E-Permits and Online Permitting in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach: How South Florida Business Owners File Construction Permits Digitally

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Every construction permit in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties now starts at an online portal. Whether you call them epermits, epermit, e permit, e permitting, epermitting, or simply permits online, the underlying system is the same — every host municipality in South Florida has migrated from in-person, paper-only permit counters to fully digital intake, review, payment, inspection scheduling, and certificate issuance. For business owners, contractors, architects, engineers, and property owners, this is mostly a win — faster turnarounds, transparent status tracking, no more lines at the building department — but only if you know how each county's online portal works, what file formats they accept, what digital signatures they require, and what mistakes guarantee a rejection on first review. Endless Life Design — a licensed Florida general contractor and custom construction company — files, tracks, and manages every ePermit through every municipal portal across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties on behalf of business owners. Call (305) 680-3283 or visit our Government Permit Processing Service page to start. This guide walks through how the South Florida ePermit system actually works in 2026, what gets uploaded, and how to clear digital plan review on first submission.

Index

1. What ePermits Are and Why Every South Florida Construction Project Now Starts Online

2. The Miami-Dade County ePermits Portal — File, Track, Pay, and Schedule Digitally

3. Broward County ePermitting Through BCEP and Municipal Online Systems

4. Palm Beach County ePermitting Online — PB-eGov and City-Level Portals

5. City-Level ePermit Portals — Miami, Miami Beach, Hollywood, Hialeah, Pompano Beach, Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Aventura

6. What Must Be Uploaded for Every Digital Permit Submission

7. Common ePermit Submission Errors That Cause Plan Rejection

8. ePermit Inspection Scheduling, Virtual Inspections, and Online Status Tracking

9. Where to Start: How Endless Life Design Manages Your Full ePermit Process — Plus All Business Types We Serve in South Florida

1. What ePermits Are and Why Every South Florida Construction Project Now Starts Online

ePermits — the digital equivalent of every construction, building, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, signage, and demolition permit historically filed in person — are now the only way most South Florida municipalities accept new permit applications. The transition started in the early 2020s with the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County's portals and accelerated through 2024 and 2025 as every Broward and Palm Beach city converted to its own online intake system. By 2026, in-person counter intake is the exception, not the rule. Walk into most building departments today and the counter staff will redirect you to the website to upload your application, your sealed plans, your engineering calculations, your contractor license verification, your property owner authorization, and your fee payment.

ePermits speed up review when the submission is clean. A typical commercial tenant build-out that used to take 6 to 10 weeks of in-person review now clears digital review in 3 to 5 weeks if every required document is uploaded in the right format on first submission. The catch: any missing document, any incorrect digital signature, any wrong file format, any incomplete fee payment, or any uploaded drawing that fails the municipality's PDF validation will kick the entire submission back to the contractor for resubmission — and the clock restarts. Endless Life Design's government permit processing service handles every step of the digital submission so first-review approvals are the norm, not the exception, for every business type we serve.

2. The Miami-Dade County ePermits Portal — File, Track, Pay, and Schedule Digitally

Miami-Dade County's ePermits portal — accessed through the county's main building and code compliance website — handles all construction permits for unincorporated Miami-Dade plus several municipalities that contract their permitting through the county. The portal supports new permit applications, revision submissions, plan review tracking, inspection scheduling, certificate of occupancy and certificate of use issuance, contractor license verification, and online fee payment by credit card or ACH. Every PDF uploaded must be sealed digitally by a Florida-licensed design professional using a verified digital signature certificate — Miami-Dade does not accept scanned wet signatures on PDFs.

The portal also runs an automated permit search function where any visitor can pull the open and closed permit history for any property address in unincorporated Miami-Dade. For business owners considering a property purchase or lease, this is the first place to look before signing anything. Endless Life Design pulls this report, identifies any open or expired permits attached to the address, closes them out where possible, and amends them where needed before any new build-out begins. The portal also publishes inspection availability windows up to 30 days out, so build-out schedules can be planned around real inspector availability rather than guesswork.

