Permit timeline planner
The full sequence from jurisdiction check to final sign-off, so nothing is discovered late.
What this tool does and does not do. It reasons over general US building-code practice and routes you to your own jurisdiction's official page. It does not know your local exemption thresholds, fee amounts or review times, and it does not invent them. The office with jurisdiction is the only authority on those.
Why there are no durations here
Review times vary by jurisdiction, by season, by current staffing and — most of all — by how complete your submission was. A directory attaching "two to four weeks" to plan review would be inventing it. Ask the office for their current review time when you submit; most will tell you, and that answer is worth more than any published average.
Where the calendar time actually goes
Rarely in the first review. It goes in the correction round: comments come back, you respond partially, the reviewer asks again, and each cycle adds a full queue wait. Respond to every comment in one complete resubmission with the changes clouded or itemised, and you often halve the total elapsed time.
The step people skip
Confirming jurisdiction and zoning before drawings are commissioned. A setback or lot-coverage problem discovered after design means redrawing and re-reviewing, and applying to the wrong office entirely means starting over. Ten minutes at the beginning routinely saves weeks.
Parallel tracks
On new construction and commercial work, the building permit is often not the critical path. Driveway access, stormwater connection, utility approvals, fire district review and health department sign-off run on their own timelines through their own agencies. Start those in parallel rather than in sequence.