Guides · NYC DOB Filing

DOB NOW Filing: How It Actually Works

The PW1, the money forms, the inspections, the fees, and the mistakes that bounce filings at intake.

By the team at DOB Desk, a division of Saleh Engineering — written and reviewed by a licensed NYC Professional Engineer. Updated August 2026.

What DOB NOW is (and what it replaced)

DOB NOW is the NYC Department of Buildings' online portal. Its Build module is where job filings happen: permit applications, plan review, objections, and permit issuance. It replaced the paper-and-BIS workflow for most job types — legacy jobs still live in BIS, which is why permit research usually means searching both systems. Everything in DOB NOW is tied to the property's BIN (Building Identification Number) and tax block and lot, and to the registered accounts of the people on the filing: the owner, the applicant of record (a licensed PE or RA), and optionally a filing representative.

The three job types that matter

New Building (NB) — ground-up construction. Alteration-CO (the old Alt-1) — work that changes the Certificate of Occupancy: use changes, egress changes, occupancy changes, most enlargements. Alteration (the old Alt-2) — everything that doesn't touch the C of O: interior renovations, most plumbing, mechanical, sprinkler, and structural repair work. The job type decides how deep review goes, which documents are demanded, and whether a new C of O gates the closeout.

Step by step: what a filing contains

1. PW1 — the application

The master form. Location information (house number, street, borough, block, lot — DOB NOW's Lookup Property fills most of it from the address), stakeholders with their DOB-registered emails, the job description, work types (General Construction, Structural, Plumbing, Mechanical, Sprinkler…), review type (standard plan review vs. Professional Certification), and technical flags — landmark status, tenant occupancy, zoning questions. Most of the rest of the filing derives from what the PW1 declares.

2. Zoning & Schedule of Occupancy

Existing and proposed occupancy classification, construction classification, stories, and dwelling units — per floor on the schedule, and in total. The governing code edition (1968, 2008, 2014, or 2022 code) is declared here too, and the classifications must be internally consistent with it.

3. PW3 — the cost affidavit

An itemized estimate of construction cost by work type, signed off as an affidavit. It must line up with the estimated job cost on the filing — a mismatch between the PW3 total and the stated estimate is one of the most common intake bounces, and it also drives the filing fee.

4. TR1 — inspections you're committing to

The TR1 lists the special and progress inspections the work triggers under Building Code chapter 17 — structural steel, concrete, firestopping, energy code progress inspections, and so on — and who will perform them. Miss a required item and the filing is incomplete; over-select and you've signed up for inspections you'll have to close out later.

5. Documents, fees, signatures, submit

Gated documents depend on the flags: occupied residential work needs a Tenant Protection Plan, landmarked buildings need LPC sign-off, most alteration work needs an asbestos determination (ACP-5 or exemption). Then the fee is paid, the owner and applicant sign their attestations electronically (the owner through their own NYC.ID account — chasing this signature is a classic stall), and the filing goes to intake.

Filing fees

Alteration filing fees follow Administrative Code §28-112.2: a base fee for the first $3,000 of construction cost, then a rate per $1,000 above that. New Buildings are billed per square foot instead.

Example: a $80,000 alteration is $225 + 77 × $10.30 ≈ $1,018. DOB Desk's fee estimator runs this math (plus the record-fee edge cases) from the PW3 itself.

Timelines: where the weeks actually go

Intake QA usually turns around in days — it checks completeness and consistency, not code. Plan examination takes weeks and varies by borough and backlog. The schedule killer is the objection loop: when the examiner issues objections, you correct and resubmit, and each round typically costs 2–4 weeks. Two bounced rounds can double a project's permitting time, which is why the highest-leverage move in DOB NOW filing isn't filing faster — it's filing consistent.

The five mismatches that bounce filings

From the consistency rules encoded in DOB Desk's Approval Readiness check — built from real intake bounces on NYC filings — these five account for most rejections that have nothing to do with code:

1. Schedule of Occupancy vs. PW1 dwelling units — the per-floor schedule doesn't sum to the unit counts the PW1 declares.
2. PW3 total vs. estimated cost — the affidavit's items don't add up to the job's stated estimate.
3. Occupancy classification vs. code edition — e.g., 2022-code occupancy groups on a filing declaring pre-2008 code, or vice versa.
4. Incomplete TR1 — a declared work type (structural steel, concrete, energy work) with its required inspection line missing.
5. Missing gated documents — occupied building without a Tenant Protection Plan, landmark without LPC, alteration without the asbestos determination.

Each one is trivially checkable before submission — and each one, uncaught, costs a resubmission cycle.

FAQ

This guide is general information about NYC DOB procedures, not professional or legal advice for a specific project. Verify fees and requirements against the current Administrative Code and DOB rules; the professional of record owns every filing decision.