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

How Kerry compares with the other councils

Kerry ranks 18th of 30 councils on the share of applications granted, with 89%, close to the 90% of the median council. The wait is longer than at the median council: 64 days against 55, so 9 days more for a typical decision. Nine in ten decisions came within 247 days, against 209 days at the median council.

Kerry asks for further information more often than most councils: the register records a request on 46% of all the decisions it records, against 39% for the median council, and its decisions also take longer than the median. One-off houses do better than other applications: 100% of the 21 decisions flagged as one-off houses were grants.

The number of applications has held steady: 1,331 in 2019 and 1,429 in 2025. The busiest full year was 2021, with 1,538 applications; 20 of the 31 councils peaked in that year.

What Kerry reported for 2025

After its 785 dwellings, Kerry's return is shared between farm buildings (121) and commercial premises (100), with public and community projects behind them: 31 government, health or education buildings and 35 social-use buildings. Kerry refuses commercial schemes in larger numbers than most councils: 23 refusals in that category, the fourth-highest number, after Kildare, Dublin City and Fingal. Overall Kerry reported 119 refusals, 85 of them for houses, and ruled 209 applications invalid. It is one of the councils with something in each of the 8 categories, from 11 entries under other functional categories to 2 civil engineering schemes. Industrial sites are a small group at 9. With 620 applications decided within 8 weeks, Kerry sits 12th on that line, against joint 9th for its category total. Public projects place Kerry 5th on that line, with 31. Kerry's 1,429 filings in 2025 were its highest since 2021.

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 Kerry

In the national register, Kerry applications link to their files on eplanning.ie/KerryCC.