Los Angeles Permit Expediter
National Building Permits files and tracks building permits with LADBS for contractors, architects, and property owners across the City of Los Angeles. We handle the submittal, the plan check corrections, and the agency clearances that hold LA permits up.
- 50-State Coverage
- Single Point of Contact
- Current on LA Rebuild Orders
Permit Expediting in the City of Los Angeles
A permit expediter manages your building permit application from preparation through issuance. In Los Angeles that means filing with LADBS through ePlanLA or PermitLA, choosing the right plan check pathway, tracking corrections as reviewers issue them, and chasing the separate agency clearances that a Los Angeles permit needs before it can be issued.
The work is procedural, not preferential. No expediter moves a project ahead of others in LADBS’s queue, and none can shorten a published review period. What we remove is the avoidable part: applications rejected at intake for missing documents, correction notices nobody is watching for, resubmittals that miss the department’s format, and clearances nobody started until plan check was already finished.
In Los Angeles, most lost time is not plan check. It is the clearances and corrections around it.
Who Issues Your Permit in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is not one permitting authority. Before anything is filed, the first question is which agency actually has jurisdiction over your address, because filing with the wrong one is not a slow permit. It is a rejected application.
Inside City of LA Limits — LADBS
LADBS LADBS issues permits for private property construction, alteration, and repair inside the City of Los Angeles. Applications file electronically through ePlanLA for plan check projects, or PermitLA for express permits.
- Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety
- Metro (Downtown) Development Services Center
- 201 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
- Phone: 3-1-1 within the City of Los Angeles, or (213) 473-3231 from outside the city
- Closed weekends and Los Angeles City holidays
- Official site: dbs.lacity.gov
Unincorporated LA County — County Public Works
Addresses outside any city are handled by LA County Public Works, Building and Safety Division, filing through EPIC-LA rather than ePlanLA.
- LA County Public Works, Building and Safety Division
- 900 S. Fremont Avenue, 3rd Floor, Alhambra, CA 91803
- Building Plan Check: (626) 458-3173
- Business hours: 7 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday
- Over-the-counter plan review: 7 a.m. – 11 a.m., Monday through Thursday
- Serves unincorporated communities through 10 district offices, plus 8 contract city offices
The Other 87 Cities — Their Own Departments
Los Angeles County contains 88 incorporated cities, each with its own building department. Santa Monica, Pasadena, Burbank, Glendale, Long Beach, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Malibu, Culver City and 78 others are not LADBS and not LA County. More than 65 percent of the county, 2,653.5 square miles in total, is unincorporated, covering roughly 120 to 125 separate unincorporated areas.
Within the City of Los Angeles, LADBS runs five Development Services Centers: Metro (Downtown) at 201 and 221 N. Figueroa St.; Van Nuys at 6262 Van Nuys Blvd.; West LA at 1828 Sawtelle Blvd.; South LA at 8475 S. Vermont Ave.; and San Pedro at 638 S. Beacon St. Services differ by center, and counter hours vary between them. Send us your project address and we will confirm the correct authority and the correct center before anything is filed.
Rebuilding After the January 2025 Wildfires
Expedited rebuild pathways are active in the City of Los Angeles.
Under Emergency Executive Order No. 1, Return and Rebuild (issued January 13, 2025, revised March 18, 2025), City departments are required to review complete rebuild applications within 30 days and issue permit clearances within 5 days. The order streamlines “like-for-like” rebuilds within 110% of the original home’s footprint and height, extends eligibility to primary residences, accessory structures, and ADUs, waives certain environmental and hearing requirements, and allows temporary housing during construction.
Under Emergency Executive Order No. 7, collection of permit fees is currently suspended for projects repairing, restoring, demolishing, or replacing property substantially damaged or destroyed by the wildfires, for owners who held the property on or before January 7, 2025.
Emergency Executive Order No. 8 extends expedited pathways to single-family homeowners in fire-impacted coastal areas, allowing compliant non like-for-like projects to bypass local Coastal Act and CEQA review while retaining streamlined environmental protections.
Source: LADBS Implementation Guidelines. Executive orders and emergency programs change — confirm current terms before relying on them.
