Development consent is not permission to build. It is permission to build something, subject to a second approval that nobody photographs for the board pack. In New South Wales that second approval is a construction certificate. In Victoria and Western Australia it is a building permit. In Queensland it is a building development approval. The names differ, the function does not: until it issues, you cannot lawfully turn a sod, and your programme, your first drawdown and your holding cost clock are all assuming you can.
The obligation to hold that second approval before work starts is statutory, and it falls on the owner and the person carrying out the work, not on the certifier who assessed the plans. New South Wales Planning states plainly that receiving development consent “does not mean that you can start building”. In New Zealand, section 40 of the Building Act 2004 provides that “a person must not carry out any building work except in accordance with a building consent”, with a fine of up to $200,000 on conviction. The questions worth putting to your certifier and your construction lawyer are set out near the end.
Fees, levies and statutory timeframes in this guide were current at the date of writing and they change. Two changes are live right now: New South Wales passed the Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Bill 2026 through Parliament on 4 August 2026, which will move building approvals out of the planning legislation once regulations are made, and Victoria introduced a new Building Reform Levy component on 1 July 2026. Each linked primary source is where to confirm the position before you rely on it.
What does a building permit or construction certificate actually approve?
It approves the technical detail of how the building will be built, and it is a different question from the one your development consent answered. It is issued by a building certifier or surveyor, and it is the bookend to the certificate of occupancy that lets people move in once the work is done.
Planning approval asks whether this use, at this density, on this site, with these impacts, is acceptable. Building approval asks whether the drawings you intend to hand your builder comply with the building rules, principally the National Construction Code (NCC). Tasmania’s State Planning Office draws the line about as clearly as anyone: the planning system “considers the suitability of the site for the proposed use or development”, while the building system “focuses on the technical design and construction of the building”, and the two are “managed through separate approval systems with their own separate legislation and rules”.
For a developer, three consequences follow, and all three are commercial rather than technical.
The first is that the drawings change. New South Wales Planning notes that construction certificate plans “will most likely contain a lot more information” than the approved development application plans, “to allow your builder to work directly from them”. The gap between a development application drawing set and a construction issue set is where a great many cost surprises live, because it is the first point at which the design is documented well enough to be priced properly.
The second is that consistency is a legal test, not a courtesy. A certifier is generally looking for the detailed documentation to be consistent with the development consent. Service NSW describes the construction certificate as confirming that “the construction plans and development specifications are consistent with the development consent” and comply with the Building Code and any other council requirements. Where the detail has drifted, the fix generally sits back in the planning system rather than the building one.
The third is that this approval sits directly on your critical path. It is usually the last thing between site establishment and a builder who is being paid to be there. Every week it runs late is a week of interest and land holding costs against a project earning nothing.
What is the approval called in your state or territory?
The document has a different name in almost every jurisdiction, which is one reason searching for the wrong term returns the wrong rules. The label matters because it determines which Act applies, which edition of the National Construction Code and which building class the assessment runs against, who may issue it, and what has to be lodged first.
| Where | What it is called | Made under |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | Construction certificate, or a complying development certificate where that pathway applies | Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW), Part 6 |
| Victoria | Building permit | Building Act 1993 (Vic) |
| Queensland | Building development approval | Building Act 1975 (Qld) and Planning Act 2016 (Qld) |
| South Australia | Building consent, forming part of development approval | Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 (SA) |
| Western Australia | Building permit, granted by a permit authority | Building Act 2011 (WA) |
| Tasmania | Building permit, or lesser authorisation depending on the risk category | Building Act 2016 (Tas) |
| Australian Capital Territory | Building approval | Building Act 2004 (ACT) |
| Northern Territory | Building permit | Building Act 1993 (NT) |
| New Zealand | Building consent | Building Act 2004 (NZ) |
Two of these are structurally different rather than differently named.
South Australia does not issue a standalone building approval at all. Under the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 (SA), development approval is assembled from separate consents, and PlanSA describes building consent as one of the types of consent that may be required, alongside planning consent and land division consent. The commercially useful point is that PlanSA states “the granting of consent does not enable a development to be undertaken”, which only happens on development approval. Holding building consent is not the same as being allowed to start.
Tasmania runs a risk-based system rather than a single permit. The Building Act 2016 scales the approval to the work, and the State Planning Office notes that “some smaller or low-risk buildings, like decks and small sheds, may not need a building permit or the involvement of a building surveyor”. It also confirms the sequencing that catches people out: “a relevant planning permit must be issued by the local council (where required) before building approval can be provided”.
