Short answer: on a $750,000 remodel, Issaquah’s building permit and plan review fees come to $10,200.09, and $10,818.60 once the 6 percent technology surcharge and the $6.50 state fee are added. Plumbing and mechanical, priced on counts I assumed, bring it to $12,138.32. If the $6.49 in Ordinance 3075 is the rate the city applies, the building line is $10,709.28. That is the city’s own documents applied to $750,000, so it is an estimate. Trees, shoreline, utility and land use charges come on top, depending on your lot.

Piper Cole Architects is based in Kirkland. I design and administer construction, and I do not build. My fixed fee for design and permit is a separate line from the city’s fees. Every figure below comes from a City of Issaquah document or ordinance I read on October 19, 2026. The $750,000 value and the fixture counts are my assumptions. The city’s online code site stopped my reader with a bot check, so for code text I read the ordinances on the city’s document server. Zoning, slope and tree rules are in my Issaquah zoning and permit guide, and what decides how big a remodel can get is on my Issaquah remodel architect page.

How Issaquah sets the building permit fee

The city’s Construction Permit Fees page sends a single family remodel to its Tenant Improvement Fee Schedule, which lists the lines in this order: a building permit fee read from the valuation chart, a plan review fee of 65 percent of it, mechanical and plumbing permits with their own plan review if required, fire fees, a technology surcharge of 6 percent of everything above that line, and a state surcharge.

The first line comes from the Building Permit Fee Chart, updated 11/20/2025. The bands that matter at this size:

The chart prints the first base as “$1.381.06”, which I read as $1,381.06. The bands do not join: $500,000 gives $4,617.06 in the lower band, while the next band starts from $4,496.87. Ordinance 3075’s $7.79 would reach $4,497.06, 19 cents away. The “or fraction” wording means $750,001 pays one more $6.74.

Which document each number comes from

Several documents set Issaquah’s remodel fees, and they do not always agree.

Three conflicts matter. The city’s remodel page still lists a 5 percent technology surcharge. Ordinance 3075 says in its recitals that the 5 percent fell short of costs and raised it by 1 percent, so I use 6. The Tenant Improvement schedule lists a $25 state surcharge, but Table D in Ordinance 3138 sets $6.50 for “residential only building permits” and $25 for other building permits, so I read a house remodel as $6.50. The third, the $6.74 rate, is under “What I could not confirm”.

How the city values a remodel

For new construction the city points to the ICC Building Valuation table, the February 2022 data, which lists one and two family houses (R-3, type VB) at $150.87 per square foot. The table calls itself an average, not an estimating guide, and I do not know whether reviewers value an addition this way.

For a remodel, no page I could read says how the value is set. Table A points to section 109.4 of the Construction Administrative Code, which I could not read. Bring your builder’s bid and ask the permit technicians in writing which value they accept.

An addition goes to the city’s New Construction and Addition permit, whose fee estimator is the New Single-Family Fee Schedule, built for a new house on a vacant lot. If your project does both, ask which schedule applies to which part.

Worked example: a $750,000 remodel

Assumptions: one house, an interior remodel that adds no floor area, a $750,000 value the city accepts, regular plan review. The arithmetic:

That is 1.44 percent of the value. The same method at other values:

My Kirkland, Bellevue, Seattle and Redmond fee pages work the same value, but each city builds its lines differently.

Plumbing, mechanical and electrical

The city’s remodel submittal packet says all remodel building permits include plumbing and mechanical in one package, with a fixture count form. The plumbing and mechanical schedules, both updated 1/1/2026, price remodel work by item:

My assumed scope, not a quote: 12 plumbing fixtures and 6 mechanical appliances. Each lands under the $422.04 cap; a larger scope stops growing at the cap on the permit line itself.

If the city needs no plan review for the trades, each is $399.92 and the pair is $799.84. The Tenant Improvement schedule says electrical permits are “issued and inspected by Washington State LNI”, so they are not a city fee and I do not price them.

