October 26, 2026
A pool is the most permit-visible part of a Los Angeles backyard. The City records every one: what was built, where, whether it was drawn to a pre-approved City standard plan or engineered from scratch, and when the application went in. That makes pool demand one of the few parts of the residential market you can measure directly rather than estimate.
We took every swimming pool permit the City has issued on a house since January 2020, removed the revisions, and classified the rest. There were 9,728 permits for new pools. They peaked in 2021, fell for four years, and in 2026 rose again: up 11.1% on the same point last year. The whole of that gain is in one community plan area, Brentwood – Pacific Palisades. Across the rest of the city, new pool permits are level with the low point of the seven-year record.
This report publishes the figures and the dataset. It does not argue for a cause; where a number invites one, the competing readings are listed and left open.
The Dataset
- Source: City of Los Angeles open data, dataset
pi9x-tg5x— Building and Safety permits issued from 2020 to present. Public, updated daily, extracted with permits issued through October 23, 2026. - Unit: the permit for a new pool at a house (permit sub-type 1 or 2 Family Dwelling). Remodels of existing pools and spa-only jobs are counted separately.
- Revisions are removed. 4,376 of the 16,928 pool permits since 2020 revise an earlier permit rather than describe a new job. Left in, they would inflate every count by about a third.
- Matched windows. Every year is cut to January 1 – October 23, so 2026 is compared like-for-like with earlier years.
- These are permits, not pools. A permit is permission to build; this report does not measure completion.
Permits are issued by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, whose requirements for pools are set out in its information bulletin on the design and construction of swimming pools.
Finding 1: Pool Permits Peaked in 2021, and 2026 Is the First Rise Since
New home pool permits issued between January 1 and October 23 rose from 884 in 2020 to 1,678 in 2021, then fell every year to 941 in 2025. In 2026 the figure is 1,045 — up 11.1%, but still 38% below the 2021 peak.
New home pool permits issued January 1 – October 23 of each year. Full-year totals are shown for completed years.
Finding 2: The Whole Gain Is in Brentwood – Pacific Palisades
Brentwood – Pacific Palisades went from 69 new pool permits to 243 at the same point of the year, and now accounts for 23.3% of the city. Everywhere else combined fell 8.0%, from 872 to 802 — level with 2020's 797, the lowest point in the record, and 48% below the rest of the city's own 2021 peak.
New home pool permits issued January 1 – October 23 of each year, so 2026 is compared like-for-like. Revisions of earlier permits are excluded.
The ten community plan areas with the most new home pool permits, January 1 – October 23, 2026, with the same window in 2025 for comparison.
Finding 3: Two in Three Palisades Pools Belong to a Wildfire Rebuild
Of the 243 new pool permits in Brentwood – Pacific Palisades in 2026, 159 (65.4%) are tied to the 2025 wildfire rebuild: 146 say so in their work description, many citing the rebuild executive orders, and the rest sit on a parcel that holds a wildfire-rebuild house permit.
Measured from the other side, about one rebuilt house in ten adds a pool. Of the 340 rebuild parcels that have had a full year since their house permit, 36 (10.6%) also had a new pool permit within twelve months. At six months the figure is 9.3% of 884 parcels, so the rate is stable rather than still climbing.
| Horizon after the rebuild house permit | Rebuild parcels with the full horizon | With a new pool permit | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 months | 884 | 82 | 9.3% |
| 12 months | 340 | 36 | 10.6% |
Wildfire-rebuild house permits are still being issued at 291, 231 and 232 a quarter in the first three quarters of 2026, across 1,359 parcels so far.
Finding 4: Four in Five New Pools Go Into an Existing Home
Outside the Palisades, the share of new pool permits on a parcel that also had a new-house permit — from 24 months before the pool permit to six months after — has held at about one in five since 2022. The other four are added to homes that were already there. In Brentwood – Pacific Palisades the share was about a third until 2024, then rose to 54.0% in 2025 and 69.1% in early 2026.
| Pool permits issued | Rest of the city | Brentwood – Pacific Palisades |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 21.2% of 1,766 | 33.1% of 163 |
| 2023 | 24.8% of 1,147 | 34.4% of 125 |
| 2024 | 19.8% of 1,061 | 34.5% of 110 |
| 2025 | 20.5% of 1,030 | 54.0% of 100 |
| 2026 (January – April 23) | 19.5% of 308 | 69.1% of 68 |
Earlier years are left out because the dataset starts in January 2020 and a pool is often permitted up to two years after its house, so the full window cannot be seen. 2026 stops at April 23 because later permits have not yet had six months for a house permit to follow.
