Which energy code applies to your project
The 2025 California Energy Code took effect 1 January 2026. Whether your project falls under it depends on one date: the permit application date, not the construction date.
California updates the Building Energy Efficiency Standards on a three-year cycle. The 2025 Energy Code took effect on 1 January 2026, and it applies to every permit application submitted on or after that date.
The trigger is the permit application date, not when the drawings were done, not when construction starts, and not when you called us.
So which one is yours
- Application submitted on or after 1 January 2026 → 2025 Energy Code.
- Application submitted 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2025 → 2022 Energy Code.
- Application submitted 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2022 → 2019 Energy Code.
There is a code cycle checker on this site if you'd rather just put the date in.
The case that actually costs money
A project that has been sitting.
Plans get drawn, a permit application goes in, and then the job stalls over financing, or a client changing their mind, or a lot line issue. Eighteen months later it wakes up. If the original application is still live, it stays on the code cycle it was filed under. If the application lapsed and has to be refiled, it moves to the current code, and the requirements are materially different.
This is the first thing we check on any project that isn't brand new, because the answer changes what gets modelled. Handing a plan checker a 2022 compliance report on a 2026 application gets it kicked straight back.
What changes between cycles
Enough to matter. Requirements tighten, the reference building the performance path is measured against moves, and the compliance software changes with it. Each cycle is a separate program rather than one program with a dropdown.
That last point catches people who assume an old report can simply be re-run. It can't. A model built in one cycle's software doesn't carry into the next.
Before you file
If your application is close to a cycle boundary, it is worth knowing which side you land on before the drawings are final. The difference between filing in late December and early January is a different code, a different model, and sometimes a different specification.
Worth a phone call.