The City of Los Angeles One-Stop Rebuilding Center is at 1828 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025, open Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. LADBS also runs a Self-Certification Pilot Program, an AI Pre-Plan Check Program, and Standard Plan Programs offering pre-approved plans that can be used without a full plan check. Program details, rebuild application links, and current guidance are on the LADBS Wildfire Rebuilding & Recovery hub.
The rebuild footprint crosses jurisdictions, which is the same jurisdiction problem in a more urgent form. Seven separate One-Stop Permit Centers serve it, and which one applies depends on your address rather than on which fire affected your property.
| Center | Address |
|---|---|
| City of Los Angeles One-Stop Rebuilding Center | 1828 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025 |
| Altadena One-Stop Permit Center | 464 W Woodbury Rd., Suite 210, Altadena, CA 91001 |
| Calabasas One-Stop Permit Center | 27001 Agoura Road, Suite 250, Calabasas, CA 91302 |
| City of Malibu Rebuild Center | 23805 Stuart Ranch Road, Suite 240, Malibu, CA 90265 |
| City of Pasadena Permit Center | 175 Garfield Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101 |
| City of Sierra Madre Permits & Licenses | 232 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024 |
| Palisades Inspections & Permitting Support (UUROC) | 16925 Marquez Avenue, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 |
Center list published by the State of California at ca.gov/lafires. Walk-ins accepted; appointments also available.
If your property was damaged or destroyed in the January 2025 wildfires, we file rebuild permits under these pathways. Send us the address and we will confirm which jurisdiction applies, whether the project qualifies as like-for-like within 110%, and what the current fee position is before anything is submitted.
How Los Angeles Building Permits Get Reviewed
LADBS does not run one review process. Which pathway your project takes decides how long it sits and what it costs, and picking the wrong one is a common reason a simple project ends up in a queue meant for complex ones.
| Pathway | What it covers | Filed through |
|---|---|---|
| Express Permits | Simple projects that do not require plan check. | PermitLA online |
| Counter Plan Check | Simple projects that require a plan check, issued over the counter. | Development Services Center |
| Expanded Counter Plan Check (ECPC) | Modest projects such as multi-floor tenant improvements and medium-sized home additions. | Development Services Center |
| Regular Plan Check | Large, complex projects. | ePlanLA |
| Preliminary Plan Check | Meeting with a plan check engineer to clarify LA Municipal Code requirements before submitting. | By appointment |
| Development Services Case Management | Guidance on code-related design questions plus coordination across City departments. | By arrangement |
Pathway descriptions from LADBS Plan Review & Permitting.
LADBS also runs specialized programs that change the process for particular project types: ADU permitting, Standard Plan Programs, the Soft-Story and Non-ductile Concrete mandatory retrofit programs, Adaptive Reuse, an affordable housing fast-track, Outdoor Dining (Al Fresco), the Restaurant and Small Business Express Program, and the SB 9 two-unit and urban lot split process.
Review times vary by pathway and project scope, and LADBS does not publish a single timeline that applies across them. Ask us for a current estimate for your project. Permit fees are set by LADBS and calculated on your project’s valuation and scope — LADBS publishes a permit fee calculator, and we will provide an exact quote after reviewing your project.
The Agency Clearances LA Permits Actually Wait On
Plan check approval is not permit issuance. Before LADBS issues a Los Angeles building permit, other City, County, and State agencies may each need to clear the project, and every one of them runs on its own timeline.
Depending on scope and location, clearances can involve the Department of City Planning, the Bureau of Engineering, the Los Angeles Fire Department, the Bureau of Sanitation, the Department of Water and Power, the Los Angeles Housing Department, the Bureau of Street Services, the Cultural Affairs Department, the Department of Transportation, Los Angeles World Airports, Metro, and the Los Angeles County Health Department. LADBS publishes a Building Permit Clearance Handbook covering the full list.
This is where most Los Angeles permit delay actually lives. A clearance that nobody started until plan check finished adds its full duration to the end of the project rather than running alongside it. Identifying which clearances a project needs before submittal, and starting them in parallel, is the largest single piece of time an expediter can recover in this city.
How We Handle Your Los Angeles Permit
1
Jurisdiction Check
We confirm whether your address falls under LADBS, LA County, or one of the other 87 cities, and identify the correct filing portal before anything else happens.