3. Broward County ePermitting Through BCEP and Municipal Online Systems

Broward County's permitting landscape is more fragmented than Miami-Dade's because most Broward cities run their own ePermit portals rather than going through the county. Broward County's ePermitting system handles unincorporated areas and a handful of municipalities, while Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, Coral Springs, Davie, Plantation, Sunrise, Weston, Deerfield Beach, Tamarac, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, and Parkland each run their own city-level digital permit portals. This means a contractor working across multiple Broward cities needs separate login credentials, payment methods, and submission formats for each — and each portal has its own quirks regarding accepted PDF versions, file size limits, and digital signature requirements.

Hollywood's ePermit portal, for example, is particularly strict about digital signature certificate validation and frequently rejects submissions where the architect's seal is rasterized rather than vector-embedded. Pompano Beach's portal applies stricter wind-load review than most Broward cities. Fort Lauderdale's system requires separate uploads for each permit type rather than a single submission. Endless Life Design maintains active accounts on every Broward city portal, knows each system's submission requirements, and handles every digital intake on behalf of clients. Call (305) 680-3283 to discuss your project location and we will tell you exactly which portal will handle your application.

4. Palm Beach County ePermitting Online — PB-eGov and City-Level Portals

Palm Beach County's ePermitting system covers unincorporated Palm Beach plus several municipalities that participate in the county's central system. The PB-eGov portal handles permit applications, plan submission, payment, inspection scheduling, and certificate issuance for unincorporated Palm Beach County and partner cities. Larger municipalities — West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Wellington, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, Lake Worth Beach, Royal Palm Beach, and Greenacres — each run their own dedicated ePermit portals separate from the county system.

Boca Raton's ePermit portal is one of the strictest in South Florida regarding architectural seal verification and exterior aesthetic review — the city's design review board adds an additional digital submission layer on top of standard plan review for any project visible from public right-of-way. West Palm Beach's system applies a separate downtown overlay review for any project within the central business district. Delray Beach requires historic district review for any project within designated historic neighborhoods. Endless Life Design files in every Palm Beach municipality and county system, with a full understanding of each portal's local overlays and additional review layers.

5. City-Level ePermit Portals — Miami, Miami Beach, Hollywood, Hialeah, Pompano Beach, Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Aventura

Inside the three counties, the largest cities run their own ePermit portals: the City of Miami's iBuild system, the City of Miami Beach's ePermits portal, the City of Hialeah's online permit center, the City of Hollywood's permit portal, the City of Pompano Beach's digital intake, the City of Coral Gables' digital permitting (which adds the Board of Architects historic review for many projects), the City of Aventura's ePermits, the Town of Bal Harbour's portal, the City of Sunny Isles Beach's system, the City of Doral's online permitting, and Boca Raton's separate municipal portal. Each one has its own accepted file formats, payment processors, digital seal verification standards, and revision workflows.

Coral Gables is particularly worth flagging — every exterior modification within Coral Gables city limits requires Board of Architects review in addition to standard ePermit submission, and that secondary review adds 4 to 8 weeks to the timeline if not planned for at the outset. Aventura applies stricter mechanical and exterior wall review than most Miami-Dade cities. The City of Hialeah requires Spanish-language affidavits for owner-builder permits. Endless Life Design knows the quirks of every South Florida ePermit portal — that is what separates a 3-week first-review approval from a 12-week revision marathon. Call (305) 680-3283 for a pre-submittal portal review.

6. What Must Be Uploaded for Every Digital Permit Submission

Every ePermit submission, across every South Florida portal, requires the same core document package: the completed permit application form (typically a fillable PDF specific to each municipality), the sealed and signed architectural plan set (PDF with embedded vector signatures), sealed structural plans where load-bearing modifications occur, sealed mechanical plans for HVAC and hood work, sealed electrical plans with load calculations, sealed plumbing plans with isometric riser diagrams, energy calculations under the Florida Building Code Energy Conservation chapter, the contractor's license verification (a current DBPR record screenshot or PDF), the property owner authorization letter signed by the deed-holder, the notice of commencement (recorded with the county clerk after permit issuance but referenced at submission), and the fee payment receipt confirming the application fee has been paid.

