The LA ADU Index
Every finaled ADU permit in the City of Los Angeles, from LADBS primary data: how many, what kind, where, and what they cost — updated from source, with methodology.
15,886 Accessory Dwelling Units have been permitted and finaled — inspected, with a Certificate of Occupancy issued — in the City of Los Angeles, according to the city’s own building-permit records. This page aggregates all of them. Every number below comes from the LADBS dataset itself; nothing is estimated or modeled, and the methodology states exactly what was counted and what was excluded.
What gets built: conversions beat ground-up construction
The permit’s own work description says whether an ADU was created by converting existing space, by adding onto an existing structure, or by new construction:
| Work type | Permits | Share | Involving a garage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conversion of existing space | 9,279 | 58% | 7,936 (86%) |
| New construction | 5,281 | 33% | 670 |
| Addition / alteration | 782 | 5% | 612 |
| Unclassifiable from description | 544 | 3% | — |
The dominant path to a legal ADU in Los Angeles is not a backyard build — it is converting something that already exists, most often a garage. 21 of the 15,886 permits are Junior ADUs (units carved out of the primary home’s existing walls).
When: completions per year
Counted by the year the Certificate of Occupancy was issued — the date the unit became legally occupiable, not the date someone applied.
* 2026 is a partial year — data through July 2026, not a slowdown.
Where: the top ZIP codes
| ZIP | Area | Finaled ADUs | Conversion share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 91335 | Reseda | 658 | 57% |
| 91331 | Pacoima | 492 | 59% |
| 91344 | Granada Hills | 420 | 48% |
| 91606 | North Hollywood | 396 | 63% |
| 91605 | North Hollywood | 391 | 52% |
| 91406 | Van Nuys | 389 | 62% |
| 90066 | Mar Vista | 380 | 68% |
| 90045 | Westchester | 366 | 73% |
| 90019 | Mid-City | 365 | 71% |
| 91342 | Sylmar | 356 | 54% |
| 91352 | Sun Valley | 338 | 46% |
| 90016 | West Adams | 330 | 62% |
| 91306 | Winnetka | 301 | 55% |
| 90043 | Hyde Park / View Park | 300 | 61% |
| 90047 | South LA | 273 | 66% |
Size and declared cost
Among the 13,814 permits that state a plausible unit size, the median finaled ADU is 618 sq ft (middle half: 414–901 sq ft). The median declared construction valuation on the permit is $65,000 across 15,877 permits — the figure the applicant declares at filing, which typically understates real construction cost; it is reported here because it is what the record contains, and labeled as what it is.
Methodology
Cohort: every building permit in the LADBS Open Data portal ( resource pi9x-tg5x) matching status_desc='CofO Issued' AND use_desc='Accessory Dwelling Unit' AND permit_group='Building' — the city’s own ADU classification, citywide, all available years, deduplicated by permit number. This covers the City of Los Angeles (LADBS jurisdiction), not all of LA County.
Work type is classified from the permit’s description text by deterministic rules (conversion verbs outrank the word “new,” which usually describes the resulting unit; LADBS shorthand like “(N)” and “CONV” is recognized). Descriptions matching no rule are reported as unclassifiable rather than forced into a category.
Exclusions, stated: square footage above 1,200 sq ft (1,181 permits) is treated as a whole-building figure and excluded from size statistics. Valuation is the applicant’s declared figure, not observed cost. Bedroom counts are deliberately absent: LADBS permits do not state them, and we do not publish imputed data.
Reproducibility: the dataset is generated by an open-in-the-repo script from a fresh LADBS fetch — last generated July 28, 2026. Corrections: support@a-du.homes (see how we handle corrections).
Own one of these? List your permit-finaled ADU on A-du — or browse the ones for rent.
Cite freely with attribution to A-du (a-du.homes). This page is general information, not legal or financial advice.