How Long Does Plan Review Take (And How to Speed It Up)

The honest answer to "how long does plan review take?" is that it depends on where you are submitting, what you are building, and how clean your drawings are. I have seen permits approved in 5 days and I have seen them take 9 months. The difference is not just about jurisdiction backlogs. A significant portion of the timeline is under the design team's control.

If you are an engineer or architect trying to set realistic expectations for a project schedule, here is what actually drives the plan review timeline and what you can do to compress it.

Typical plan review timelines

Based on publicly available data from building departments across the country, here is what first-round plan review looks like for different project types. These numbers assume a complete application with no missing documents.

The "with corrections" column is the one that matters for scheduling. Most commercial and multi-discipline projects do not get approved on the first submittal. Each correction cycle adds 1 to 3 weeks to the timeline, sometimes more, because the corrected drawings go back into the review queue. A project with three rounds of corrections can easily double or triple its original review timeline.

Why the timelines vary so much

The gap between a 2-week approval and a 9-month approval is not random. There are a few factors that consistently drive the timeline.

Jurisdiction staffing and backlog

This is the factor you have the least control over. Some building departments are well-staffed and process reviews in 10 business days. Others are overwhelmed and running 8 to 12 weeks just for the first pass. Peak construction seasons (spring and summer in most markets) make backlogs worse. Denver, for example, historically saw residential permits exceeding 200 days, though the city introduced a 180-day target in 2025. Large California projects can average 9 months for plan check, according to statewide reporting.

Before you submit, call the building department and ask about their current turnaround time. Many departments post average review times on their website. Knowing the expected timeline up front lets you set realistic expectations with the client and avoid the frustration of finding out after the fact that you are 12 weeks out.

Project complexity and multi-agency review

A simple single-discipline project (residential addition, small tenant improvement) typically goes through a single reviewer or a small review team. A multi-story mixed-use project with structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and accessibility components may require review from 5 or more separate reviewers, plus the fire marshal, health department, and possibly a historic preservation board.

Each additional reviewer adds time, and coordination between reviewers adds more. If the structural reviewer approves but the fire reviewer requests changes that affect the structural design, you end up in a loop that neither reviewer can close independently.

Application completeness

This is the factor you have the most control over, and it is the one that causes the most preventable delay. A surprising number of plan check corrections are not about code violations. They are about missing information: a cover sheet that references the wrong code edition, structural calculations that do not match the design values on the drawings, an energy compliance report that was promised but not included, or a drawing set that is missing a required sheet.

An incomplete application often does not even get reviewed. The building department returns it with a list of items needed to complete the submittal, and you go to the back of the queue when you resubmit. In some jurisdictions, that costs you the entire initial wait time again.

The real cost of a resubmittal

Resubmittals are the biggest schedule killer in the permitting process, and their cost goes well beyond the delay itself. Here is what a single round of corrections actually costs:

The resubmitted drawings go back into the review queue, not to the front of the line. Depending on the jurisdiction, that is another 1 to 4 weeks before the reviewer picks up your drawings again. Meanwhile, the project schedule slips. If the contractor has a construction start date tied to permit issuance, a 3-week slip means rebidding subcontractors, renegotiating material deliveries, and potentially losing the construction window.

Some jurisdictions charge resubmittal fees. Even where they do not, the design team's time to address corrections, revise drawings, update calculations, and resubmit is billable time that was not in the original scope. On a mid-size commercial project, each correction cycle can cost $2,000 to $10,000 in engineering time alone, depending on the complexity of the corrections.

And there is a compounding effect: if the first round of corrections reveals issues that require coordination across disciplines (structural changes that affect mechanical clearances, for example), the second round of corrections often generates new comments that were not in the first round.

What you can do before submittal

The most effective way to speed up plan review is to reduce the number of correction cycles. A clean first submittal that addresses the most common plan check comments can save weeks or months compared to a rushed submittal that generates three rounds of corrections.

Run your own internal review before submitting

The corrections that plan reviewers flag most frequently are predictable. Wrong code edition on the cover sheet. Missing or inconsistent design criteria. Incomplete schedules. Code section violations that the design team knows about but did not catch in the rush to meet the submittal deadline. A systematic internal review before submittal catches these items when they are cheap to fix (a few hours of drafting time) rather than after they are expensive to fix (a full correction cycle with 2 to 4 weeks of delay).

Verify cross-discipline coordination

The most painful plan check corrections are the ones that span multiple disciplines. A structural beam that conflicts with a ductwork routing. An electrical panel location that violates an egress clearance requirement. A fire protection sprinkler head spacing issue caused by a ceiling layout change that was made after the fire protection drawings were finalized.

These coordination issues are the hardest to catch in a traditional review because each discipline reviews their own drawings in isolation. The conflicts only surface when the plan reviewer (or the contractor in the field) looks at the full set together.

Match your documentation to the jurisdiction's expectations

Different jurisdictions have different expectations for what gets included in a permit submittal. Some want detailed energy compliance documentation with the initial package. Others want it submitted separately. Some require the structural engineer's calculations to be included with the drawings. Others want calculations available on request but not submitted with the drawings.

Submitting too little triggers a correction for missing information. Submitting too much can slow the reviewer down and increase the chance they find something to comment on that would otherwise have been fine. Call the building department before your first submittal in a new jurisdiction and ask what they want to see in the initial package.

Use pre-submittal conferences

Many building departments offer pre-submittal conferences where you can walk through your project with the plan reviewer before you formally submit. These meetings are underused. A 30-minute conversation with the reviewer can identify issues that would otherwise take 6 weeks to discover through the formal review process. The reviewer can tell you what they are going to look for, what documentation they need, and what code interpretations apply in their jurisdiction.

How automated review fits in

Running an AI-assisted code compliance review before submittal catches the same types of issues that plan reviewers flag: missing code references, inconsistent design criteria, code section violations, and documentation gaps. It is not a substitute for the formal plan review, but it is a fast way to identify the predictable comments that cause resubmittals.

If a pre-submittal review catches 10 comments that would have been flagged by the building department, that is potentially one fewer correction cycle. At 2 to 4 weeks per cycle, that is real schedule time recovered.