Free fence permit site plan template

Three different things go by that name, and they are not substitutes for each other. Picking the wrong one is how a free template turns into a rejected application, so this page names all three, says who each one suits, and says what each one still leaves you to do.

All three are genuinely free. The one this site makes is the third.

The three things called a template

1. 1.A blank printable sheet

   A letter-size page with a grid or a border and an empty title block, which you print and draw your lot onto by hand.

   Suits: Someone with a plat or a mortgage survey already in hand who is happy to redraw it, and who wants nothing on a screen.

   The catch: The scale. A blank grid does not know how big your lot is, so you set the scale yourself and every dimension on the sheet depends on you having done that arithmetic right. A plan that is not at the scale it claims is the single most common reason a fence application comes back.

2. 2.Your own city's sample sheet

   Many building departments publish a filled-in example fence site plan next to the application form, showing exactly what their reviewers expect to see.

   Suits: Everyone, before anything else. It is free, it is authoritative, and it is the only version that tells you what YOUR reviewer wants rather than what a national average wants.

   The catch: It is an example, not a template — you still have to produce the drawing. And plenty of departments publish the application without publishing a sample, in which case there is nothing to copy from.

3. 3.A sheet generated from your address

   You type your address, the aerial photo of your lot comes up, you click the fence on, and the scale, the dimensions, the north arrow, the legend and the elevation are computed from what you drew.

   Suits: Someone who wants the arithmetic done rather than checked, and who does not want to pay $99–$259 to a drafting service for a residential fence.

   The catch: You are still the one deciding where the fence goes and confirming the boundary — no tool and no paid service can survey your lot from a photo.

Ask your building department first

The second kind is the one to look for before anything else, and almost nobody selling you the first or the third will tell you so. A sample sheet published by the department that will review your application is the only version that shows what your reviewer expects, and it costs nothing. It is usually the second page of the fence permit application PDF, or a handout sitting beside it — search your city's name with “fence permit application” rather than with “template”, because a department that publishes a sample publishes it next to the form.

Where we have read a city's fence code, its page here links the section of the municipal code the sample is an illustration of — 64 cities carry that citation so far. See which cities.

What a blank sheet leaves you

One thing, and it is the thing that fails review: the scale. A blank grid does not know how big your lot is. You choose a ratio, measure the lot, and then every setback dimension on the sheet is only as good as that arithmetic — and a photocopier will silently resize the page afterwards, so a plan that states “1 inch = 20 feet” can arrive at the counter no longer being at 1 inch = 20 feet.

The sheet this tool produces computes the scale from what you actually drew, prints it in the title block, and draws a graphic scale bar alongside it — a bar of known length that stays correct through a photocopy, because it is rescaled by exactly the same amount as everything else on the page.

What “free” means here

The word is doing a lot of work on this search, and several of the results using it mean a free preview with the watermark removed at checkout. Here it means these four things, and each one is a fact about how this site is built rather than a promise.

• ✓No account, no email address, no sign-in. There is no sign-up form anywhere on the site.
• ✓No card, no trial, no upgrade at the end. There is no payment code in this application at all — no checkout, no pricing page, nothing to buy.
• ✓No watermark, and no page held back. The PDF you download is the whole packet: plot plan, ordinance page and elevation.
• ✓No limit on how many you make. Nothing counts your runs, because nothing knows who you are.

Questions people actually ask

Is there a free fence permit site plan template?

Three different things go by that name. A blank printable sheet you draw on by hand; your own city's filled-in sample sheet, which is the one to look for first; and a sheet generated from your address, which is what this tool makes. All three are free. They are not interchangeable — the blank sheet leaves the scale and the dimensions to you, the city sample shows you what to produce without producing it, and the generated sheet does the arithmetic and leaves you the decisions.

Where do I find my city's own fence permit example?

Look on your building department's own site for the fence permit application — the sample is usually the second page of the same PDF, or a separate handout beside it. Search for your city's name with "fence permit application" rather than for a template; a department that publishes one publishes it next to the form. If your city is one whose fence code we have read, its page here links the section of the municipal code itself, which is the thing the sample is an illustration of.

Do I need a printable blank site plan sheet?

Only if you are drawing by hand. A blank grid is a piece of paper with a border on it — the work it leaves you is establishing the scale, measuring the lot, and getting every setback dimension consistent with that scale. That is the work, and it is where hand-drawn plans fail review. If you would rather have the sheet come out already at a stated scale with the fence dimensioned, start from your address instead.

Can I get a fence site plan template as a PDF?

What comes out of this tool is a PDF, on US letter paper, ready to print and staple to your application. It is not a blank template — it is your lot, with the fence you drew on it, at a scale printed in the title block and shown as a graphic scale bar the sheet keeps even after a photocopier resizes it.

Does this work if you don't have my county's lot lines?

Yes, and this is the case a template is usually wanted for. Where a county's parcel polygons are available the boundary is drawn from them and labelled with its source; everywhere else you trace the boundary on the aerial photo yourself and the rest of the sheet — scale, dimensions, north arrow, legend, elevation, ordinance page — is produced exactly the same way. Cities accept an owner-traced boundary for a residential fence almost everywhere; it is your tracing rather than the county's, and the sheet says so.

What does a paid fence site plan cost instead?

The drafting services that rank for this search charge roughly $99–$259 and send a PDF back within a day, redrawing your plat for you — the two we price-checked on 2026-08-22 are GetASitePlan at $119 – $259 and MySitePlan at $99 – $159. The trade is turnaround and someone else owning the revisions, against doing the drawing yourself in about two minutes.

Wondering what the finished sheet has to show before you draw it? The nine items a plan reviewer checks, and which ones this tool draws.

Fence Plotter prepares the drawings your application asks for. It does not file anything and it does not approve anything — confirm height, setback and material rules with your building department before you build.