Short answer: on a $750,000 remodel that adds no floor area, Redmond’s building permit, plan review and fire fees come to $15,363.85, and $15,984.90 once the 4 percent technology surcharge and the $6.50 state fee are added. That is an estimate: the city’s schedule applied to $750,000. Trades, trees, drainage and land use fees 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, about $10,000 to $200,000 depending on scope, is a separate line from the city’s fees. Every figure below comes from a City of Redmond document I read on October 15, 2026. The $750,000 value, the trade counts and the 600 square foot addition are my assumptions. I found no fee estimator: the city’s residential permits page says to email the permit technicians, so none of this is a city estimate. Confirm every amount before you budget. See also my Redmond zoning guide and Redmond remodel architect page.

How Redmond sets the building permit fee

The city’s Development Services Fees page links separate 2026 schedules for residential building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing and fire fees, each effective February 1, 2026. The land use sheet says the next update takes effect February 1, 2027. The residential schedule gives four steps:

1. Find the project value in the building permit fee table.
2. Add plan review: 65 percent of the permit fee, plus any Fire, Planning and Public Works fees that apply.
3. Add a 4 percent technology surcharge, which the schedule says is applied to the total permit fees.
4. Add the $6.50 state building code surcharge.

Plan review, planning, public works, fire and surcharge fees are collected at submittal; the permit fee, state fee, adjusted plan review and impact fees at issuance. The schedule does not split the surcharge, so I show one total. The bands that matter at this size:

The bands do not join exactly: $500,000 gives $6,464.02 in the lower band against a $6,456.21 base in the next, and $1,000,000 gives $11,201.21 against $11,197.86. I report the table as printed. The state fee is $6.50 on each residential building permit under RCW 19.27.085. Paying by card adds 2.99 percent.

I could not find the ordinance or resolution behind the 2026 building, trade, fire and land use amounts. The city’s 2025 and 2026 resolution lists show none amending development services fees, and council resolutions on the city’s user fee schedules say directors may raise fees administratively each year by up to the consumer price index. So for those amounts I cite the schedules and no ordinance.

How Redmond values a remodel

The building and trade schedules define valuation as the value of the work being performed, including materials and labor. The city’s building valuation data table prices new square footage; the one the fees page links is ICC’s August 2019 data, which says it is not intended for alterations or repairs. For a remodel the number is the value of the work, in practice your builder’s bid. For an addition, the table’s R-3 one and two family row for type VB reads $121.24 per square foot, so 600 square feet × $121.24 = $72,744.00, an illustration on a 2019 table. I found no page saying how reviewers test a remodel value they think is low, so bring the bid and ask the permit technicians in writing what they accept.

Worked example: a $750,000 remodel

Assumptions: one house, one dwelling unit, a remodel that adds no floor area, a $750,000 value the city accepts, regular plan review. The planning list has a Residential Addition line but none for a remodel, so I charge no planning or public works fee. The arithmetic:

Two reads change the total. If the surcharge applies only to permit and plan review, it is $582.69 and the line is $15,953.04. If the project adds floor area, the $324.01 Residential Addition planning fee joins the subtotal: $15,687.86 + $627.51 + $6.50 = $16,321.87. The same method at other values:

For scale, my Kirkland, Bellevue and Seattle fee pages give $11,897.56, $14,919.50 and $13,885.40 at the same value, but each city builds its lines differently.

Electrical, mechanical and plumbing

Each is a separate permit on its own 2026 schedule: electrical, mechanical and plumbing. Residential electrical is priced by the items you install, with no link to the value of the work. Each adds the 4 percent surcharge.

My assumed scope, not a quote: one altered service, one subpanel, more than three circuits and one low voltage line; one air handler, one outdoor heat pump and four exhaust fans; 12 plumbing fixtures. I read each base fee as charged once per permit on top of the items, and “circuits over 3” as a flat line. The schedules do not say, so confirm both.

The schedules list no energy code fee, so I add none.

