdictions, respond to corrections quickly, and use data tools like Prevesta to understand realistic timelines before you start.

How Long Does a Building Permit Take in 2026? Data from 1.8M+ Permits

Why permit timelines matter

Building permit timelines are one of the most misunderstood variables in real estate development. Ask a contractor how long a permit takes and you will get an answer based on anecdote. Ask a city planning department and you will get a theoretical best case. Neither is particularly useful for financial planning.

Every week a permit is delayed costs money. Carrying costs on land, idle construction crews, expiring rate locks, and missed lease-up windows compound quickly. On a $2M project with 8% financing, each month of permit delay costs roughly $13,300 in interest alone — before accounting for opportunity cost.

To bring clarity to this, we analyzed 1.4 million building permits across seven of the largest U.S. permit-issuing jurisdictions. Instead of averages, which are skewed by outliers, we report P50 (median), P75, and P90 timelines — giving you a realistic range for planning.

Building permit timelines by city

City	Median (P50)	P75	P90	Permits
Austin	22 days	72 days	179 days	514K
Miami	27 days	49 days	75 days	6K
Chicago	41 days	97 days	186 days	55K
Los Angeles	53 days	98 days	158 days	13K
Seattle	75 days	169 days	315 days	46K
New York City	79 days	178 days	344 days	45K
San Francisco	209 days	393 days	621 days	1.1M

The data tells a clear story: permit timelines vary dramatically by jurisdiction. A project that would be permitted in under a month in Austin could take nearly seven months in San Francisco — at the median. At the P90 level, which captures most real-world complexity, the gap widens further.

City-by-city breakdown

Austin — 22 days median

Austin is the fastest major city in our dataset. With a median of just 22 days across 514,000 permits, the city has built a permitting apparatus that matches its rapid growth. However, the P90 of 179 days reveals that complex projects — particularly those requiring environmental or zoning variances — can still face extended timelines. The spread between P50 and P90 (157 days) suggests a bimodal distribution: most permits fly through, but a meaningful minority get stuck.

Miami — 27 days median

Miami stands out not just for its speed but for its consistency. The gap between P50 (27 days) and P90 (75 days) is only 48 days — the tightest spread of any city in our analysis. This predictability is valuable. When you can confidently tell a lender that your permit will arrive within 75 days in the worst case, it changes how you structure the deal. Note that our Miami dataset (6,000 permits) is smaller than other cities, so these numbers may shift as we ingest more records.

Chicago — 41 days median

Chicago lands in the middle of the pack at 41 days median, though the P90 of 186 days indicates significant variance for complex applications. The city's aldermanic system, where local aldermen have considerable influence over zoning and development approvals, introduces a political dimension to permit timelines that pure processing speed does not capture. Projects requiring zoning changes or planned development approvals should plan for substantially longer timelines.

Los Angeles — 53 days median

Los Angeles processes permits at a median of 53 days across 13,000 permits in our dataset. The relatively tight P90 of 158 days (compared to cities like Seattle and NYC) reflects recent efforts by the LA Department of Building and Safety to streamline processing. Still, the city's layered approval requirements — LADBS, planning, fire, and often the Coastal Commission for westside projects — mean that multi-agency permits take considerably longer than the median suggests.

Seattle — 75 days median

Seattle's 75-day median and 315-day P90 reflect a city struggling with permitting capacity amid sustained construction demand. The 240-day spread between P50 and P90 is one of the largest in our dataset, making it difficult to plan with precision. Design review, SEPA determinations, and the city's mandatory housing affordability requirements all add layers of review that extend timelines for projects above a certain scale.

New York City — 79 days median

New York's 79-day median across 45,000 permits masks enormous variance. The P90 of 344 days — nearly a full year — reflects the complexity of building in the most regulated construction market in the country. DOB NOW has improved tracking and submission, but the underlying review process remains lengthy for anything beyond simple alterations. Projects requiring Landmarks Preservation Commission review, BSA variances, or ULURP can extend well beyond even the P90.

San Francisco — 209 days median

San Francisco is in a category of its own. A median of 209 days means that half of all permits take longer than seven months. At P90, you are looking at 621 days — nearly two years. Our San Francisco dataset is the largest at 1.1 million permits, giving us high confidence in these numbers. The city's discretionary review processes, environmental review under CEQA, and historic preservation requirements create a permitting environment where timelines are both long and unpredictable. For developers, this means that carrying cost assumptions must be drastically different from other markets.

How to use this data for planning

When building a project pro forma, use the P75 as your base-case timeline and the P90 as your downside scenario. The median is useful for understanding the typical experience but is not conservative enough for financial planning. A permit that arrives at P50 is a pleasant surprise; a budget built around P50 is a liability.

These numbers represent all permit types in aggregate. Specific permit categories — new construction vs. alterations, residential vs. commercial, as-of-right vs. discretionary — have meaningfully different distributions. Prevesta breaks these down at the city and permit-type level so you can model the timeline that matches your specific project.

What drives the differences?

Three factors explain most of the variance in permit timelines across cities:

Discretionary vs. ministerial review. Cities where permits are approved ministerially (staff checks code compliance and issues the permit) are consistently faster. Cities with discretionary review (planning commissions, design review boards, public hearings) are slower and less predictable.
Staffing and technology. Austin and Miami have invested heavily in digital permitting systems and adequate staffing ratios. San Francisco and New York still rely on processes that create bottlenecks at multiple review stages.
Regulatory layering. Cities with multiple overlapping review requirements — environmental, historic, design, accessibility, fire — naturally take longer. Each additional review layer is not just additive but multiplicative, as coordination between agencies introduces its own delays.

Methodology

This analysis is based on 1.4 million building permits sourced from public municipal records. We measure the time from application submission to permit issuance. Permits that were withdrawn, denied, or still pending are excluded. All data is current as of February 2026. Percentile calculations use linear interpolation.

We continuously ingest new permit data as cities publish it. The numbers in this post reflect a point-in-time snapshot. For current, filterable data, visit the city pages linked above or explore the full dataset on Prevesta.