Dublin City planning permission: how often it is granted, and how long it takes

How Dublin City compares with the other councils

Dublin City ranks 15th of 30 councils on the share of applications granted, with 91%, close to the 90% of the median council. Its median wait matches that of the median council: 55 days. Few files drag on: nine in ten decisions came within 156 days, against 209 days at the median council.

Requests for further information are less frequent here: the register records one on 20% of all the decisions it records, against 39% for the median council, and decisions are no slower than the median. None of Dublin City's decisions in the 12 months is flagged as a one-off house in the register.

Fewer applications reach the council than before: 3,093 in 2025, down 13% from 3,558 in 2019. The busiest full year was 2022, with 3,654 applications.

What Dublin City reported for 2025

Dublin City sent the largest return of any council: its category counts add up to 2,382. Commercial buildings weigh more here than anywhere else, with 425 applications, the most in the country, out of 2,145 counted nationally. It also leads on government, health and education buildings (86), and only Meath counted more dwellings than its 1,776. Farm buildings are close to absent (1). The council declared 1,273 applications invalid, more than any other, and its 1,681 applications decided within 8 weeks are also the top figure. Of its 253 refusals, 176 were for dwellings and 59 for commercial buildings. Industrial buildings are almost as rare as farm buildings, at 4, while social-use buildings (30) and other functional categories (60) fill the middle of the table. Its commercial refusals rank 2nd after Kildare, and the 6 refusals of public projects are the highest count of any council.

These figures come from each council's annual return to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage: applications received in 2025, decisions to refuse and other measures, published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. An application that fits several categories is counted in each, so the categories do not add up to a number of applications, and the Department notes that councils may have read its guidance in slightly different ways.

Following an application in Dublin City

The national register gives no link to Dublin City's files. The council's planning page on dublincity.ie points to its online search at planning.agileapplications.ie/dublincity.