Between the day a request is filed and the day the works end, a residential building completed in the canton in 2024 took 52 months. Four years and four months, at the median. The construction phase itself accounts for only part of that: the rest plays out in files, in consultations and in waiting.
Three acronyms keep coming up in Geneva architects’ offices, APA, DD and DP, and few owners are ever told which one applies to their project. The choice decides the statutory deadline, whether the request is published in the Official Gazette, and the window during which a third party can challenge the scheme.
At Class Orga we have been putting permit files together in this canton for more than forty years. Here is what the law actually provides, what each procedure covers, and exactly where the calendar slips.
Which works need a building permit in Geneva
A first point of vocabulary: Geneva does not issue a building permit as such but an authorisation to build, governed by the cantonal act on constructions and various installations, known as the LCI.
Its first article casts a wide net. An authorisation is required to erect a construction in whole or in part, to alter the volume, the architecture or the intended use of a building, to demolish it, to change the configuration of the ground, to lay out access roads or to fell a protected tree. Demolition works therefore fall under the same regime as new build.
The text then lays down a blunt rule: no work may be started before the authorisation has been issued. In the other direction it binds the administration, since as soon as the legal conditions are met the department is required to issue the authorisation. It is not granted as a favour, it is demonstrated.
One useful exception remains. Works carried out inside a villa, whether detached or in a terrace, escape the permit requirement as long as they do not alter the habitable floor area. Repainting, replacing a kitchen or redoing a bathroom at constant volumes triggers no file. Cutting through a load-bearing wall or converting a loft does.
The three authorisation procedures, and which one fits your project
The canton handles requests through three entry points. They do not differ in how thoroughly a file is examined, but in what they commit you to and in how much time they consume.
The preliminary request and the request for information
The preliminary request settles the broad lines before you invest in a full design: where the building sits, its intended use, its dimensions, its volume and its access arrangements. Published in the Official Gazette, the answer counts as a decision and binds the administration on those points. It lapses if the definitive request is not filed within two years.
Its quieter cousin, the request for information, follows the same logic without publication, provided the applicant expressly asks for it. The trade-off is written into the statute: the answer is no more than a piece of information, with no legal effect. It is used to test a plot before committing to design fees, not to secure a scheme.
The APA, or accelerated procedure
The APA covers minor works, internal alterations, temporary constructions and urgent reconstructions. It skips the prior publication stage, since the file is not put out for public inspection before the decision. The state services consulted return their opinion within fifteen days, and the department rules within thirty. A variant exists for demolishing something that was itself authorised under the accelerated route.
One point tends to be discovered too late: it is the department, not the applicant, that decides whether a project qualifies as accelerated. Filing an APA for a project that does not qualify wastes the weeks of examination and forces a fresh start under the definitive procedure.
The DD, or definitive request
Everything outside the previous categories goes through a definitive request: new build, added storeys, change of use, alteration of volume. This is the ordinary procedure, and the most exposed. The request is published in the Official Gazette. For thirty days anyone may consult the file and send observations to the department. Municipalities and interested bodies have the same period to issue their opinion, and once it has passed their silence counts as approval.
On a large scheme, building construction for instance, the DD is the only route open.
| Preliminary request | Accelerated procedure (APA) | Definitive request (DD) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it settles | Siting, intended use, dimensions, volume, access | Minor works, internal alterations, temporary constructions | New build, added storeys, change of use, alteration of volume |
| Published in the Official Gazette | Yes, except a request for information | Not before the decision | Yes, with 30 days of observations |
| Time allowed for consultations | 30 days | 15 days | 30 days, silence counting as approval |
| Time allowed to answer | 60 days | 30 days | 60 days |
| What you walk away with | A principle confirmed before investing | A fast decision on a limited scope | Authorisation of the full project |
The statutory deadlines, and what they become on a real calendar
The law is precise: sixty days to answer a request for authorisation, thirty days under the accelerated procedure, counted from the day the file is registered. On paper, two months.
Three mechanisms stretch that clock. The deadline is extended where the project calls for a derogation, affects a protected building, sits in a development zone, or simply by its scale. It is suspended as soon as the department asks for further documents and restarts when they arrive, energy efficiency works being exempt from that suspension. And if the applicant has heard nothing by the deadline, they may notify the department of their intention to carry out the works: absent any notification within ten days, they are entitled to start.
The cantonal figures show what this adds up to. For residential buildings completed in 2024, the median time between filing the request and finishing the works reaches 52 months: 46 for a detached house, 64 for a collective housing block. Ten per cent of files come in under 31 months, ten per cent run beyond 82. Yet the construction phase itself accounts for only 21 months on a house and 33 on a collective building. The rest, close to half the calendar, is spent before the first bucket of earth is moved.
Volume brings no relief either, with 2,496 dwellings authorised in the canton in 2024 against 1,867 the year before. Some regimes add stages of their own, as they do when it comes to renovating a residential building in Geneva under the LDTR.
After the decision: observations, appeals and lapse of the authorisation
Geneva has a feature that owners coming from elsewhere often misread. There is no formal objection here that would block an authorisation before it is issued. Observations filed during the public inspection carry consultative weight only: the department reads them, it is not bound by them.
The challenge comes afterwards. Once the authorisation has been issued and published, directly affected neighbours, the municipality and accredited associations have thirty days to appeal to the Administrative Court of First Instance. Then, where applicable, come the Administrative Chamber of the Court of Justice and the Federal Supreme Court. A project can be authorised and still stand idle until the proceedings run their course.
The authorisation also has a shelf life. It lapses if the works are not started within the two years following its publication. The department may extend it by one year, provided the request arrives at least one month before expiry, and that extension is granted twice at most. Beyond that the file has to be redone, under the rules in force when it is filed again. That is why a construction company in Geneva sets its execution programme against the publication date rather than against the date the contract was signed.
What a general contractor takes on in the permit file
A general contractor in Geneva that takes a project from the root starts with the file. Drawings and supporting documents must be produced by a professionally qualified agent listed on the cantonal register, and both filing and follow-up go through AC-Démat, the digital platform of the building permit office. Between the two lies the real work: anticipating the opinions of the municipality, of heritage protection, of the fire service, of energy and of mobility, so that the request goes out complete.
That is where weeks are won. An incomplete file triggers a request for documents, which suspends the deadline. Two rounds of that and the sixty days written into the law become five months. Clearing those questions before filing rather than after is the heart of our work on project planning and administrative procedures in Geneva.
The role does not stop at the decision. The conditions written into the authorisation carry through to execution, and coordinating the building trades is set against them. At the end of the works, a global certificate of conformity, drawn up by a qualified agent, certifies that the building complies with the authorisation, its conditions and the rules in force when it took effect. Without it the file does not close, and an inaccurate declaration exposes you to administrative or criminal penalties.
A Geneva project is won as much on the file as on the site. Filing under the right procedure, and filing complete, gains more months than any amount of acceleration once the crane is up. It is the part of the job you never see from the street, and the one that fixes the date people move in.
