How long does a seismic retrofit permit take in Los Angeles?
In Los Angeles, the typical seismic retrofit permit took about 4 months (123 days) from application to issue, across 613 permits issued from September 2024 to September 2026. After the permit, the typical finished seismic retrofit took about 6 months (182 days) from permit to final inspection (1,235 finished of 1,638 permits issued from September 2022 to September 2024; 25% had no final inspection on record by September 2026).
6 monthsfrom permit to final inspectionMiddle half: 3 months to 10 months
The two steps
The numbers behind the chart
| Step | Median | Middle half | Permits | Permits issued |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application to permit issued | about 4 months | 33 days to about 11 months | 613 | September 2024 to September 2026 |
| Permit to final inspection | about 6 months | about 3 months to about 10 months | 1,235 | September 2022 to September 2024 |
Seismic retrofit contractors with the most jobs in Los Angeles
| Rank | Contractor | Jobs | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Optimum Seismic Inc Vernon, licensed 10 years | Call (323) 605-0000 | |
| 2 | American Retrofitters Corp Van Nuys, licensed 10 years | Call (844) 527-3876 | |
| 3 | Titan Contracting Services Inc North Hollywood, licensed 14 years | Visit website |
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Permit wait by year issued
| Year issued | Jobs | Median | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 320 | about 8 months | 82 days to about 3.1 years |
| 2023 | 872 | about 7 months | 54 days to about 2.3 years |
| 2024 | 531 | about 6 months | 63 days to about 4.1 years |
| 2025 | 334 | about 5 months | 33 days to about 10 months |
| 2026 | 179 | about 3 months | 20 days to about 8 months |
Why it takes this long
- 8% of permits were issued the day they were applied for, and 24% within 30 days (613 permits).
- 6 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 4 months for the permit against about 6 months from permit to final, at the median.
- 23% of finished jobs passed final inspection within 90 days of the permit.
- Of the 1,638 permits issued from September 2022 to September 2024, 403 (25%) 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: submitted_date, issue_date; final: status 'Permit Finaled' or a certificate, dated by cofo_date or status_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: City of Los Angeles, Building Permits Issued from 2020 to Present, read 2026-09-24. The same figures as data: seismic-retrofit.json.