Once your drawings are finally complete and submitted, a different kind of waiting begins, one that is entirely outside your control and, for many clients, considerably more frustrating than the design process itself. You have done everything asked of you, the drawings are submitted, and now your project’s timeline is in the hands of a building department whose internal review queue you cannot see and whose exact turnaround you cannot predict with certainty. If you are staring at a submitted permit application wondering how long plan review will actually take, this is one of the most common questions I field, and I want to give you a genuinely useful answer rather than a vague estimate.

After a decade submitting permit packages across a wide range of jurisdictions, I want to break down what plan review actually involves, what realistically drives how long it takes, and the specific mistakes that most often extend a review timeline well beyond what it needed to be.

What Happens During Plan Review

Plan review is the process by which a building department, and often several related departments depending on your project type, examines your submitted drawings to verify compliance with applicable building codes, zoning requirements, and any other applicable regulations before issuing a permit that allows construction to legally begin.

Intake and Completeness Check

Before substantive technical review even begins, most jurisdictions perform an initial completeness check confirming all required documents, drawings, calculations, and application forms have been submitted. An incomplete submittal at this stage can be rejected before it ever reaches a technical reviewer, adding time before the actual review clock even starts.

Technical Review by Discipline

Depending on your project, technical review may involve separate reviewers examining architectural compliance, structural adequacy, MEP systems, and civil or site related requirements, sometimes as parallel review tracks and sometimes sequentially, depending on the specific jurisdiction’s internal process.

Zoning and Planning Review

In addition to building code compliance, many jurisdictions require a separate zoning or planning review confirming the project complies with setback, height, lot coverage, and use requirements specific to the property’s zoning designation.

Specialty Reviews

Depending on project type, additional specialty reviews may be required, such as fire department review for commercial or multifamily projects, environmental or health department review for certain use types, or utility provider review for projects requiring new service connections.

What Actually Drives How Long Plan Review Takes

Jurisdiction Workload and Staffing

This is the single largest variable and the one least within anyone’s control. Building departments experiencing high submittal volume relative to their staffing levels will simply take longer to reach any given application in their queue, regardless of how well prepared that application is.

Project Type and Complexity

Simple residential projects generally move through review faster than complex commercial projects requiring multiple department reviews, though even simple residential projects can experience extended timelines in jurisdictions with significant backlog.

Submittal Completeness

An incomplete submittal, missing a required calculation, an unclear drawing, or an absent form, can result in the application being rejected at intake or flagged early in review, effectively resetting a portion of the timeline while the missing information is provided.

Internal Coordination Quality of Your Drawings

This is the factor most within your control and, in my experience, the one most underestimated by clients. A well coordinated submittal, where architectural, structural, MEP, and civil drawings agree with each other and clearly demonstrate code compliance, is far less likely to generate correction comments than a submittal with internal inconsistencies, and every correction cycle adds a meaningful chunk of time to the overall process.

Whether Expedited or Concurrent Review Is Available

Some jurisdictions offer expedited review programs for an additional fee, or allow certain review tracks to proceed concurrently rather than sequentially, both of which can meaningfully affect total timeline where available.

Realistic Timeline Expectations by Project Type

Simple Residential Projects

Minor additions, remodels, and straightforward single family projects in jurisdictions without significant backlog often see initial plan review completed within a few weeks, though this varies considerably by location.

Complex Residential and Multifamily Projects

Larger additions, new custom homes, and small multifamily projects typically involve more extensive review, particularly where structural and MEP coordination is more involved, and initial review can extend to a couple of months in many jurisdictions.

Commercial Projects

Commercial review, particularly where multiple departments are involved, generally takes longer than residential review, often ranging from a couple of months to considerably longer depending on project complexity, occupancy type, and jurisdiction workload.

Correction and Resubmittal Cycles

If corrections are issued, and they frequently are even for well prepared submittals, each resubmittal typically requires its own review period, though often shorter than the initial review, adding additional weeks or, in some cases, additional months to the overall timeline depending on how many cycles are required.

The Insider Reality About What Actually Extends Plan Review

Here is something that took years of tracking review timelines across multiple jurisdictions to fully understand. The number of correction cycles a submittal goes through has a far greater impact on total timeline than the length of any single review period. A submittal that clears review with zero or one minor correction cycle will almost always reach permit issuance faster than one that appears to move quickly through an initial review but then bounces through two or three rounds of corrections, even if each individual review period seems reasonably short.

The most common and avoidable mistake I see is clients assuming that once drawings are submitted, the timeline is entirely out of their hands. In reality, the quality and internal coordination of the submitted drawings directly determines how many correction cycles are likely, which is the single biggest lever available for controlling total plan review time, even though the review itself is conducted by a party outside your direct control.

Another frequent issue involves submittals where the applicant or their drawing team does not respond promptly once correction comments are issued. Building departments generally do not proactively follow up on a stalled application. The clock effectively pauses until a correction response is submitted, and I have seen otherwise well prepared projects lose significant time simply because the correction response itself was delayed by weeks rather than addressed promptly.

A third issue worth flagging involves jurisdictions where separate departments review a submittal on independent timelines. In these cases, your overall plan review timeline is effectively determined by whichever department takes the longest, and a coordinated drawing package that avoids triggering extended review from any single department, for example by clearly addressing accessibility or fire requirements upfront, can meaningfully protect against the slowest reviewing department becoming your bottleneck.

How to Protect Your Plan Review Timeline

Submit a genuinely complete package the first time, confirming every required document, calculation, and form is included before submittal rather than discovering gaps during intake review.

Work with a team that coordinates all required disciplines together, since internal consistency between architectural, structural, MEP, and civil drawings is the single biggest factor in avoiding correction cycles that extend total timeline.

Respond to correction comments as quickly as possible once they are issued, since the review clock effectively pauses until your response is submitted.

Ask your drawing team about their direct experience and current sense of typical review timelines in your specific jurisdiction, since this varies considerably and general online estimates often do not reflect current local conditions.

Ask whether an expedited or concurrent review program is available in your jurisdiction, and whether it makes sense for your project’s specific timeline pressures.

Final Thoughts From the Drafting Table

Plan review timelines are genuinely variable and largely outside your direct control once a submittal reaches the building department’s queue, but the number of correction cycles your submittal goes through is not outside your control. It is determined almost entirely by how well coordinated your drawings were before they were ever submitted, which makes the quality of your drawing production the single most effective lever available for protecting your overall timeline against unnecessary delay.

If you want a coordinated architectural, structural, MEP, and civil drawing package designed to minimize correction cycles and move as cleanly as possible through plan review, we would be glad to review your project and provide a free quote within twenty four hours.