Finding 5: Where Pools Are Custom-Engineered
Of the 4,618 new home pools permitted since January 2023, 70.2% cite a City standard pool plan — a pre-approved design, most often Standard Plan No. 268 (77.2% of them). The other 29.8% are engineered for their site. Where that happens is sharply uneven: 66.7% in Bel Air – Beverly Crest and 51.4% in Hollywood, against 12.0% in Northridge. In Bel Air, 10.9% of new pools are described as sitting on piles or caissons; citywide it is 2.8%.
Share of new home pools since January 2023 whose work description does not cite a City standard plan, for the 22 community plan areas with at least 60 such permits (count in brackets). Piles: share described as on piles, caissons or drilled piers.
Finding 6: A Custom Pool Takes About 2.7 Times as Long to Permit
From application to permit issue, the median for a standard-plan pool was 50 days; for a custom-engineered pool it was 134 days. The slowest quarter of custom pools took 304 days or more. The City's pool bulletin sets a different filing for each: two sets of plans and a set of calculations for a pool, but "only one set of plans and no calculations" when a valid City standard plan is used.
| Plan type | Permits | Median days | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| City standard plan | 3,243 | 50 | 16–115 days |
| Custom-engineered | 1,375 | 134 | 63–304 days |
New home pool permits issued from January 2023 to October 23, 2026. The clock runs from the application date to the issue date and includes time the application spends with the applicant, so it is not City processing time alone. Only permits that were issued are counted.
Possible Readings
- The 2021 peak fits several explanations at once — spending redirected into the home during the pandemic, low borrowing costs in 2020 and 2021, and projects pulled forward from later years. The permit record carries none of those variables, so it cannot separate them.
- The decline outside the Palisades is consistent with higher borrowing costs, higher construction costs, or demand already met by the 2021–22 wave. Nothing in the record distinguishes these.
- Palisades pools may replace pools lost or removed after the fire, or be new to their lots. A permit does not record what stood on the lot before, so this report cannot say which.
- Custom engineering in Bel Air, Hollywood and the Palisades fits slope and soil conditions; it equally fits design choice — irregular shapes and vanishing edges on higher-value lots. Both point the same way, and the data cannot weigh one against the other.
- The steady one-in-five share of pools that come with a new house may reflect a stable mix of whole-house projects and backyard upgrades, or simply that most Los Angeles lots already hold a house.
Opportunity Spotlight
- The Palisades rebuild is producing a steady stream of pool projects. About one rebuild in ten adds a pool permit within a year, and rebuild house permits are still being issued at more than 230 a quarter.
- Outside the Palisades, the pool market is mostly a backyard market. Four new pools in five go into a home that already exists, not a new build.
- If the pool will be custom-engineered, budget the time. A custom pool's median permit time is 134 days against 50 for the standard plan, and one in four takes 304 days or more. Custom engineering is the norm, not the exception, in Bel Air – Beverly Crest, Hollywood and Brentwood – Pacific Palisades.
- Pool remodels are the steadier line. Between 230 and 261 remodel permits a year in the matched window since 2021, with 246 so far in 2026.
Method
- Revisions. A supplemental permit revises an earlier one, and the permit number shows it: an original's middle block ends in 0000, and a revision counts up from it. Revisions numbered as originals but described as "supplemental to permit #…" are removed as well. Together: 4,376 of 16,928 permits.
- Classification. Each remaining permit is classified from its work description as a new pool (including pool-and-spa jobs and replacements of an old pool), a remodel, a spa only, or other — equipment moves, enclosures, ponds, and renewals of expired permits, which repeat a pool permitted earlier. A hand check of 40 randomly sampled new-pool permits found no misclassification.
- Repeats. Multi-part permits for one job ("1 of 2") on the same parcel within 180 days count once; 112 were merged.
