How Long Does Plan Check Take? City Targets (2026)

Most building departments post turnaround targets by project type. The table below shows a sample from the pages we found. These are the cities' own estimates, and each one is subject to staffing and workload.

Two patterns show up. First, the range is wide: Walnut Creek says a first review can take anywhere from 8 to 28 business days depending on project type, per its turnaround times page. Second, the unit matters. Business days skip weekends and city holidays. Calendar days do not. A "30 day" target in one city and a "30 working day" target in another are not the same schedule.

Note: Every city counts differently. Some start the clock at application intake, others when the application is deemed complete or paid. Read the footnotes on the page before you quote a number to a client.

Published targets assume a complete submittal and normal workload. Four things move the actual time.

Routing. Plans that go to fire, engineering or planning pick up time. Belvedere notes that large projects often need multi-department review before a permit can issue, in its plan check FAQ. Coral Springs, Florida lists paper plan review at up to 15 days because plans are routed by hand between departments, versus up to 7 days when all disciplines review electronically at once. See its plan review process page.

Project size and complexity. Irvine's published answer allows more time for large or complicated projects, per its plan check FAQ.

Submittal quality. Salinas says that substantially incomplete projects are returned before submittal, and that when a poor submittal needs another review, the next cycle equals the time of the first review. See the Salinas turnaround times. That rule turns a 10-day resubmittal into a second full-length review.

Staffing and workload. Raleigh describes its review benchmarks as goals, not guaranteed turnaround times, on its turnaround and dashboards page. The practical read: a target is the city's aim, and you should add a margin.

Many departments offer a quicker path for smaller projects. If your work qualifies, it can cut weeks from the schedule.

• Over-the-counter review. Santa Cruz lists over-the-counter review at 1 to 5 working days, and Berkeley's over-the-counter option is next-day, per the pages linked above.
• Express or small-project programs. Raleigh's Commercial Pony Express Review covers alterations up to 10,000 square feet, with an initial review of five business days and additional reviews of three. Details are on its Pony Express page.
• Paid expedited review. Riverside says expedited plan review services may be available for an additional fee, per its plan review page. Foster City's expedited track, in the table above, shows the effect: 20 business days against 25 for new construction.

Each of these has eligibility rules and often a fee. Ask the permit center whether your scope qualifies before you design the schedule around it. If your project is large enough that a permit expediter is worth considering, ask them which tracks the city actually grants.

Plan check rarely ends after one pass. A first review produces a correction letter, you revise, and the city reviews again. Raleigh's September 2025 presentation to its development advisory committee describes a re-review fee triggered when Building requires a resubmittal after the second review cycle, a policy it calls an existing fee now applied consistently. That is one city's rule, but it shows why a third cycle is expensive in both time and money.

A defensible schedule for a client looks like this:

1. Take the city's first-review target for your project type.
2. Add your own time to respond. Raleigh's Express Review gives applicants three business days to return a revised set, which shows how short the window can be on fast tracks. Standard tracks are less strict, but your design team still has to turn comments around.
3. Add the city's resubmittal target.
4. Decide whether to plan a third cycle. If the project routes to several departments, assume you may need one.
5. Add the time for permit issuance and fee payment after approval.

Santa Cruz's published numbers give a concrete example for standard new building construction: 15 business days for the first review plus 10 for the second is 25 business days of city time. It does not include your response time or issuance. The same arithmetic with Foster City's standard track gives 35 business days, and with Berkeley's standard permit type, 45 working days.

You can't control the city's queue. You can control what lands in it.

• Check the submittal list first. Confirm which divisions get your plans and what each one requires. Plans stalled waiting on a fire or engineering sign-off are a common complaint in consultant writing, such as this JDJ Consulting article. Treat that as practitioner advice, not measured data.
• Submit a complete set. Missing sheets, unsigned drawings and absent calculations stop reviews or hold up routing to other departments. See the broader how to get a building permit steps for what to gather first.
• Respond to every comment, in order. Responses that don't clearly address prior comments add review cycles, because reviewers have to repeat themselves. Our guide to responding to a plan check correction letter covers the format.
• Ask for a pre-submittal meeting where the department offers one.
• Track the clock yourself. Write down the submittal date, the target date and the date each comment set came back. A shared tracker beats a memory of an email. The correction tracking overview explains the idea, and Olumba's permit tracking can hold those dates per project if you don't already have a place for them.