Pinal County Building Permit and Impact Fees: How a New Home Is Priced

A new home on unincorporated Pinal County land comes with two separate buckets of county fees. First, building permit and plan review fees pay the county to check your plans and inspect the work. Second, development impact fees help pay for the public services your new home will draw on. Here is how each one is figured and when you pay it.

How permit and plan review fees are set

Pinal County ties your building permit and plan review fees to your home's construction valuation, not a flat rate. A bigger, higher-end house costs more to permit than a small, simple one.

The county reads that valuation from Table I of its Building Permit Fee Schedule. Table I is built on the International Code Council's Building Valuation Data, February 2012 edition. In plain terms: the county multiplies a cost per square foot by your home's area to reach a construction valuation, and both fees come off that number. If the standard figure does not fit your project, the Building Official can accept an alternative valuation based on your actual construction cost.

That is the valuation method, and it is worth telling apart from the alternative. Some Arizona cities, Scottsdale among them, charge a straight rate per square foot instead. The Arizona building permit fees valuation versus per square foot reference explains why that difference can move your number.

Development impact fees

Impact fees are separate from permit fees, and they catch a lot of rural buyers by surprise. Pinal County charges them so new homes pay a share of the public facilities their demand helps create. The county's impact fees fund parks facilities, public safety, and streets. On timing, the county is specific:

Development Impact Fees are assessed and collected at the time of Building Permit Issuance.

The amount depends on where your lot sits. Pinal County sets impact fees by benefit area, and each area carries its own capital improvement plan and its own 2022 impact fee map. Two identical homes in different parts of the county can owe different impact fees. If you are unsure whether they apply to your parcel, the county takes an Impact Fee Information Request to check.

What this means for your budget

For example, take two 2,500 square foot custom homes with the same floor plan, one near San Tan Valley and one outside Coolidge. Both draw the same permit and plan review fee, because Table I reaches the same valuation from the same square footage and finish level. Their impact fees can still differ, because they fall in different benefit areas with different capital plans. The lesson is to price the two buckets separately: the permit fee follows the house, the impact fee follows the parcel.

Both are due before the county hands over the permit. The dollar figures live in the county's Building Permit Fee Schedule and its impact fee schedule. Both change, so pull the current versions before you lock a budget.

When county money comes due

Fees are collected at the end of plan review, when you pull the permit, and the county is the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) taking them. The valuation that drives your permit fee traces back to the codes the county adopted. For the full path from raw land to move-in, start with the steps to building a custom home in Arizona.