Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos (OGPe)

Who can sign your permit: the Authorized Professional and Authorized Inspector

A private professional certified by OGPe can grant or deny your permits. What they can decide, what they cannot, and how to check their credential.

Safe Plans: four house designs OGPe gives you for free

OGPe and FEMA publish four house models you can download at no cost. They do not replace the engineer, but they save you the plan.

Solar panels and batteries: the OGPe certification they must have

Before being sold for installation in Puerto Rico, renewable energy equipment needs an OGPe certification. What it requires and how it helps you.

Correcting the recorded area: your deed says one size, the land another

OGPe certifies the survey of your lot to correct the area recorded in the Property Registry. Filing costs $30.

Subdividing or lotting out land: the Registration Plans Authorization

To divide an estate and record the new lots, OGPe must approve the registration plans. It costs $15 per lot.

The construction permit: what it asks for and why yours may not be “ministerial”

One permit covers urbanization, construction and demolition. If it is ministerial it moves fast; OGPe publishes exactly what disqualifies it.

When what you want to build does not fit the district’s parameters

The Construction Consultation is the route for requesting variances to construction parameters. Filing starts at $150.

The fire prevention certification for an apartment building

It goes inside the use permit for a multifamily residence, and OGPe or a private Authorized Inspector can issue it.

“That product is not approved in Puerto Rico”: the filing that approves it

OGPe certifies that a construction system or product meets the current Building Code. Filing costs $1,500.

Occupying a green project: the authorization that comes before the use permit

The AOV is issued before the Green Use Permit to verify the project’s performance. There is no filing cost.

Recycling area: new housing complexes must designate one

Act 61-2002 requires designating a recyclable material recovery area in every new housing complex, with $5,000 to $10,000 fines for failing to.

August 24, 2026

Where a crematorium may be: industrial zoning and 50 metres from residential

Act 55-2006 limits crematoria to industrial or unzoned areas and bars authorising operation within fifty metres of a residential zone.

August 24, 2026

Permit to extract sand, gravel and stone, and how to object to it

OGPe grants the permit and DRNA oversees it. If the extraction is near your home, you have a right to a public hearing in your town.

August 27, 2026

Converting a condominium into a condohotel: what Act 11-2026 requires

It takes all the owners plus authorisation from OGPe or the municipality. What the new Article 9.-103 says and how the decision is taken.

August 27, 2026

Stopping work or revoking a permit: the 10% bond and what to allege

Act 82-2026 requires alleging imminent harm and a bond of no less than 10% of the project’s value in every paralization request, judicial or administrative.

August 28, 2026

Registering a vending machine

Act 217-2014 requires every vending machine to be registered at OGPe with a digital sticker: $5 to $15, once, issued within 24 hours.

August 30, 2026

Closing or building a carport: the measurements that govern

Ten feet wide, twenty long, thirteen high in the side yard, and windows five feet from the boundary.

How high a fence may be in Puerto Rico

One metre at the front, two at the sides and rear, and two at the front with a grille under 25% solid.

The variance: when your lot does not meet its district

There are two different variances and a hard requirement. The Joint Regulation says variances are not favoured.

The septic system permit for a home

What OGPe asks to authorise a septic tank, the inspection before covering, and who answers for prior contamination.

How many parking spaces you must provide: the table by use

One space per fifteen square metres of shop, one per five of restaurant, and the minimum is not waived outside the urban centre.

Your business sign: when you do not need a permit

Up to 35% of the façade or a hundred square feet, whichever is greater, with no permit. And the Single Permit already authorises fifty.

Reviewing a permit: twenty days and forty-eight hours

The term to challenge an OGPe determination is jurisdictional, and notifying the other parties is too.

Tiny houses: from 170 to 1,100 square feet, and where they fit

The Joint Regulation does allow them, with a table of measurements of their own and separate rules for communities of four to ten units.

The Green Permit: thirty days and no impact fee

Building under the Green Design Guidelines exempts you from impact fees and allows parameters to vary by up to 25%.

A business at home: the 25%, one chair and who may work

The regulation allows an office, a home occupation and a beauty salon in the dwelling, with size and staffing caps.

