What it costs in government fees to build a home in Sarasota County, Florida
Every impact fee, water and sewer connection charge, and building permit for a new
single-family detached home in unincorporated Sarasota County — itemized, sourced, and dated.
Total government fees$23,698Single-family detached, 2,000 sq ft heated/conditioned, 4BR, 3/4" water meter, county water and sewer, unincorporated area. Ranges from $22,330 (Urban Infill mobility area, Type V-B wood frame)
to $25,322 (East/North of I-75 mobility area, Type III-B masonry).
Impact & mobility fees
Fee
Amount
Mobility Fee — residential, plus 2.25% administrative service charge
Eff. Feb 1, 2026 · p.1 · source⚠ The schedule has six rate columns. Columns 4-6 are Mixed-Use rates 25% lower that apply only to qualifying mixed-use, TND or TOD developments — not a standard detached home.
$3,552.16
Educational System Impact Fee — single-family, per dwelling unit
Eff. Jan 1, 2026 · Ord. 2022-047 sec 70-299(c) p.5 · sourceFlat per unit, not square-footage based. Final phase-in step; no further increase scheduled.
$3,048.00
Parks
Eff. Apr 1, 2017 · sourceOrdinance 2016-047. Band: 2,000–2,499 sq ft heated.
Library
Eff. Apr 1, 2017 · source⚠ The county's own Impact Fees webpage and its official FAQ both OMIT this fee. Only the FY25 Annual Impact Fee Report enumerates it correctly. Trusting either public-facing list drops $683.
$683.00
General Government
Eff. Apr 1, 2017 · sourceOrdinance 2016-050.
$623.00
Fire
Eff. Apr 1, 2017 · sourceDue prior to building permit issuance, unlike most of the others which are due at CO.
EMS
Eff. Apr 1, 2017 · sourceDue prior to building permit issuance.
$171.00
Subtotal
$12,367
Water & sewer — Sarasota County Public Utilities
Fee
Amount
Wastewater Facilities Capacity Fee — per EDU
Eff. Nov 18, 2025 · Res. 2025-249 Ex. B p.19 · sourceA single-family home individually metered is 1.00 EDU. Due prior to permit issuance.
$4,480.00
Water Facilities Capacity Fee — per EDU
Eff. Nov 18, 2025 · Res. 2025-249 Ex. B p.19 · source
$4,250.00
New Water Service — Meter Installation, 5/8"
Eff. Nov 18, 2025 · Res. 2025-249 Ex. A p.17 · sourceSarasota's schedule has no 3/4" tier — sizes are 5/8", 1", 1.5" and 2". The standard residential meter is 5/8".
$215.17
Building Permit Review Fee — utilities
Eff. Nov 18, 2025 · Res. 2025-249 Ex. C p.21 · source
$40.00
Subtotal
$8,985
Building permits, surcharges & other
Fee
Amount
Building inspections — Type V-B, valuation $241,500
Eff. Mar 24, 2026 · Res. 2026-068 Ex. A sec 2.A · source⚠ Valuation uses the ICC table, which has nine construction-type columns spanning $154.04 to $120.75 per sq ft — a 27.6% spread. The correct column depends on the home's IBC construction type.
$1,701.70
Zoning Plans Examination
Eff. Mar 24, 2026 · Ex. A sec 4.A · source$50 plus 0.075% of value above $4,000.
$228.12
Plan review — $100,001 to $250,000 valuation
Eff. Mar 24, 2026 · Ex. A sec 2.A · sourceFlat. Trade permits are included — there are no separate electrical, plumbing, mechanical or gas permits for new residential.
$221.25
Lot Drainage Review — single family engineering review
Eff. Mar 24, 2026 · Ex. A sec 1.I · source
$75.00
Certificate of Occupancy
Eff. Mar 24, 2026 · Ex. A sec 3.E · source
$42.00
New Address Assignment
Eff. Mar 24, 2026 · Ex. A sec 4.A · source
$30.00
DBPR surcharge, F.S. 468.631 (1.5%)
Eff. Invalid Date · source
$28.84
Building Code surcharge, F.S. 553.721 (1.0%)
Eff. Invalid Date · source
$19.23
Subtotal
$2,346
Mobility fee assessment area
Three areas, charged per square foot of heated area. Urban Infill covers narrow US-41 corridors plus Osprey, Nokomis and the Englewood CRA. Indexed +3% per year.
District
Fee
Urban Infill ($1.068/sf)
$2,184
West / South of I-75 ($1.737/sf)
$3,552
East / North of I-75 ($2.388/sf)
$4,883
Fees Sarasota County does not charge
Verified absent, so you don't go looking for them.
No separate road or transportation impact fee — replaced by the mobility fee.
No stormwater or drainage impact fee. The Stormwater Environmental Utility is a recurring annual assessment on the tax bill, not a development charge.
No separate electrical, plumbing, mechanical or gas permit for new residential construction.
No 3/4" meter tier exists in Sarasota's schedule.
Affordable housing reductions exist but are multi-family only — a market-rate detached home receives none.
What we could not verify
These are reported as gaps rather than estimated. The total above is a floor.
The 2.25% administrative service charge is printed only on the mobility fee schedule. The impact fee ordinance authorizes a service charge generally, but no resolution setting a rate for the other seven fees was found. Not applied here — that would add roughly $130.
The county's own Impact Fee Estimator returns a server-side runtime error on submit, reproduced with four valid parcel IDs and with empty input
Construction type is a builder input. Type V-B is most common for detached homes but Florida masonry construction may classify III-B, moving the total about $292.
Right-of-way permit class depends on scope and who pulls it — $75, $250 and $500 are all plausible
Why this number is easy to get wrong
The county's own fee enumeration is wrong twice. The Impact Fees webpage lists seven fees and omits both Library and Mobility. The official FAQ lists eight and still omits Library. Only the FY25 Annual Impact Fee Report gets it right.
The current impact fee schedule is labeled 'Effective 2016-Nov-14' — that is the adoption date. The rates actually took effect April 1, 2017. A ten-year-old-looking file is in fact current.
Three separate documents are image-only PDFs yielding near-zero characters, including the single most important one — the impact fee schedule, which is a flat JPEG.
Size-band labels in the annual report are printed BELOW their dollar amounts, so a naive forward-context grep returns the next band up.
How to use this. Every figure is transcribed from an official
Sarasota County or Florida Statutes document, linked inline, with its effective date. No third-party
legal-code mirrors were used — in testing, one returned impact fees off by 2.4×. Built for screening
and pro-forma work; confirm with the county before you sign anything.