Trees, shoreline, utilities and the rest

These sit outside the building line, and each applies only if your project triggers it. Amounts come from the Land Use Fee Schedule and Site Work and Utility schedule, both effective April 7, 2026, and the fire permit fees, updated 1/1/2026. Land use and site work lines carry the 6 percent surcharge unless footnoted.

Impact fees and the new house cliff

The Tenant Improvement schedule lists school, fire and parks impact fees only “if change of occupancy”, so an interior remodel of a house with no change of use shows none. The impact fee handout is broader: fees are due on any construction or reconstruction that needs a development permit, with “limited exemptions” such as affordable housing and accessory dwelling units. I could not read the impact fee chapters, so for an addition, ask in writing.

For scale, a new house: on the 1/1/2026 handout the traffic, fire, school and parks fees for one residential unit run from $9,093.78 at the per-unit minimums to $37,590.00 at the maximums, and the school fee for a single family house is $0. The handout also lists general government, police and bike and pedestrian mitigation fees, which I left out. The New Single-Family Fee Schedule also lists utility charges for a new house on a vacant lot in the city’s water service area: $19,496.97 for water at a 3/4 inch meter ($9,644.97 + $8,852.00 + $1,000), $4,410 for sewer and $4,697 for storm, $28,603.97 together, before meter installation and King County’s sewer capacity charge. A remodel owes none of that unless it becomes a new house; read when a remodel counts as a new house.

When you pay, and what extra reviews cost

The Tenant Improvement schedule asks for a plan review deposit equal to the plan review fee at application, credited when the permit is approved. On my example that is $4,018.22. The remodel packet says fees are invoiced after the submittal is deemed sufficient, and the Target Review Timelines, updated April 2026, say review times begin with payment. My Issaquah remodel page has the weeks.

Table D charges $188.64 per hour, or the consultant’s charge, for plan review beyond two cycles, so ten extra hours is 10 × $188.64 = $1,886.40. Card payments carry a 3.00 percent service fee from January 1, 2026, which is $120.55 on the plan review fee, and a check avoids it.

What I could not confirm

• The $6.74 rate. The chart prints $8.09 and $6.74 for the two middle bands. Ordinance 3075, the adopted text I could read, prints $7.79 and $6.49 with no strike-through, while it raised every other figure in Table A. I use the chart because it is the city’s later published document and its two rates are each 3.85 percent above the ordinance’s, the size of that ordinance’s other increases ($5.19 became $5.39). That is my reading, not the city’s word. At $6.49 the permit fee is $4,496.87 + (250 × $6.49) = $6,119.37, $62.50 lower, and the building line is $10,709.28, $109.32 lower. The chart’s own Quick Calculator holds older numbers, so it settles nothing. Ask the Permit Center which rate it applies.
• The ordinance behind the 2026 amounts. The trade schedules and Table D are 2.7 percent above Ordinance 3075’s 2025 amounts ($61.23 became $62.88), matching what Ordinance 3138 recites, but the chart’s bases equal the 2025 bases. I could not read Ordinance 3120, which 3138 recites as the November 10, 2025 update, so I cannot say whether Table A also rose 2.7 percent on January 1, 2026. If it did, the fee is higher than I show.
• How a remodel is valued, because section 109.4 and the live code were not readable to me.
• Whether fire fees apply to a house remodel. The Tenant Improvement schedule lists a Fire Review Fee and a Fire Inspection Fee and points to the fire schedule, which lists building plan review at 15 percent of the “BLD Review Fee”. I left it out.
• Whether trade plan review applies, and the $11.32 single family plan delivery charge in Table D, which I did not add.
• Impact fees on an addition, and which site work or land use lines your remodel triggers.

City fees, my fee and construction cost

A remodel budget has three lines. The city line leaves out trees, utilities, land use and the state electrical permit.

Your builder’s contract should say in writing whether permit fees sit inside the bid or outside it. The wider budget is in my guide to planning a million dollar remodel.

Questions