Guide · Seattle & the Eastside, 2026
When a renovation needs a permit.
The rule of thumb is simple. If you are changing what is behind the wall, you need a permit. If you are only changing what is on it, usually you do not.
New cabinet fronts, counters, tile, paint and light fittings in the same positions: no permit. Move a wall, a window, a drain, a gas line or a circuit and you are in permit territory. The gray area is smaller than people hope and the person who has to answer for it is the contractor.
What almost always needs one
-
01
Removing or altering a wall
If it is holding something up, that is a beam and an engineer's calculation before it is a demolition day. This is the most common permitted item in a kitchen project and the most commonly skipped one.
-
02
Moving plumbing
Relocating a sink, a toilet or a shower drain. Adding a bathroom where there was not one. Repiping. All permitted, all inspected.
-
03
Electrical beyond like-for-like
New circuits, a new panel, moving outlets. Washington requires electrical work to be done by licensed electricians and inspected, separately from the building permit.
-
04
Changing the envelope
A new window opening, a door where there was a wall, anything that changes the outside of the building. On some lots this brings in more than the building department.
Seattle is one desk. The Eastside is several.
A Seattle address goes through the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections. Kirkland, Redmond, Bellevue and Mercer Island each run their own building department with their own submission requirements, their own review times and their own inspectors. They are not interchangeable, and a contractor who works mostly in one will feel the difference in the other.
The questions that actually come up
Who is supposed to pull it?
The contractor, in their own name. If a builder asks you to pull the permit as the homeowner, they are moving the liability to you. It is the loudest warning sign in this trade and it is worth walking away over.
Is the fee in the quote?
It should be, as its own line. So should the engineer, if a wall is moving. A quote that omits both is not cheaper, it is less complete.
How long does review take?
It varies by jurisdiction, by season and by what you are asking for, and nobody in the private sector controls it. What a contractor can control is whether it appears on your schedule as its own bar from day one.
What if the previous owner did unpermitted work?
It surfaces the moment an inspector is standing in the room. Sometimes it can be brought up to code as part of the project, sometimes it has to be undone. Either way it is better found in week one than in week ten, which is an argument for opening the wall early.
Does it matter when I sell?
Yes. Unpermitted work shows up in a sale and in an insurance claim, and a bathroom that exists on no record is a bathroom you may end up arguing about twice.
In a condo, is the permit the whole story?
No. There is also the building: an alteration agreement, a certificate of insurance and sometimes board approval. That runs on its own timetable and it is usually the longest lead in the job.
Twenty minutes with your floor plan is enough to say whether you are in permit territory.
Bring it to 920 Dexter Ave N, or photographs if you do not have a plan. We will tell you what needs permitting, what does not, and what that does to the calendar, before anybody talks about tile.