Lifts: who may install them and what must be filed

If the company is not registered with PROSHA, the equipment cannot be certified, however well the work was done.

Legal non-conformity: the two years and the fifty per cent

Close for more than two years and you lose the protection; if damage exceeds 50% you cannot rebuild for the same use.

Safety & Licensing

Permits during a state of emergency: the dispensation and its clocks

With an emergency executive order there is a dispensation, an exemption from stamps and fees, and five- and ten-day terms.

Impact fee: who pays it, who is exempt and how to dispute it

Three presumptions of no impact, exemptions including renewable energy, and a reclassification procedure with 60- and 20-day terms.

Telecommunications tower near your home: distances, notices and bans

Tower height plus 10% to the nearest residence, plus 50 metres beside schools, and notice within 100 metres in 10 days.

Aqueduct and sewer works: from the permit to the AAA connection

The fast certification route fits six equivalent units, 2,400 gallons a day and a one-inch meter.

Business licences: the requirements every one of them asks for

Eleven documents, validity tied to the Permiso Único, and a licence that cannot move premises.

Licence to sell cigarettes, vapes and tobacco products

One wholesale licence, one retail, and one more per vending machine; and nothing within the customer’s reach.

Vehicles & CESCO

Vehicle dealer and parts licence: the $100,000 bond

Every dealer needs a minimum $100,000 bond covering hidden defects and warranties, plus $50,000 per branch.

Vehicles & CESCO

Opening a vehicle inspection station: requirements, equipment and bond

14 by 30 by 14 feet, 4,000 square feet of parking, two mechanics and a $20,000 bond to sell marbetes.

Environmental compliance in permits: REA, EA, DIA and categorical exclusion

No environmental compliance determination means no final determination, and the REA precedes every EA or DIA.

Sanitary Licence: issued first, inspected afterwards

Filed through the SUI within the Permiso Único, issued before the inspection, and Health can close you down afterwards.

Fire Prevention Certification: who signs it and when the inspection comes

Issued within the Permiso Único before the inspection, with a certifying paragraph the regulation prints word for word.

Retail alcohol licence: categories A, B and C and the hundred metres

Three categories by where it is drunk, mandatory denial grounds, and the hundred-metre rule near schools and churches.

Wholesale alcohol and beer and wine manufacturers

Five licences, the Federal Basic Permit in all of them, one per vehicle, and formula and label before producing.

General environmental permits: the 40 cubic metres, 900 metres and 10 horsepower

Three General Permits filed with OGPe, with concrete thresholds and same-day issuance when filed alone.

Electrical works: when a recommendation is needed and the seven days to energise

Seven cases require a prior AEE recommendation, and once energising is requested the maximum term is seven days.

Gasoline station: where it may be sited and why no variance is possible

Separations of 800, 400, 2,200 and 1,200 metres between stations, 50 metres from a park and 1,000 feet from a school; and OGPe has no power to waive them.

Gasoline station: what may be sold and what the lot must measure

Seven uses permitted in the main building, sealed alcoholic beverages with no consumption on site, and the height, area and yard tables by district.

Social-interest residential project: relaxed parameters, fee exemption and the reserved 5%

Lots from 100 square metres, eleven-metre streets, impact-fee exemption with the Secretary’s certification, and five per cent of units reserved.

Accessory buildings and uses: the 25%, the two storeys and the seven metres

A home office, home occupation or salon may not exceed 25% of the dwelling’s area, and the building out back has height, occupancy and setback caps.

Opening an access to the road: the operational study and who accepts the works

OGPe grants the permit and the Permiso Único, but the DTOP accepts the built works, and the ACT may inspect within 25 metres of the road.

Recycling in the permit: six cubic yards per fifty units

Every new project must designate a recyclables recovery area, separate from ordinary waste, with water, signposted and sized by table.

Solar panels: up to one megawatt on a roof needs no permit, and the solar farm has a table

A roof up to 1 MW needs no construction or use permit; on the ground up to 100 kW needs no construction permit either.

Renewable energy system: five days to certify and five to interconnect

The installation certification is filed with OGPe within five working days, and the AEE interconnects within five days of the Permiso Único.