Why does development consent not let you start building?
Because the consent typically carries conditions that have to be discharged first, and discharging them costs money and time that developers routinely leave out of the programme.
New South Wales Planning sets out four things that must happen before work starts: obtain the construction certificate, appoint a principal certifying authority, give the council and that certifier two days’ notice, and “complete any works listed in the ‘Prior to commencing work’ part of the consent”. It also notes that to obtain the certificate “you may be required to first provide additional reports and pay refundable bonds or development contributions to the council”.
That last sentence is where the money is. Contributions and bonds payable before a construction certificate can issue are a cash call that lands before any construction funding is drawn, which means they usually come out of equity. Service NSW puts the eligibility test in similar terms: you must hold an approved development consent and “have met all the requirements council placed on your development consent”.
The pattern repeats elsewhere in its own local form. The Australian Capital Territory’s planning body states that you will need development approval before building approval, and reminds applicants to meet “any conditions that may be required to be met before any construction or building work can start”, including lease conditions that can dictate the timeframe in which construction must commence or complete. Business Queensland states simply that a building development approval “is needed before construction can start”, available from either the local government or a building certifier.
A practical way to think about it is that your consent contains a shadow programme nobody drew: every “prior to the issue of a construction certificate” condition is a task with a duration and, often, a price. Reading those conditions the week consent is granted, rather than the week before you want to start, is where most of the recoverable time sits. Where these tasks fall in your development cashflow is worth checking, because they generally sit in the pre-construction period where funding is thinnest.
Which designs and certificates have to be lodged before the approval can issue?
Several jurisdictions require an independent design certification, or a practitioner declaration, before the approval can be granted. These are gates in their own right, and they are easy to underestimate because they involve consultants rather than authorities.
New South Wales, class 2 buildings. For buildings containing two or more sole-occupancy units, the design and building practitioner scheme applies. Service NSW states that developers and builders of class 2 buildings “will need to provide a set of declared regulated designs before construction work starts”. In practice this means the design has to be complete enough for a registered practitioner to declare it compliant, which is a different and higher standard of documentation than a development application drawing set.
Western Australia, certificate of design compliance. Western Australia splits building permit applications into two types. A certified application is accompanied by a certificate of design compliance signed by an independent registered building surveyor, and Building and Energy states that a permit authority “has 10 business days to issue a building permit after receipt of a certified application”. An uncertified application, where the permit authority arranges certification itself, is only available for single residential buildings and associated non-habitable structures, and carries a 25 day period. For anything a developer is likely to be building, the certified path is the only path, and the real timeline is however long it takes your building surveyor to be satisfied, not the 10 days that follow.
Northern Territory. The Northern Territory regulator lists the documents a certifier may require before a permit, including “structural engineer’s certification for the structural design”, certified plumbing design and a fidelity fund certificate, and states that permits are “valid for two years from the date of issue”.
Australian Capital Territory. Building approval requires the appointment of a licensed building surveyor as certifier, lodgement of the prescribed appointment and application forms, and payment of fees. The Territory then adds a further step that is easy to miss in the programme: before work starts, “your licensed builder must apply for a commencement notice”, which the certifier issues after building approval is granted. Building approval alone does not start the clock.
The common thread is that the approval to build is generally the last item in a chain of consultant deliverables, and the authority’s own turnaround is usually the shortest link. If your programme shows only the statutory assessment period, it is measuring the wrong thing.
How long does a building permit or construction certificate take?
The statutory clocks are short, and they are not the number to programme against.
Where a legislated period exists, it generally runs from a complete application, and it generally stops when the assessor asks a question. Published periods include the following.
| Where | Published period |
|---|---|
| Western Australia | 10 business days for a certified application, 25 days for an uncertified application |
| South Australia | 20 business days for building consent for class 1 or class 10, 60 business days for class 2 to class 9, plus 10 days if referred to the State Commission Assessment Panel |
| New Zealand | 20 working days from acceptance of a complete application |
Sources: Building and Energy’s Building Act 2011 overview, PlanSA’s building consent timetable, and New Zealand’s Building Performance guidance on the building consent process.
New Zealand’s guidance is the most candid about how these clocks behave in practice. Building Performance states that a request for information suspends the application and “the suspension period will not count as part of the 20 days”, which it describes as “stopping the clock”. The same mechanism exists in various forms elsewhere. An assessment period that only runs while the assessor has everything they need is a period the applicant largely controls.
