Fingal planning permission: how often it is granted, and how long it takes
In the 12 months to 3 November 2026, Fingal decided 1,170 planning applications: 918 were granted (78%) and 252 were refused. Half of the decisions came within 54 days, and nine in ten within 163 days.
The register holds no application received after 8 September 2026, so these figures may not reflect the most recent months.
The figures
- Granted
- 78%about 1 in 5 refused 75%100%
- Median wait for a decision
- 54 days 45105 days
- Nine in ten decided within
- 163 days 110260 days
- Asked for more information
- 19%
- Decisions in the 12 months
- 1,170grants and refusals; invalid, withdrawn and other outcomes left out
- One-off houses
- No decision
- Last application in the register
- 8 September 2026
Applications filed each year
- 20191,286
- 20201,263
- 20211,548
- 20221,350
- 20231,330
- 20241,736
- 20251,779
- 20261,158
The hatched bar is a part year: the register's last application for Fingal was received on 8 September 2026.
How Fingal compares with the other councils
Fingal grants the smallest share of applications of the 30 councils with decisions in the register: 78%, against 90% for the median council. A typical decision comes faster than at the median council: 54 days against 55. Few files drag on: nine in ten decisions came within 163 days, against 209 days at the median council.
Requests for further information are less frequent here: the register records one on 19% of all the decisions it records, against 39% for the median council, and decisions are no slower than the median. None of Fingal's decisions in the 12 months is flagged as a one-off house in the register.
Applications are up. Fingal received 1,779 in 2025, 38% more than the 1,286 of 2019. 2025 was the busiest full year in the register since 2019.
What Fingal reported for 2025
Fingal's return has the third-highest count for commercial buildings (183) and the third-highest for industrial buildings (57), next to 1,070 dwellings. Public and community buildings are well represented too, with 40 government, health or education projects and 42 social-use buildings. Its decisions to refuse are numerous: 236 across categories, the fourth-highest total in the country, including 190 on houses and 32 on commercial schemes. Fingal's 190 house refusals come 3rd in the returns, after Meath and Limerick. The many refusals fit Fingal's last place in the register on the share granted. On speed, the council lists 1,166 applications decided within 8 weeks, the third-highest figure after Dublin City and Donegal. It declared 375 applications invalid, and every one of the 8 categories appears in its return, civil engineering included (4).
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 Fingal
In the national register, Fingal applications link to their files on planning.agileapplications.ie/fingal.
See all the councils compared ยท Do you need planning permission at all?