Wind turbines: the 110%, the 150% and the farm next door

Setbacks are measured as percentages of the tower’s height, and a neighbour may consent by sworn statement or public deed to shortening them.

The business generator: the permit, the AEE endorsement and the five days

The designer must be a Professional Engineer, the endorsement is filed by the AEE’s means, and after the Permiso Único interconnection comes within five days.

Permit process: five days to validate, thirty to cure and 180, 120 or 30 to decide

The terms the Joint Regulation fixes to validate an application, cure it and decide it, and the rule that provisional permits do not exist.

Which works need no construction permit: painting, roof sealing, changing windows

Thirteen activities are not construction works and ten minor works are exempt, but an Exempt Works Application must be filed and municipal excise taxes paid.

Medical cannabis: the hundred metres from a school and how the premises must be built

The construction and use permit is central OGPe’s exclusive jurisdiction, and the physical plant has its own requirements by establishment type.

Health, Fire and Police recommendations for a construction permit

What the Final Recommendation Determination is, which plans each agency asks for and why one- and two-family homes are excluded.

Segregating land: the subdivision rules of the Joint Regulation

The nine prohibitions, lot shape, the 600 square metres and the three-segregation count running from 1964.

Roads, storm easements and grading in an urbanisation

Eleven metres minimum street width, six metres for an access easement, and why you cannot build over the storm easement in your yard.

Parks, courts and the school contribution: an urbanisation’s neighbourhood facilities

One play area per hundred lots, 6.2 square metres per lot for schools, and the exemption when what you are subdividing is an inheritance.

Your project’s inspector and contractor: what they must certify

The contractor’s sworn certification, the inspector’s monthly report, the ten days to replace them and the involuntary-acquirer rule.

Amending plans, the horizontal property regime and a use permit for an existing building

What the designer may certify, As Built plans when the originals are gone, and the certified letter for buildings predating 1955.

Ministerial or discretionary permit: why some take days and others months

The ten parameters that define ministerial, each route’s deadlines, notice to neighbours and deemed approval by subrogation.

How long your permit lasts and how many extensions you may seek

The two years to obtain the permit and to start work, the six months for temporary use, and the construction permit’s two one-year extensions.

Incidental Operational Single Permit: moving earth, cutting trees and the CES Plan

The four permits it consolidates, the 40-cubic-metre and 900-square-metre thresholds, and five years’ validity with 90 days to renew.

How many trees must be planted: mitigation by cuerda, by cutting and by solar

Five trees per cuerda impacted, three, four or five per tree cut depending on DAP, one per solar and one per four parking spaces.

Planting standards: six feet tall, species proportions and the distances

What the tree you plant must be like, what proportion of natives and palms the regulation demands, and how far from corners, hydrants and power lines.

If you cannot plant: paying one hundred dollars per tree, planting elsewhere or donating land

The six proposals OGPe evaluates, the percentages that must be planted before cutting, and the one-hundred-dollar-per-tree cost.

Location consultation: which projects need one and what is filed

The seven situations requiring a location consultation, the commercial categories by square feet, and the process’s fifteen- and ten-day terms.

Excavating, extracting or dredging: the five permits, where none are issued and who is exempt

No one moves earth-crust components without a permit. The five permits OGPe issues, the twelve effects evaluated, the barred places and the five exemptions.

Where the earth you remove goes, the Restoration Plan and the bonds that hold up the permit

The receiving land’s requirements, who answers for restoring, and the policies whose lapse revokes the permit.

Formal Extraction Permit: quarries, rivers, dredging below the water table and the right to be heard

The seven triggers, the two dollars per cubic metre on public-domain property, and the thirty days a neighbour has to ask to intervene.

Simple Permit and Maintenance Permit: sixty days, two a year and reservoir dredging

The short permit for moving under a thousand cubic metres, the five things it never authorises, and the permit used to dredge a lake or clear an irrigation canal.

Blasting in quarries and works: the 72-hour notice, the seismographs and the inspection of your home

How explosives use is authorised in an extraction, and what rights a neighbour who sees cracks has: inspections, a seismograph and a complaint.