Pathway and Clearance Review
We determine which LADBS plan check pathway your project belongs in and identify every agency clearance it will need, so those start in parallel rather than after plan check.
Submittal
We assemble the package against the current intake checklist and file through ePlanLA or PermitLA, coordinating fees and confirming the application is accepted into review.
Correction Management
We track plan check corrections as reviewers issue them, coordinate responses with your design team, and file resubmittals in the format LADBS requires.
Clearances and Issuance
We carry outstanding agency clearances to completion, handle final fees and ready-to-issue paperwork, and deliver the permit.
Why Work With National Building Permits in Los Angeles
We Confirm Jurisdiction First
Los Angeles County has 88 incorporated cities plus unincorporated county areas. We establish which authority governs your address before a single document is prepared.
Clearances Run in Parallel
We identify required agency clearances at the start rather than after plan check, which is where most Los Angeles permit time is lost.
Permits and Licensing Together
A permit is only issued to a properly licensed contractor. We handle contractor licensing alongside permit filing, so a licensing gap does not stop the permit.
Straight Answers on Timing
We tell you what LADBS review actually involves and what can and cannot be compressed. You get a realistic schedule, not a promise.
Related Services
Nationwide Permit Expediting
How our permit expediting service works across all 50 states, including what the process covers and how expediters bill.
General Contractor Licensing
Los Angeles permits are issued to licensed contractors. If your license does not cover the jurisdiction, the permit stops there.
Deck Permit Applications
Deck projects trigger structural plan review in most jurisdictions and are among the most commonly rejected residential submittals.
Los Angeles Permit FAQs
A Los Angeles permit expediter prepares and files your building permit application with LADBS, selects the appropriate plan check pathway, tracks plan check corrections, coordinates the separate agency clearances a Los Angeles permit requires, and manages resubmittals through issuance. The role is procedural rather than preferential: an expediter cannot move a project ahead of others in the LADBS review queue and cannot shorten a published review period.
No. LADBS issues permits only for private property construction, alteration, and repair within the City of Los Angeles. Los Angeles County contains 88 incorporated cities, each operating its own building department, and unincorporated county areas are handled separately by LA County Public Works, Building and Safety Division in Alhambra. Confirming which authority governs your address is the first step on any Los Angeles project, because filing with the wrong agency results in a rejected application rather than a delayed one.
LADBS accepts plan check submittals electronically through ePlanLA, and express permits that do not require plan check through PermitLA. Projects can also be filed at one of five Development Services Centers: Metro (Downtown) at 201 N. Figueroa St., Van Nuys at 6262 Van Nuys Blvd., West LA at 1828 Sawtelle Blvd., South LA at 8475 S. Vermont Ave., and San Pedro at 638 S. Beacon St. Services and counter hours vary by center, and LADBS is closed weekends and Los Angeles City holidays.
An expediter cannot shorten LADBS’s review period, and any firm promising that should be treated with caution. What an expediter reduces is the avoidable time around review: applications rejected at intake, correction notices left unanswered, resubmittals that miss the department’s format, and agency clearances that were never started until plan check finished. In Los Angeles the clearance layer is usually the largest recoverable piece, because clearances that run in parallel with plan check do not add to the end of the schedule.
Yes. Under the City of Los Angeles Emergency Executive Order No. 1, City departments are required to review complete rebuild applications within 30 days and issue permit clearances within 5 days, with streamlined treatment for like-for-like rebuilds within 110% of the original footprint and height. Emergency Executive Order No. 7 currently suspends collection of permit fees for qualifying wildfire repair and replacement projects where the owner held the property on or before January 7, 2025. These orders change over time, so confirm current terms before relying on them. The City of Los Angeles One-Stop Rebuilding Center at 1828 Sawtelle Blvd. handles rebuild applications in person, and six other One-Stop Permit Centers serve the surrounding jurisdictions. National Building Permits files rebuild permits under these pathways — send us your project address through the quote form on this page and we will confirm which jurisdiction applies and what currently qualifies.
Get a Quote for Your Los Angeles Permit
Send us the project and we will confirm which authority has jurisdiction, which plan check pathway applies, and what it will cost to file.
No obligation. We confirm jurisdiction and requirements before anything is filed.