Permit, notice or neither

The levels differ in procedure, cost and requirements at once. They cannot be compared on a single feature.

Level	State fee	Building design	Procedure
Building permit	always payable	always	more thorough, stricter requirements
Building notice	none	in some cases, not all	shorter
Neither is required	none	no	free construction

For the client the most practical difference is financial: a permit is chargeable, a notice is not. In time terms what matters more is that the notice procedure is shorter, as covered by the article on the building notice.

The applicable level does not follow from a single feature but from the intersection of four variables. The same building may therefore require a permit for one piece of work and nothing at all for another, which is the most common source of false assumptions.

Variable	Why it matters
Type of structure	requirements differ for residential and non-residential
Built-up area	the bands are narrow
Height of the structure	a couple of metres changes the outcome
Type of activity	erection, construction, reconstruction, extension, replacement of a part, demolition

With an extension a fifth factor is added, namely its extent relative to the existing volume. That ties the question directly to the register data: if the volume recorded there is wrong, so is the extension percentage and hence the applicable procedure, as covered by the article on volume data.

The answer sits in the table in Annex 1 to the Building Code, which crosses types of activity with the size and type of the structure and states, for each combination, whether a building notice, a building design, a building permit or nothing is required. This guide does not reproduce that table, for two reasons.

First, the table has changed. The Building Code amendments entered into force on 1 August 2026 and affected, among other things, which level applies in which cases, so any summary compiled earlier is suspect.

Second, working from memory is dangerous here. The bands are narrow, and a couple of metres of height or a couple of square metres of area change the outcome; a case that last time required only a notice may now require a permit.

The practical rule follows directly: open the table afresh for every project, even where a similar case was handled recently. Working from memory gives the wrong level.

Here is the most widespread misconception in this whole guide, and an expensive one. Free construction means that no building notice or permit application has to be submitted to the competent authority, not that one may build without rules.

According to professional sources, all conditions set by the various laws must always be met, and the authorities retain the right of construction supervision in these cases too. One permit does not replace another.

What disappears	What remains
The obligation to submit a notice or application	fire safety requirements
Waiting for a procedure	location restrictions, such as building exclusion zones
The state fee	distance from the plot boundary, which may require the neighbour's consent
	the right of construction supervision

The exemption therefore concerns the procedure, not the requirements, and that distinction is the key to this whole branch. A structure erected without a procedure but in breach of the requirements is no more lawful than one erected without a permit.

One channel covers all three levels, to the extent that documents are involved at all. A building permit application and a building notice, together with the accompanying documents, are as a rule submitted digitally through the building register, which requires logging in beforehand with an ID card or through the state portal.

This ties the procedure directly to the register, which is the starting point of this whole guide: the application is submitted in the same environment where the existing position was checked beforehand, as covered by the article on the building register. The register is therefore checked first.

The three levels of formality differ in state fee, design requirement and length of procedure, and the applicable level follows from the intersection of four variables in Annex 1 to the Building Code, to which a fifth is added for extensions. The table must not be worked from memory, because the bands are narrow and the table itself changed on 1 August 2026.

Four rules: open the Annex 1 in force afresh for every project. Check the register's volume data before calculating the extension percentage. Do not read free construction as rule-free, since the exemption concerns the procedure rather than the requirements. Submit the application through the building register, where you have already checked the existing position.