File formats matter. Most South Florida portals require PDFs flattened to PDF/A standard, with file sizes typically capped between 50 MB and 200 MB per upload. Drawings must be at the prescribed sheet size (typically 24x36 or 30x42) with the title block in the lower-right corner. Digital signatures must be embedded as cryptographic certificates verified through Adobe or DocuSign, not rasterized images of seals. Endless Life Design produces every plan set in the correct format for the target portal — licensed sealed architecture plans, licensed sealed structure plans, licensed sealed mechanical plans, licensed sealed electrical plans, and licensed sealed plumbing plans — all PDF/A-flattened, properly sized, vector-signed, and ready for first-time portal acceptance.

7. Common ePermit Submission Errors That Cause Plan Rejection

The most common reasons South Florida ePermit submissions get rejected on first review: rasterized signatures (scanned wet seals on PDFs instead of vector-embedded digital certificates), incorrect sheet sizes (drawings produced at 11x17 when the portal requires 24x36), missing title blocks or title blocks lacking the required revision date and seal date, energy calculations submitted on the wrong Florida Energy Code form, contractor license verification that is expired or in a name that does not match the application, owner authorization letters missing the deed-holder's notarized signature, fee payments that are short by even a single dollar, and PDF files saved at the wrong PDF version (some older portals reject PDF 2.0 and require PDF 1.7).

Other frequent rejection causes: drawings that lack a properly-sized scale bar, plumbing isometrics that show fixture counts without flow rates, electrical load calculations missing demand factors, mechanical plans without rooftop equipment anchorage details for HVHZ zones, accessibility (ADA) routes that go through swinging doors with insufficient clearance, and missing fire-marshal review confirmation for any project that triggers life-safety review. Endless Life Design pre-checks every submission against the host portal's published rejection patterns before files are uploaded — most of our first submissions clear plan review without a single revision request.

8. ePermit Inspection Scheduling, Virtual Inspections, and Online Status Tracking

Once a permit is issued, the same online portal handles inspection scheduling. Most South Florida portals allow inspections to be requested 7 to 30 days in advance, with confirmation of the assigned 4-hour or 2-hour inspection window the day before. Many municipalities now offer virtual inspections for simpler scopes — a contractor or owner walks the inspector through the work via live video call, and the inspector approves remotely. Virtual inspections are common for plumbing rough-ins, electrical trim-out verification, and final inspections on smaller tenant build-outs. Larger and life-safety inspections still require in-person sign-off.

Inspection results are posted to the portal in real time, usually within hours of the inspector's visit. If an item fails, the portal generates a correction notice listing exactly what must be addressed before re-inspection. Re-inspection fees vary by municipality — Miami-Dade County's re-inspection fee is currently in the $90 to $160 range, Boca Raton's is in the $130 to $200 range, and several Broward cities apply re-inspection fees on a per-trade basis. Endless Life Design schedules every inspection through the host portal, attends every in-person inspection, and addresses any corrections before re-inspection so projects move forward without unnecessary fees or delays.

Why the Permit Process Earns Respect — One Planet, Interconnected Systems

Online permit portals — iBuild in the City of Miami, ProjectDox in Miami Beach, the e-permit systems across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach municipalities — illustrate how modern permit infrastructure connects construction work across vast geographic and administrative boundaries. The online portals coordinate plan submissions across thousands of active projects simultaneously, route reviews to the appropriate plan reviewers based on the project's specific discipline requirements, track each project's status through the full permit cycle, integrate fee payment with permit issuance, schedule inspections across hundreds of active inspections per inspector per day, document every interaction in the permanent permit record, and expose the data to authorized researchers including property owners, contractors, attorneys, and insurance carriers. The portals are not just websites — they are the digital infrastructure of construction coordination, connecting millions of property owners to the regulatory framework that keeps construction safe across South Florida. The investment each municipality makes in modernizing its permit portal reflects the recognition that better coordination produces better construction outcomes for the broader community. Property owners benefit from these portals because they connect to a system that was specifically designed to handle the complexity of coordinating construction across interconnected infrastructure.