Historic zone and town plaza: the twelve permits, the ICP recommendation and what really is exempt

Painting the façade, major cleaning or an awning are separate permits. Which minor works are exempt and why the ICP still comes in.

Demolishing in a historic zone: irreversible ruin, the construction permit before knocking down, and non-conforming use

When an eligible and a non-eligible property may be demolished, why dismantling a wooden house counts as demolition, and non-conforming use.

What you can change in a historic house: windows, colours, balconies and the storey that is allowed

The Chapter 10.2 intervention standards: wood or metal windows, façade colours, the ban on enclosing balconies and opening new openings, and the rules on ruin.

The town plaza: what may be built in it, the trees, the furniture and the parking

Nothing enclosed in open space and only two per cent in open structures. The plaza rules, the pavements and the parking limits.

Signs, awnings and curtains in a historic zone: where they go, how big and the seventeen prohibited

One sign per façade, ground floor only, two inches thick. The prohibited signs, the vinyl on the display window, and the single-colour awning rules.

Health

Public pools, spas and jacuzzis: the health licence, the water and the logbook

The two samples before opening, pH between 7.2 and 7.8, the four-foot fence, the six-inch black disc and emptying every six months.

Health

Beauty salons, barbershops and tattoo studios: the hundred square feet, the disinfection and the disposable razor

The premises’ minimum size, when you may operate from a home, how tools are disinfected and what the regulation expressly prohibits.

Health

Funeral homes, crematoria and cemeteries: how they are built and operated under the regulation

The funeral premises’ rules, the crematorium’s industrial zone and the cemetery’s measurements: thirteen metres, the water table and the eight-by-three-foot grave.

Food businesses: the water, plumbing, sewage and physical-facility requirements

Potable water from an approved source, handwash basins at 100 degrees with fifteen seconds of flow, grease traps and the required floor-wall junctions.

Permiso Único: how long it lasts, how it is renewed and how it is transferred

The terms the regulation sets: one to three years, forty-five days to renew, two years of grace and the automatic transfer.

Special Permisos Únicos: PYMES, temporary activities, political propaganda, automatic and startups

The five Permiso Único variants the regulation carries, with PYMES’ thirty days, the six months for temporary ones and the uses the automatic cannot cover.

Conditional Permiso Único and Use Permit: opening with a licence pending, and the two years that kill it

The six months to complete missing licences, the debt that cannot be grounds for denial, and why premises closed for two years lose the use permit.

Food manufacturing plants: the physical plant, the water and the sanitary controls

What the regulation requires of a food manufacturing plant: separation of operations, pest control, water at an adequate temperature and signs.

Ice plants: approved water, exclusive premises and the industrial machine

What the regulation requires of an ice plant for human consumption: where the water comes from, what the premises must be like and why the packing must be automatic.

Food labels: Department of Health approval, language and permit number

The label must be approved before use, goes in Spanish or bilingual, and carries the Permiso Único or Health Licence number and the lot number.

Building near an airport or on land qualified D-G

The five grounds on which no permit at all is issued near an airport, and the six criteria for building on land affected by a public-interest project.

Opening a food truck park: districts, toilets, distances and rubbish

One truck per hundred square metres, twenty metres from housing, one set of toilets per four trucks and a total ban on loudspeakers.

How a sign is measured and installed: size, twelve inches and eight clear feet

Each face counts separately, you may not project more than twelve inches over the pavement, and every sign needs its own electric meter.

Billboards must give free space: public service advertisements and Police alerts

Up to five public service spaces depending on how many billboards are held, and a ten-thousand-dollar fine for refusing an Amber Alert.

Signs in a residential zone: twelve feet for the office, thirty-two for the "For sale"

In a residential district signs are not permitted save where a use is approved, and each permitted use has its exact size in square feet.

Business signs: thirty-five per cent at the front and fifty on the sides

The ground sign depends on the lot’s frontage, and with under twenty-five feet of frontage none is permitted.

Sign and sign-maker registry: ten dollars, a two-hundred penalty and the sign-maker licence

Registering a sign costs ten dollars and not registering it costs two hundred. The sign-maker licence is fifty a year and demands two policies.