- Houses only. Apartment, commercial and records marked as a department error are left out.
- Areas. The City's community plan area field carries truncated duplicates of three areas and a few two-area labels; each is merged to one name.
- With a new house means a
Bldg-Newsingle-family permit on the same parcel number from 24 months before to six months after the pool permit. Lot splits and merges change parcel numbers, so it is a lower bound. - Wildfire rebuild means the pool permit's description mentions the wildfire or the rebuild executive orders, or the parcel holds a single-family house permit described that way. Horizon shares count only parcels that have had the full period against the extract date.
- Custom-engineered means the work description does not cite a City standard pool plan. Piles means it mentions piles, caissons or drilled piers.
- Declared valuation is not used. It is a fee figure, not a construction cost.
Download the Data
The processed dataset is published for reuse. Attribution to Blackbriar is welcome but not required; the underlying records are the City of Los Angeles'.
- new-pool-permits-by-year.csv — new pools, Palisades and rest of the city, remodels and spa-only permits, by year, in the matched window
- new-pool-permits-by-community-plan-area.csv — new pools by area and year, with custom-engineered and piles shares since 2023
- pools-with-a-new-house.csv — share of new pools on a parcel that also had a new-house permit, by year
- pool-permit-approval-days.csv — application-to-issue days, standard plan against custom-engineered
- swimming-pool-permits.json — the complete dataset, including the wildfire-rebuild figures, counts at every cleaning step, source metadata and caveats
How Blackbriar Uses This
We build custom homes in Los Angeles, and the pool is often drawn with the house rather than added afterwards. What the record changes is mostly at the planning stage: on a hillside lot the pool is treated as an engineered structure with its own permit clock, and on a flatter lot the City standard plan is the faster route where the design allows it. Our process and services pages set out how we work, and you can talk to us directly.
FAQ
How many swimming pool permits does Los Angeles issue a year?
The City of Los Angeles issued between 1,130 and 1,272 permits a year for new pools at houses from 2023 to 2025, down from a peak of 2,005 in 2021. By October 23, 2026, the year had reached 1,045, up 11.1% on the same point of 2025. These counts exclude revisions of earlier permits, which make up about a quarter of all pool permits.
Where are the most new pools being permitted in Los Angeles?
Brentwood – Pacific Palisades, with 243 new home pool permits by October 23, 2026, or 23.3% of the city. It had 69 at the same point of 2025. Encino – Tarzana and Sherman Oaks – Studio City – Toluca Lake – Cahuenga Pass follow, each with under a tenth of the city's total.
How long does it take to get a pool permit in Los Angeles?
For new home pools permitted from 2023 onward, the median from application to permit issue was 50 days for a pool built to a City standard plan and 134 days for a custom-engineered pool. A quarter of custom pools took 304 days or more. The clock includes time the application spends with the applicant, so it is not only City processing time.
Are Pacific Palisades fire rebuilds adding swimming pools?
Some are. Of 243 new pool permits in Brentwood – Pacific Palisades in 2026, 159 (65.4%) are tied to a 2025 wildfire rebuild. Across rebuild houses that have had a full year since their house permit, 10.6% also had a new pool permit within twelve months. The permit record does not say whether a pool existed on the lot before the fire.
Do most new pools in Los Angeles come with a new house?
No. Outside Brentwood – Pacific Palisades, about one new pool permit in five (19.8% to 24.8% a year, 2022–2025) sits on a parcel that also had a new-house permit within the surrounding window. The rest are added to existing homes. In the Palisades the share rose to 54.0% in 2025 and 69.1% in the first months of 2026.
Where does this data come from?
From the City of Los Angeles open data portal, dataset pi9x-tg5x (Building and Safety permits issued from 2020 to present), extracted with permits issued through October 23, 2026. Blackbriar removed revisions, classified each permit from its work description and published the processed figures as CSV and JSON files.
Recommended
- 2026 Pacific Palisades Rebuild Report — permits, costs and rules for rebuilding after the fire
- 2026 Los Angeles Hillside Construction Report — caissons, grading and the hillside permit process
- 2026 Los Angeles Permit Approval Timeline Report — how long the house permit itself takes