Two implications tend to matter for a developer’s programme.
The first is that documentation quality is a schedule input, not an administrative detail. Every request for further information is a round trip measured in weeks once you add the consultant’s response time to the assessor’s re-review. Where documentation is genuinely complete on lodgement, these approvals can be quick.
The second is that the assessment period is only the visible part. In Western Australia, the 10 business days begins after a registered building surveyor has already signed the certificate of design compliance. The period before that signature is unregulated and is where most of the elapsed time usually goes. Building the approval into your construction programme as a single statutory duration tends to understate it substantially.
What does the approval cost?
Application fees are modest. The levies attached to them are not, because they are generally calculated on the value of the building work.
Western Australia. The published Building Act fees are proportional to the value of works. Building and Energy states that a certified application for a class 1 or class 10 building attracts a fee of 0.19 per cent of the estimated value of the building work, and a certified application for a class 2 to class 9 building attracts 0.09 per cent, in each case with a $121.00 minimum. An uncertified application attracts 0.32 per cent. On top of that sits the Building Services Levy, which Building and Energy publishes as 0.137 per cent of the value of the work for a building permit where the value exceeds $45,000, or $61.65 where it is $45,000 or less. The same page notes that the value of building work for these purposes is defined in Schedule 1 of the Building Regulations 2012 and includes goods, labour, services, fees, overheads and profit margin, so the base is broader than a bare construction cost.
Victoria. A building permit levy is imposed under the Building Act 1993 (Vic) to fund building control and the domestic dispute resolution service, and the Building and Plumbing Commission notes that it “is not payable if the cost of building work is $10,000 or less”.
From 1 July 2026 a further component applies. The Building and Plumbing Commission states that the Building Reform Levy applies to buildings that are not in regional Victoria, that are of classes 2 to 8 under the National Construction Code (NCC), and that have a cost of works of $1.5 million or more, and that it “will be calculated at 0.37 cents in the dollar”. Three details in that page are worth carrying into a feasibility.
It is calculated on the whole cost of works, not the excess over the threshold. The Commission answers the question directly: “The building reform levy is calculated on the entire cost of works.” On a $40 million apartment building in metropolitan Melbourne that is a levy in the order of $148,000, payable at permit stage rather than spread across the build.
It is class-apportioned. Where a project spans classes, the levy applies only to the class 2 to 8 portion, and the Commission’s own example is a class 9 health care facility combined with a class 7 car park, where the levy applies only to the car park component. That makes the cost breakdown by building class a live input rather than a formality.
It is time-limited and it applies by application date. The Commission states the levy “will be in place from 1 July 2026 up to and including 30 June 2029”, and applies to building permit number applications submitted on or after 1 July 2026. Certain social housing projects and works on Commonwealth Crown land are exempt.
Everywhere. Beyond the statutory fee and levy sits the certifier’s own fee, which is a commercial negotiation, and the consultant cost of getting documentation to the standard the certifier needs. That second number is usually the larger of the two and belongs in total development cost as a design and approvals line, not as a rounding item.
How long does the approval last before it lapses?
Most of these approvals expire, and they expire on two separate tests: when work must start, and when it must finish. A permit that quietly lapses mid-build is a problem of a different order from one that lapses before you start.
Victoria publishes the clearest table. The Building and Plumbing Commission states that for houses and outbuildings, work must commence within 12 months of the date of issue of the building permit and be completed within 24 months, while for “all other building work” the periods are 12 months to commence and 36 months to complete. Re-erection of houses and outbuildings runs to six months and 12 months. If those dates pass, the permit lapses.
Thirty-six months is not generous for a large apartment or commercial building once you allow for a slow start, wet weather and a defects-heavy finish. The Commission notes that an extension may be sought from the building surveyor, that you “must do this before the relevant date passes”, and that a refusal may be appealed to the Building Appeals Board. The trap is the timing of the request rather than the merits of it.
Elsewhere, published positions include the following. Western Australia’s Building Act 2011 provides that a building permit has effect for two years from the day it is granted, or a longer period approved on an application to extend, and Building and Energy publishes a dedicated form and guidance for applications to extend time. The Northern Territory states that building permits “are valid for two years from the date of issue” and that the period may be extended by applying to your building certifier before expiry. New Zealand’s Building Performance guidance states that you “need to start your building work within 12 months of receiving your building consent, or your consent will lapse”, and that you have “two years to complete your building work” from the day consent is granted, unless otherwise agreed with the council.
