Impact Fees
Impact fees are one-time charges levied by a local government on new development to fund the public infrastructure that development will burden — roads, parks, schools, water, and sewer capacity.
What impact fees pay for
The principle is that growth should pay for growth: a new subdivision adds trips to the road network and load to the wastewater system, and impact fees are meant to fund that share of expansion. Fees are typically calculated per dwelling unit for residential projects, or per square foot or fixture count for commercial, and are usually collected at building permit issuance. Because they are set by local ordinance, identical projects in adjacent jurisdictions can carry very different fee burdens.
Impact fees versus tap fees and connection charges
The terms are frequently conflated. A tap or connection fee buys the physical connection to an existing utility main and the capacity that connection consumes. An impact fee funds broader system-wide expansion and often covers services beyond utilities entirely, such as parks or public safety. A project can owe both, plus the cost of any offsite line extension, and those are three separate line items in a pro forma.
Why they belong in early underwriting
Impact fees can run into the tens of thousands of dollars per unit in high-growth jurisdictions, large enough to decide whether a project pencils. They are set by the jurisdiction a parcel sits in, so confirming which city, county, and special districts actually govern a site is the prerequisite to pricing them. Paxiv links each parcel to its governing jurisdiction and that jurisdiction's published code, so the applicable fee schedule can be found without first untangling which entity has authority.
Paxiv by the numbers
| Parcel records | 150M+ Parcel records in the nationwide serving table, covering residential, commercial, agricultural, and vacant land. |
|---|---|
| State coverage | All 50 states Every U.S. state is queryable on every tier, including the free one — coverage is not a paid upgrade. |
| City infrastructure coverage | Water, sewer, and storm — mapped per parcel Sourced from municipal GIS, city by city rather than one national feed — the city-level layer most nationwide parcel tools do not carry at all. |
| Free tier | $0, no card, no time limit Includes 15 parcel lookups, 3 zoning reports, 5 AI search credits, 3 skip traces, and 1 deal room. |
| Transaction fees | Zero Paxiv is subscription software, not a brokerage. It takes no commission and never participates in a deal. |
Where this data comes from
Paxiv's parcel, ownership, and zoning records link back to the originating county assessor, county recorder, or municipal zoning code, with flood data from FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer and geographic reference data from the U.S. Census Bureau — so every figure can be checked against its authoritative source rather than taken on faith.
- County assessor and recorder offices — Parcel boundaries, ownership of record, assessed values, and transaction history. Every record in Paxiv links back to the originating county office for one-click verification.
- City and county zoning ordinances — Zoning classification per parcel, linked to the municipality's own published zoning code so the underlying ordinance can be read directly.
- FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer — Flood zone, Special Flood Hazard Area status, and base flood elevation, resolved by point-in-polygon lookup against FEMA's own published layer.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Census tract containment via the Bureau's official geocoder, plus TIGER/Line geographic reference files.
Frequently asked questions
What are impact fees?
Impact fees are one-time charges local governments levy on new development to fund the public infrastructure it burdens, such as roads, parks, schools, and utility capacity. They are usually collected when a building permit is issued.
What is the difference between impact fees and tap fees?
A tap fee buys the physical connection to an existing utility main and the capacity it consumes. An impact fee funds broader system-wide expansion and often covers services beyond utilities, like parks or roads. A project can owe both.
Who pays impact fees?
The developer or builder pays them, typically at building permit issuance, though the cost is generally passed through into the price of the finished product.