How long does a home addition permit take in San Francisco?

In San Francisco, the typical home addition permit took about 5 months (160 days) from application to issue, across 428 permits issued from September 2024 to September 2026. After the permit, the typical finished home addition took about 16 months (475 days) from permit to final inspection (213 finished of 397 permits issued from September 2022 to September 2024; 46% had no final inspection on record by September 2026).

5 monthsfrom application to permitMiddle half: 52 days to 15 months

16 monthsfrom permit to final inspectionMiddle half: 8 months to 2 years

The two steps

Bars show the median; the line through each bar spans the middle half of jobs. The second step starts where the typical permit wait ends. The two steps come from different groups of permits, so they are not added up.

The numbers behind the chart

Step	Median	Middle half	Permits	Permits issued
Application to permit issued	about 5 months	52 days to about 15 months	428	September 2024 to September 2026
Permit to final inspection	about 16 months	about 8 months to about 2 years	213	September 2022 to September 2024

Home addition contractors with the most jobs in San Francisco

Rank	Contractor	Jobs	Contact
1	Mission Home Remodeling Inc San Francisco, licensed 5 years	8	Visit website
2	Saturn Construction Co San Francisco, licensed 21 years	7	Visit website
3	C H Burnham Inc San Francisco, licensed 15 years	6	Call (415) 407-4036

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Permit wait by year issued

Year issued	Jobs	Median	Middle half
2022	37	about 17 months	about 11 months to about 21 months
2023	206	about 15 months	about 6 months to about 2 years
2024	198	about 13 months	about 3 months to about 2.1 years
2025	223	about 4 months	46 days to about 18 months
2026	160	about 6 months	70 days to about 10 months

Why it takes this long

4% of permits were issued the day they were applied for, and 19% within 30 days (428 permits).
3 more permits issued in those dates carry no application date and are left out of the permit wait.
The longer step is building and inspection: about 5 months for the permit against about 16 months from permit to final, at the median.
6% of finished jobs passed final inspection within 90 days of the permit.
Of the 397 permits issued from September 2022 to September 2024, 184 (46%) had no final inspection on record by September 2026. They may still be under way, dropped or never inspected; the records do not say which. They are left out of the build time; any of them that finishes will have taken more than two years, so counting them would make the typical time longer.

Days are counted between the dates on each city permit: filed_date, issued_date, completed_date. Median and middle half: half of the jobs took longer than the median; the middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile. A figure is shown only when it rests on 30 or more permits. Kinds of work are sorted by the same rules as our contractor lists. Source: San Francisco Building, Electrical and Plumbing Permits (data.sf.gov i98e-djp9, ftty-kx6y, a6aw-rudh), read 2026-09-24. The same figures as data: addition.json.