Sitting behind all of this is the planning approval, which has its own currency period and its own lapse rules. A live building permit attached to a lapsed development consent is not a workable position. Where a project is being staged, or where a site is being held while a market recovers, the interaction between the two expiry dates is generally the thing to map first.
What happens if the design changes after the approval is issued?
You usually cannot simply build the new version, and the fix may sit in the planning system rather than the building one, which is the slower of the two.
New South Wales Planning is direct about it: any plan changes that are inconsistent with the development application plans “would need to be assessed as to whether an application to modify the development consent is required”. Service NSW says the same from the applicant’s side, noting that changes to construction plans need to be assessed and “you may have to submit an application to modify the development consent”. Where a modification is needed, that is a separate planning process with its own timeframe, and the guide to section 4.55 modifications covers how that pathway works.
Other jurisdictions run the same logic through their own machinery. The Northern Territory states that once a building permit has been issued, “any changes to the approved work must be approved by the building certifier before the changes are carried out on site”. New Zealand’s guidance states that where plans change and a consent amendment is needed, “your council can again take up to 20 days to process the request”, with a further fee. Western Australia publishes a specific form for a request to amend a building permit or the builder’s details.
Two situations tend to generate these changes, and both are foreseeable.
The first is value management after tender. Substituting a facade system, changing a structural approach or reducing a basement level to bring the price back to feasibility will often touch something the consent controlled. The commercially interesting question is not whether the saving is real, but whether the saving survives a modification application and the programme delay attached to it.
The second is the builder’s own preference. A design and construct contractor may want to redocument portions of the work. Where that redocumentation strays from the consented envelope, the risk of who bears the delay usually depends on how the contract allocates it, which is worth settling before award rather than after. Our guide on choosing a builder touches on how that allocation tends to be negotiated.
What if work starts before the approval issues?
The obligation is on the person carrying out the work, and the penalties in several jurisdictions are structured to make early starts uneconomic.
Under section 40 of the Building Act 2004 (NZ), a person must not carry out building work except in accordance with a building consent, and a person who commits an offence is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $200,000, with a further fine of up to $10,000 for every day the offence continues. That daily accrual is the part worth noting: the exposure grows while the work does.
In Western Australia, Building and Energy states that permit authorities “must ensure buildings are constructed and occupied in accordance with the relevant permit and may prosecute for failure to obtain a permit when required”, and that authorised persons may inspect building work and issue building orders. In New South Wales, the planning guidance warns that orders can be issued by council to stop work and fix errors, and that “this can cost time and money or even lead to penalties”. Victoria’s offence provisions relating to carrying out building work without a permit sit in the Building Act 1993 (Vic), which is where to check the current penalty levels before relying on any figure.
The commercial exposure generally runs wider than the fine. A stop work order on a site with a builder mobilised converts a documentation problem into a delay and disruption claim. Unapproved work may need to be opened up or retrospectively certified. And a lender’s construction facility will usually condition drawdown on evidence of the approval, so the practical effect of starting early is often that you are funding the early works from equity while carrying the regulatory risk yourself. The relationship between approvals and construction loan drawdowns is worth reading alongside this.
How does New Zealand’s building consent differ?
New Zealand runs a single council-based system rather than a private certifier market, and the differences show up in the programme rather than in the principle.
Building consents are granted by a building consent authority, which in most cases is the territorial council. Building Performance describes the process as: an incomplete application will attract a request for missing information, a complete one is accepted for review, and from acceptance the council has 20 working days to process it. Applications may be reviewed by officials with specific skills in building, plumbing and drainage, structural and resource management.
Two features are worth knowing before programming a New Zealand project.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand review applies to some projects, including alterations, a change of use or a subdivision affecting fire safety systems. Building Performance states that Fire and Emergency New Zealand “has 10 working days to advise of any specific fire-related requirements”, that the application is not suspended during this time, and that the council may grant the application if it hears nothing within the period. This one runs in parallel rather than in series, which is unusual and useful.
Schedule 1 exemptions exist for certain low-risk work, and further exemptions have been introduced for small stand-alone dwellings. Whether a given piece of work falls inside an exemption is a question for the council or a licensed practitioner rather than one to assume, since the consequence of getting it wrong is unconsented work on the record.
