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

How Wicklow compares with the other councils

Wicklow ranks 20th of 30 councils on the share of applications granted, with 89%, close to the 90% of the median council. A typical decision comes faster than at the median council: 53 days against 55. Nine in ten decisions came within 194 days, against 209 days at the median council.

The register records a request for further information on 40% of all the decisions it records, in line with the median council (39%). The register flags only 17 of Wicklow's decisions as one-off houses, too few to compare with other applications.

The number of applications has held steady: 1,414 in 2019 and 1,412 in 2025. The busiest full year was 2021, with 1,552 applications; 20 of the 31 councils peaked in that year.

What Wicklow reported for 2025

Housing fills almost the whole of Wicklow's return: 702 dwellings, against 39 commercial premises, 29 farm buildings and 14 civil engineering schemes, with no industrial or social-use building counted. Refusals are spread more widely: of 115, 58 were for houses, 32 were in other functional categories, the second-highest count on that line, and 14 concerned commercial schemes. The council ruled 284 applications invalid and decided 531 within 8 weeks. Public buildings (3) and other functional categories (5) are the smallest lines in use. The 5 civil engineering refusals are the joint second-highest count on that line, after Wexford. In the register, a typical Wicklow decision comes faster than at the median council. One oddity: Wicklow refused more applications in other functional categories (32) than it received in that category (5). The return gives both figures for the year but does not say whether the refusals concern applications received in 2025.

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 Wicklow

In the national register, Wicklow applications link to their files on eplanning.ie/WicklowCC.