Signs in tourist, agricultural and conservation districts: one sign only and thirty-five feet

In twelve districts the Regulation allows one sign per building and one on the ground, at 35% of façade and 35 feet tall.

Tourist Interest Zones: no billboards, cross-street banners or commercial tarpaulins

In a Tourist Interest Zone the sign runs parallel to the façade, stays under 25% of the area and needs the Tourism Company’s recommendation.

Advertisements on government land: 672 square feet, sixty feet tall and 500 of spacing

Size, quantity, spacing and height of ground advertisements by the road’s lanes, in Rule 8.7.11 of the Joint Regulation.

Advertisements in parks, bus stops and terminals: fifty square feet and a clear sidewalk

Each bus stop advertisement needs an individual permit, may not exceed 50 square feet and may not block pedestrian passage.

Signs facing a National Highway System road: fifteen feet of setback and five hundred of spacing

Only in commercial, industrial districts and non-zoned area; nothing within 500 feet of an exit nor 300 after an entrance.

Filing a permit in the SUI: 10% on submission, five days to validate and the remaining 90%

The application is not deemed filed and no term runs until it is validated, and it is archived if not cured within thirty days.

Who may apply for a permit: proving you are owner, optionee or lessee

Deed, lease, purchase option, registry certification or heirship declaration: one suffices, but one is required.

Notifying adjoining owners of a permit: who is on the list and how it is delivered

If a street or creek adjoins, the properties across it count; if a condominium, its association. Certified mail or personal delivery.

Intervening in someone else’s permit: seven factors, substitution of parties and the agencies’ thirty days

Any interested person may request intervention; the criteria are applied liberally and denial comes by grounded resolution.

The sign to post when applying for a permit: 4 by 8 feet, thirty days and three to prove it

It goes at the main entrance, parallel to the road, black letters on white; not posting it means the application is archived.

When a permit gets a public hearing: the five cases and how it is held

Location consultations, variances, calification changes, Environmental Impact Statements and Master Plans; in person, remote or both.

Public hearing notice: fifteen days, newspaper, radio and the date on the sign

Notification goes no less than fifteen days ahead, and the applicant publishes a newspaper notice and adds the date to the lot’s sign.

Taking part in a permit public hearing: the owner must attend or it is archived

Any person with a legitimate interest may speak; suspension is requested five days ahead and an absent owner loses the application.

Default and sanctions at a public hearing: five hundred dollars and twenty days for the report

The Rules of Evidence do not apply, ten days are allowed for post-hearing writings and the Hearing Officer may fine up to $500 per imposition.

Georeferencing plans: state plane coordinates, layered DXF and two inches of error

Projects creating parcels or changing topography must be georeferenced to the official system and certified by a surveyor.

The Pre-Consultation: asking OGPe for the list of permits before starting

Anyone may request a written orientation identifying the applicable laws and the permits that will be needed.

Requesting a copy of a permit file, and what each SUI process is

Any interested person may obtain a copy or certified copy of the SUI’s digital and historic files.

Submitting the plans: three files, a frame with twenty items and a 24 by 36 sheet

The DWG with the CEC, the plan in PDF and the CEC in PDF, named with the SUI case number and georeferenced in NAD 83.

How a CAD plan’s layers are named: V, four characters and hyphens

Two mandatory fields — discipline and major group — two optional, all in capitals and one geometry per layer.

How each plan element is drawn: PLINE, blocks and no arcs

Parcels and structures as closed polygons, topography and street centerlines as lines, control points as inserted blocks.

The CEC: what the Control Stations Certification asks for

An attribute block at coordinate 0,0,0 of the seed file, with no blanks, no examples left and N/A where nothing applies.

What a plan must carry: the fundamental elements

Fifteen elements across nineteen layers, exempt where the project has none, and freedom to add more.

Attribute blocks: one for every entity on the plan

Two parcels, two blocks. Inside the polygon, on the line, over the point. No external databases.

Symbology and annotations: colour goes by layer, not by entity

The symbol library is downloaded separately, annotations have their own layers, and the only compulsory text is the adjoining owners.

The plan step by step: from seed file to frame

Six steps in order, a layer change every time you start a new element, and nineteen layers with names of their own.