How Long Is a Title 24 Report Valid?
A Title 24 report does not carry an expiry date. What it is tied to is a code cycle and a design — so it stays good until either the code moves on or the project changes.
The code cycle is what dates a report
The Energy Commission updates the standards on a three-year cycle, and a project is assessed against the edition in force when its permit application is submitted. The 2025 Energy Code applies to buildings whose permit applications are made on or after 1 January 2026.
That date has passed, so the 2025 code is the code in force. A set of calculations prepared under the 2022 standards is not wrong — it was correct for its cycle — but it can no longer support a new permit application, because the application will be reviewed against 2025.
"Submitted" means deemed complete
This is the detail that decides borderline cases, and it is not the date on the covering letter. What counts is when the application is deemed complete by the building department.
An application lodged before a cycle change but missing energy documentation, required signatures or other items is not complete on the day it arrived. If it is only deemed complete after the changeover, the new code applies — which is precisely how a project that thought it had beaten a deadline finds it has not.
The design dates it too
A compliance report describes a specific building: these assemblies, this glazing, this equipment. Change any of the inputs and the report no longer describes the project, whatever the code cycle is doing.
Common examples are a window schedule revised for cost, a different heating or cooling unit substituted by a contractor, a roof assembly changed at tender, or a layout altered after plan check comments. Each of those needs the calculations revisited rather than simply resubmitted.
What does not invalidate it
Time alone, if nothing else moved. A report prepared six months ago for a project that has not changed, under a code cycle that has not changed, is as good as it was on the day it was issued. There is no shelf life written into the document.
Nor does a permit being slow. Once an application is submitted and deemed complete under a given cycle, a long plan check does not retroactively push the project into the next code.
The two questions worth asking
Has the code cycle changed since the report was prepared, and has anything in the design changed since? If both answers are no, the report stands. If either is yes, it needs revisiting — and it is far cheaper to establish that before a resubmittal than to have plan check establish it for you.