San Diego Shed Permits: Size Limits and How Many You Can Have

Do you need a shed permit in San Diego?

San Diego's municipal code exempts one-story detached accessory buildings supported on the ground and used as tool or storage sheds or playhouses, provided the projected roof area is 120 square feet or less. Note the measurement: roof area, not floor area, so eave overhangs count against you.

Three things strip the exemption entirely, regardless of size:

• The work involves a historical resource
• The property contains environmentally sensitive lands and needs a development permit
• The building has unreinforced masonry bearing walls or exterior wall parapets

For statewide context see our California shed permit guide, and for the national baseline the complete shed permit guide.

The exemption is narrow in another way people miss: it covers the building permit only. Running power, water or gas out to an exempt shed still needs a separate electrical, plumbing or mechanical permit. And the code says plainly that exemption from a building permit does not authorize work that violates any other local or state regulation.

How many sheds can you have in San Diego?

This is the question San Diego homeowners search most, and the answer is not a number of buildings. The municipal code says multiple accessory buildings are permitted on a premises, but the square footage of all non-habitable accessory buildings, excluding garages, cannot exceed 25 percent of the allowable gross floor area of the property.

So the limit is area, not count. Two sheds, four sheds, a shed and a workshop: fine, as long as the total stays under the cap. Working out your own number takes two steps:

1. Find your allowable gross floor area: lot size multiplied by the floor area ratio for your zone. San Diego's ratios slide with lot size, from 0.70 on lots of 3,000 square feet or less down to 0.45 on lots of 19,001 square feet or more.
2. Take 25 percent of that figure.

Worked through on a 6,000 square foot lot at a 0.59 floor area ratio, that reads as an allowable gross floor area of 3,540 square feet and a cap near 885 square feet total, spread across as many structures as you like. One caution on that arithmetic: the code does not define allowable gross floor area on the same page as the 25 percent rule, so confirm your own figure with Development Services rather than relying on this worked example.

Two cautions. Any single accessory building that sits inside a required setback is independently capped at 525 square feet. And this section was amended in 2026, with the amendment not yet effective inside the Coastal Overlay Zone pending Coastal Commission certification, so a coastal property may still be under the previous rule. Confirm with Development Services if you are near the coast.

Non-habitable accessory buildings also cannot be used for living or sleeping. They may carry lighting, laundry and a water heater, and a half bathroom. A shower is allowed only if the owner records an agreement that the building will not be used for living or sleeping.

Where a San Diego shed can sit

Base setbacks depend on your zone. In the RS single-dwelling zones, side setbacks run from 4 feet in RS-1-14 up to 10 feet in RS-1-1, street side setbacks on corner lots run from 5 feet up to 20 feet, and rear setbacks range from 10 feet up to 25 feet.

A detached accessory building gets a specific right to encroach into a required side or rear yard, but only when all five of these hold:

• The lot is 10,000 square feet or less
• The building is no more than 15 feet tall within the setback
• It does not share a common wall with the house, though a non-structural connecting element is allowed
• It is no more than 30 feet long within any setback
• It is no more than 525 square feet of gross floor area

Two places that right does not apply: inside a required visibility area, and inside a coastal view corridor designated by a land use plan.

The visibility area is the corner-lot rule. At a street intersection the triangle runs 25 feet along each property line; at a street and alley intersection or a street and driveway intersection it is 10 feet. No structure may sit inside it.

On lot coverage, most San Diego homeowners are not capped: the 50 percent coverage limit applies only where more than half the property is steep hillside, or in certain RT and RM zones. The binding constraint on a normal flat lot is the floor area ratio and the 25 percent accessory cap above.

Brush management: why a wood shed can be illegal

This is the rule that decides shed projects on San Diego's canyon lots, and it has nothing to do with permits. Brush management is required in all base zones where a property is within 100 feet of a structure and contains native or naturalized vegetation. It divides the land into two zones measured outward from the structure: Zone One at 35 feet and Zone Two at 65 feet.

The rules are blunt:

• Zone Two: no structures may be constructed at all. A shed is simply not allowed in that 65-foot band.
• Zone One: structures such as fences, walls, play structures and non-habitable gazebos must be of noncombustible, one-hour fire-rated, or heavy timber construction.

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly. On a canyon-edge or open-space-adjacent lot in San Diego, an off-the-shelf wood shed from a big-box store is not legal in Zone One, and no shed at all is legal in Zone Two, whether or not the shed is under 120 square feet and needs no building permit.

Separately, San Diego Fire-Rescue has adopted Zone 0 defensible space under state law AB 3074 for very high fire hazard severity zones, covering the first 5 feet around a home. Compliance deadlines for existing properties are phasing in, so check the city's wildfire prevention page for the date that applies to you before placing a shed against the house.

The Coastal Overlay Zone

A Coastal Development Permit is required for coastal development inside the Coastal Overlay Zone unless a specific exemption applies. Some properties fall under the California Coastal Commission's own jurisdiction rather than the city's, and a site straddling both needs approval from each.

For sheds, the exemption for improvements to existing structures is expressly withheld for significant non-attached structures such as garages and fences when the property is between the sea and the first public road, or within 300 feet of the inland extent of any beach. It is also withheld for work on a beach or wetland, or within 50 feet of a coastal bluff edge.

Whether a brand new shed on an already developed coastal lot needs a permit is a determination Development Services makes case by case, so ask before you build rather than assuming.

Environmentally sensitive lands

San Diego's environmentally sensitive lands rules cover sensitive biological resources, steep hillsides, coastal beaches, sensitive coastal bluffs and flood hazard areas. Steep hillsides are defined as land with a natural gradient of 25 percent or more and at least 50 feet of elevation difference.

Outside the Coastal Overlay Zone there is an exemption path if the work stays clear of those lands, does not push brush management into them, and keeps at least 100 feet from sensitive biological resources and 20 feet from the top of a steep slope. Inside the Coastal Overlay Zone that path is unavailable.

This matters back at the start of the article: if a development permit is required because of environmentally sensitive lands, the 120 square foot building permit exemption does not apply at all.

What a San Diego shed permit costs

San Diego charges flat per-project-type fees rather than a valuation-based table. The plan check line item that covers a detached residential storage building is $1,399.93, and that is the one figure quoted directly from the city's published schedule.

On top of it come mandatory add-ons: a $737 General Plan Maintenance Fee, an hourly inspection charge at $164.87 per hour, small mapping and collection fees, a development impact fee set-up charge based on 2.5 hours of review, and two small state fees tied to valuation. A shed built before 1978 on the property may add a lead hazard fee.

San Diego does not publish a shed fee, and inspection time is billed hourly, so a total cannot be stated up front. What is published is the plan check line for a detached garage or storage building, $1,399.93, which is high enough on its own that the 120 square foot exemption is worth designing around where the shed's use allows it.

Building a shed without a permit in San Diego

The risk in San Diego is less about fines than about the rules that apply whether or not a permit was required. A shed placed in brush management Zone Two, inside a visibility triangle, over the 25 percent accessory area cap, or in a coastal or environmentally sensitive area is a violation even at 100 square feet.

Because a small shed never passes through plan review, nothing in the process forces those checks. Confirming your zone, your allowable gross floor area, and whether your lot carries brush management or coastal mapping before you build is the difference between a weekend project and moving a finished building.