Trees, shoreline, drainage and the rest

These sit outside the building and trade lines, and each applies only if your project triggers it. Amounts come from the 2026 development review schedule, the Development Engineering schedule and the fire fee schedule, all effective February 1, 2026, each with a 4 percent surcharge.

The Development Engineering sheet also lists a citywide stormwater capital facilities charge of $2,310 per 2,000 square feet of impervious area, due at permit issuance. Ordinance 3235, effective January 1, 2026, sets that amount and counts units “proposed to be created by the development,” so I read it as new impervious area, which an addition may add and a remodel inside the walls does not. I do not price it. For lakefront lots see my waterfront remodel guide.

The affordable housing payment on added floor area

This is not a building permit fee. In the Neighborhood Residential zone, developments of seven or fewer dwelling units owe a payment in lieu on net new square feet unless one on-site affordable unit is provided. The city’s schedule, effective June 28, 2025, sets a $30 baseline per square foot, charged at 25 percent in 2025, 50 percent in 2026 ($15) and all of it in 2027 ($30). Its own example says a remodel with no change in total square feet owes nothing. The city’s housing page says additions count, and payment is due before the sheetrock nailing inspection can be scheduled.

A 600 square foot addition: 600 × $15 = $9,000 at the 2026 rate, or 600 × $30 = $18,000 at the 2027 rate. Under Resolution 1607, the rate follows the calendar year in which the city receives a complete application, as long as the building permit issues within one year of that date. My reading: a complete application received by December 31, 2026 keeps the $15 rate, and one received in January 2027 pays $30. A text search of Ordinance 3269 (September 2026) found no change to these payment rules, which matches my zoning guide.

Impact fees: do they apply to a remodel?

Redmond charges school, fire, park and transportation impact fees under chapter 3.10 of its municipal code, and the city’s 2026 schedule prices them per housing unit for a house. For a remodel the short answer is that they do not apply if the work adds no dwelling unit. Section 3.10.060(A)(2) exempts the alteration or remodeling of an existing building from all impact fees if no dwelling unit is added, the work creates no additional demand on fire, park, school or transportation systems, and no change in use is proposed.

I read that in the city’s own copy of chapter 3.10, current through Ordinance 3171 of July 2, 2024; the city’s code site blocked my reader, so I did not check its current text. The later changes to chapter 3.10 on the city’s ordinance lists are Ordinances 3187 (November 2024), 3217 (June 2025) and 3240 (December 2025). I checked all three: 3187 repeats the remodel exemption in the same words, and 3217 and 3240 amend other sections.

By the text, a remodel inside the walls that adds no unit owes none. An addition with no new unit is less clear, because the exemption also tests “additional demand” and I cannot tell how the city applies it, so ask in writing.

The cliff is a new house. One new single family unit on the 2026 schedule is $7,277.00 school, $148.78 fire, $6,914.63 park and $10,107.51 transportation, $24,447.92 outside the city’s centers, before a $65 school administration fee, which is one reason to read when a remodel counts as a new house.

Review times the city publishes

I found no published review time for a residential building permit in Redmond. The residential permits page and the fee schedules give none. The only numbers are for civil permits: clearing and grading review generally takes 4 to 5 weeks, and rough grade review 8 to 10 weeks. On my side, design to permit submission typically takes 2 to 4 months, before the city’s clock starts. My remodel timeline guide covers the cities that publish one.

What I could not confirm

• The ordinance or resolution behind the 2026 schedules.
• The current text of the impact fee exemptions on the city’s code site, which blocked my reader.
• How a reviewer tests a low remodel value.
• Whether the surcharge applies to every line, whether a remodel carries a planning fee or the fire fee (the Fire Department’s own schedule lists additions but not remodels on that $796.48 line), and whether the trade base fees and “circuits over 3” work as I read them.
• When SEPA, clear and grade and the tree plan apply to a house remodel, and whether an addition owes the stormwater charge.

City fees, my fee and construction cost

A remodel budget has three separate lines. The city line below leaves out trees, drainage, land use and the payment on added floor area.

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