What is changing in New South Wales?
Construction certificates are being replaced, though not yet. New South Wales passed the Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Bill 2026 through Parliament on 4 August 2026, and Building Commission NSW states that the reforms “will come into effect once the associated regulations have been developed”, with industry consultation on those regulations during 2026 and 2027.
The structural change is that building approvals move out of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) and under the new Act. Building Commission NSW describes a new framework “for all building classes” covering approval to build, variations to building plans, post consent processes including after a complying development certificate is issued, and occupation or completion approvals. The stated aims include reducing legislative overlap between planning and building laws, scaling approval requirements to the complexity and risk of the building, reducing duplication in documentation, and formalising staged building approvals.
Two other elements matter to a developer. The Act recognises prefabricated and modular buildings as buildings in legislation, with obligations set for manufacture, supply, transport, delivery and installation. And certifier conflict of interest provisions are being tightened, with Building Commission NSW stating that maximum court-imposed penalties are proposed to increase “from $33,000 to $1.1m”, together with automatic suspension where a court convicts a certifier of a breach.
For anything commencing now, the current regime still applies. For a project that will still be in documentation in two years, the sensible position is that the terminology and possibly the staging of approvals may change mid-project, and that transitional provisions in the regulations are the thing to watch. Where a project’s approvals strategy assumes a single construction certificate for the whole building, formalised staged approvals could change how that is structured.
How does the approval gate show up in your feasibility?
It shows up in three places, and only one of them is a cost line.
The obvious one is the fee and levy. On a Victorian metropolitan apartment project of any scale, the building permit levy including the Building Reform Levy component is a real number payable early, and it sits alongside certifier fees and the consultant cost of producing construction issue documentation.
The second is the pre-construction cash requirement. Conditions that must be satisfied before the approval issues, including contributions and bonds, generally fall in a period where construction funding has not started. That makes them an equity call, and it makes their timing a covenant question rather than a cost question.
The third, and usually the largest, is duration. Every month between consent and a lawful start is a month of interest, land tax, rates, insurance and management cost carried against no revenue. On a site bought with a settlement date driven by an assumed construction start, a slipped approval can also convert into a financing problem rather than merely a delay.
A practical test on any programme is to look at what sits between “consent granted” and “site establishment”, and ask whether the durations shown were estimated by someone who has read the consent conditions. Where the answer is no, that section of the programme is usually optimistic by months rather than weeks.
What to ask your certifier and your construction lawyer
Two different specialists hold two different halves of this. Splitting the questions tends to produce better answers than asking either one to cover both.
Ask your certifier or building surveyor:
- Which conditions of the development consent must be satisfied before you can issue the approval, and which of those require third party sign-off rather than just a document from us?
- What documentation set do you need to assess this, and at what level of design completion, given the building class?
- Where do you expect the design as consented to have difficulty meeting the National Construction Code (NCC), and what is the likely resolution path?
- What is your realistic turnaround assuming a complete application, and what are the two or three things most likely to trigger a request for further information on a project like this?
- Which parts of the design, if changed later, would in your view be inconsistent with the consent and require a planning modification rather than an amendment to the building approval?
- What inspections will be prescribed, at what stages, and what notice do you need before each one?
- What is your fee structure for reassessment if the design changes, and how is that triggered?
Ask your construction lawyer:
- Who under our contract bears the risk of a delay in obtaining the approval, and does that allocation change if the delay stems from the builder’s own redocumentation?
- What does our finance facility require as evidence of the approval before first drawdown, and does the definition in the facility match the document the certifier will actually issue?
- Does our building contract oblige the builder not to commence any work before the approval issues, including early works, site establishment and demolition, and what happens if they do?
- What is our exposure if the approval lapses part-way through construction, and what contractual mechanism deals with it?
- How do the expiry dates on our planning approval and our building approval interact on this project, and which one binds first?
- If we need a modification to the consent, what does the contract say about extension of time and cost, and about the point at which the builder can claim delay?
- In New South Wales specifically, what should we assume about transitional arrangements as the Building (Approvals and Practitioners) Act 2026 and its regulations commence during the life of this project?
The pattern in every one of these is the same. The guide can tell you what the gate is, what it is called where you are building, roughly what it costs and how long the statutory clock runs. What it cannot tell you is which conditions on your particular consent are the slow ones, and that is precisely the question worth paying someone to answer early.