The following schedules represent fees that offset the cost of multiple City services. These fees may include staff review, permits for road closure and or right-of-way obstruction, contact lists, map templates, and in some cases, engineered traffic control plans. They do not include fire permits, complex engineered traffic control plans, portable restrooms, barricades and no-parking signs, business licenses, trash/recyclable pickup, or police officers.  As an applicant, you may be required to incur other expenses which are the sole responsibility of the applicant/event coordinator. Please contact the Special Events Office at (253) 573-2523 with questions.

Effective immediately, the City of Tacoma’s Special Events Office is rolling out new fees for special event permits in 2021.

The purpose of the revised fee is to recover the City’s expense of providing printing and mailing services to individuals and organizations for private use of public right of way. As is required by the Tacoma Municipal Code public notice fees will be added to the application process in Accela, through an automatic calculation. The fee is based on the number of blocks (with residences and/or businesses) that are impacted by a special event road closure. The recipients of the notices are residents and businesses along and inside of an event footprint as it is described by the applicant. The production and mailing of the notices is conducted by the Special Event Office, and scheduled to be mailed 30 days prior to the event date(s).

• The previous variable fee based on event attendance has been replaced by a base fee that covers the cost of one block. The base fee for non-profit permits is $50, and for commercial permits the base fee is $75. Fee schedule attached.
• Using a calculation of $75 and $100 (non-profit and commercial) multiplied by the number of blocks, the additional fee is added when an applicant chooses their payment method. If payment is not received by 30 days prior to event date, the permit may be withheld.
• Single-block neighborhood block parties and filming projects will not be subject to these fees because the City does not conduct public notice mailings for these types of road closure permits. Outreach is the sole responsibility of the applicant in these cases.
• Due to the current status of the Governor Inslee’s Healthy Washington - Roadmap to Recovery, special event permits are not being issued until further notice. Please contact the Special Event Office directly with any questions.