The permit process is the coordination. Every project moves through engineer-to-engineer review — the engineering prepared by the property owner's licensed Florida engineers is reviewed by the host municipality's own licensed engineers, both operating under Florida Statutes Chapter 471 and identical professional standards. The plan review is not a bureaucratic obstacle; it is a credentialed peer verifying the design before construction begins. The inspections at each construction milestone are not nitpicking; they are the system verifying that the work matches the approved plans. The document stack — boundary survey, elevation certificate where applicable, structural and engineering calculations, affidavits, letters of intent, manufacturer product data, soil tests, environmental delineations — exists because each document protects a specific aspect of the project. The fees fund the engineers, inspectors, and administrative staff who actually do this work. The time it takes is the time those professionals need to do the work properly. Engineering calculations are not instant. Plan reviews are not instant. Changing one element changes everything it touches — which is why mid-project changes cascade through multiple disciplines and require re-engineering across affected drawings. Property owners who approach the process with respect for the engineering, the documents, the time, and the professionals on both sides of the permit counter receive efficient projects that complete on schedule. Property owners who treat the process as an obstacle bog down their own projects. For the complete philosophical and process explanation of why this matters, see our pillar guide on how the construction permit process actually works in South Florida.

9. Where to Start: How Endless Life Design Manages Your Full ePermit Process — Plus All Business Types We Serve in South Florida

If you are about to file your first ePermit application — or your fiftieth — Endless Life Design handles the entire digital submission, review, inspection scheduling, and certificate-issuance process on every South Florida portal across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties. We produce every sealed plan in-house in the correct format for the target portal, file the application, pay the fees, monitor digital plan review, respond to every revision request, schedule every inspection, and deliver the Final Certificate of Occupancy or Certificate of Use ready for opening day. Call (305) 680-3283 to start.

We provide ePermit filing for every business type in South Florida — medical offices, dental practices, orthodontists, dermatologists, plastic surgery clinics, urgent care, veterinary hospitals, pharmacies, med spas, physical therapy and chiropractic offices, mental health and psychology practices, optometrists, restaurants, cafés, bakeries, juice bars, coffee shops, ice cream parlors, food halls, ghost kitchens, catering kitchens, breweries, hair salons, barbershops, nail salons, eyelash and waxing studios, day spas, tattoo studios, gyms, pilates studios, Reformer pilates studios, yoga studios, CrossFit boxes, boxing and MMA gyms, dance studios, personal training studios, retail boutiques, jewelry stores, furniture showrooms, electronics stores, bookstores, pet supply stores, sporting goods, bridal shops, art galleries, vape and smoke shops, law firms, accounting firms, insurance agencies, real estate offices, mortgage brokers, financial advisors, marketing agencies, architecture and engineering firms, photography studios, dry cleaners, laundromats, self-storage facilities, moving offices, print shops, sign shops, funeral homes, co-working spaces, hotels, boutique inns, resorts, event venues, banquet halls, wedding venues, movie theaters, arcades, bowling alleys, escape rooms, trampoline parks, indoor playgrounds, private K-12 schools, daycares, preschools, Montessori schools, tutoring centers, music schools, art schools, language schools, driving schools, trade schools, auto dealerships, repair shops, body shops, car washes, tire shops, marine dealers, RV dealers, warehouses, distribution centers, light manufacturing, workshops, office buildings, churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, community centers, non-profits, property management companies, residential developers, homebuilders, apartment complexes, condominium associations, and HOA-managed buildings. Visit endlesslifedesign.com, read our Miami-Dade Permit Search guide, or call (305) 680-3283 to schedule a site review.

Related Permit Resources

Continue exploring: Restaurant Building Permits in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach: Complete Construction Permit Checklist for Every South Florida Food Service Business • Miami-Dade Permit Search: How Every South Florida Business Owner Pulls, Verifies, and Files Permits the Right Way • Florida Accessibility Code for Building Construction – Deep Dive for Permit Compliance 2026 • Community Pool, HOA Amenity and Recreational Facility Construction Permits 2026 • Ready to secure your approvals? Explore our Government Permit Processing Service or call (305) 680-3283 today.