ADU Pass
San Juan
San Juan Municipio portion
Also in: Guaynabo Municipio · No County
ADU Pass helps homeowners in San Juan, San Juan Municipio, Puerto Rico navigate the permit paperwork for building an accessory dwelling unit. This area covers 16 ZIP codes.
ADU details
ADU legality: unclear
Puerto Rico leaves ADU regulation to local municipalities under home-rule or Dillon-rule authority. San Juan permits ADUs subject to local conditions per its zoning ordinance.
Cost scenarios
| Scenario | Sq ft | Permit | Build | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| minimum | 150 | $1,800 | $42,750 | $44,550 |
| 600 | 600 | $1,800 | $171,000 | $172,800 |
| midpoint | 525 | $1,800 | $149,625 | $151,425 |
| maximum | 900 | $1,800 | $256,500 | $258,300 |
Fee breakdown
Viability (permitted uses)
- Long-term rental: yes Long-term rental of ADU generally permitted; landlord-tenant law and any city rental-registration ordinance apply.
- Short-term rental: with-restrictions STR rules vary by city. San Juan regulates STRs separately from ADU permitting; check local STR ordinance and HOA covenants.
- Office rental: with-restrictions Detached office rental requires home occupation permit or rezoning.
- Home office: yes Home occupation permitted with restrictions on signage and customer traffic.
- Studio / workshop: yes Personal artist studio is a permitted accessory use.
- Agriculture: with-restrictions Limited urban agriculture permitted in residential zones; livestock varies by district.
- Relative support: yes Family-occupancy ADU explicitly permitted in single-family zones.
Utilities
- Water: San Juan Water Utility · 30d connect · $4,500
- Sewer: San Juan Sewer / Wastewater · 30d connect · $5,500
- Electric: San Juan Electric Utility · 21d connect · $1,800
- Gas: San Juan Gas Utility · 30d connect · $1,500
Property values & taxes
Construction timeline
Realistic total: best 9mo · typical 14mo · worst 22mo
Financing
Insurance impact
HOA prevalence & preemption
Puerto Rico's condominium regime is more sophisticated than most US territories — Law 129-2020 modernized the framework, mandated separate operating and reserve accounts, and added a short-term-rental floor — but it does not preempt CC&R restrictions on accessory dwellings. Conventional planned-unit-development HOAs outside the condominium framework are governed by general civil-code contract principles. Practical impact: in Puerto Rico's many condominium and gated-community contexts, ADU rights depend on the master deed.
Regulatory overlays (3)
- coastal-zone
San Juan has coastal-zone overlay; coastal development permit may be required for some sites. - historic-district
San Juan historic districts trigger Architectural Review Board / Historic Preservation Commission review for ADUs in historic boundaries. - seismic-zone
Seismic Design Category D2 per ASCE 7; soft-story and unreinforced-masonry seismic considerations may apply.
Technical envelope (climate & building code)
Climate & energy code
Building code
Amendments:
- Amendment
- Amendment
Legal history (timeline)
Current ordinance: City of San Juan Municipal Code — Accessory Dwelling Units, adopted 2020-01-01, last amended 2024-04-01
- 2024-01-01 — City of San Juan ADU code refresh (city-ordinance)
Conforming local-code amendments aligning with current Puerto Rico accessory-dwelling framework.
Effect: Codified permissive ADU standards consistent with state law and local zoning.
San Juan Municipio — county ADU rules and overlays
County ADU ordinance
San Juan Municipio (Municipality of San Juan, the capital municipio of Puerto Rico — ~342,000 residents — Puerto Rico's most populous municipio; encompassing the historic Old San Juan, plus the Santurce, Hato Rey, Río Piedras, El Condado, Ocean Park, Isla Verde fringe, and the Isla Grande / Convention Center area) is a unitary municipality under the Puerto Rico Autonomous Municipalities Act (Ley de Municipios Autónomos, Ley Núm. 81-1991, as amended by Ley 107-2020 — the Code of Municipalities of Puerto Rico). Puerto Rico does not have counties; the 78 municipios are the equivalent of consolidated city-counties under a unitary commonwealth governance structure. Land-use regulation in Puerto Rico flows through both Commonwealth-tier rules (the Puerto Rico Planning Board / Junta de Planificación under the Reglamento Conjunto, the Joint Permits Regulation) and municipal-tier rules (each municipio's Plan de Ordenación Territorial and zoning maps). San Juan's Plan de Ordenación Territorial (POT) and the Reglamento Conjunto Vigente (currently the 2020 version with subsequent amendments) govern accessory dwelling unit equivalents; the Spanish-language designation 'vivienda accesoria' or 'unidad de vivienda accesoria' covers ADU equivalents though the regulatory framework is structured differently from US mainland norms. Puerto Rico has no formal ADU preemption statute equivalent to California AB 68; ADU regulation is a hybrid Commonwealth + municipio framework.
County regulatory overlays
Puerto Rico state — ADU law and programs
State HOA preemption
Puerto Rico's condominium regime is more sophisticated than most US territories — Law 129-2020 modernized the framework, mandated separate operating and reserve accounts, and added a short-term-rental floor — but it does not preempt CC&R restrictions on accessory dwellings. Conventional planned-unit-development HOAs outside the condominium framework are governed by general civil-code contract principles. Practical impact: in Puerto Rico's many condominium and gated-community contexts, ADU rights depend on the master deed.
State financing programs
Puerto Rico's primary public housing financing vehicle is the Puerto Rico Department of Housing (Departamento de la Vivienda, PRDOH), which administers HUD CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT recovery funds tied to Hurricanes Irma and María (2017) and the 2019–2020 earthquake sequence. The flagship homeowner-side program is R3 — the Home Repair, Reconstruction, or Relocation Program — funded with $2.2B+ of the $10B in CDBG-DR funds HUD has allocated to Puerto Rico for hurricane recovery. R3 funds repair, reconstruction, or relocation for single-family homes damaged by qualifying disasters; ADU-equivalent accessory structures could be built as part of a qualifying reconstruction but the program is not ADU-targeted. The Puerto Rico Housing Finance Authority (Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda, AFV) issues mortgage-revenue-bond first-mortgage financing for first-time homebuyers. Outside the disaster-recovery channels, there is no commonwealth-wide ADU-specific consumer loan or grant.
Federal (United States) — ADU-relevant rules and programs
Federal ADU law
The United States has no federal statute that directly regulates accessory dwelling unit entitlement or design. Land-use authority over ADUs resides with states and local governments under the traditional police power. Federal engagement is limited to financing (Fannie/Freddie/FHA/VA/USDA), flood insurance (FEMA/NFIP), and discretionary housing programs (HUD), which are recorded in sibling sections of this file.
Federal financing programs
Federal housing-finance agencies and GSEs set nationwide underwriting rules that govern whether an ADU can be financed, appraised, and counted toward mortgage qualifying income. The relevant actors are Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA (HUD), VA, and USDA Rural Development.
Federal tax credits
There is no ADU-specific federal tax credit. ADUs may incidentally qualify for existing federal energy-efficiency and clean-energy tax credits when the ADU construction includes qualifying measures.
Federal housing programs
HUD administers several discretionary programs that can fund ADU-related activity at the grantee's election, but none is an ADU-specific program.
ZIP Codes
- 00901
- 00907
- 00909
- 00911
- 00912
- 00913
- 00915
- 00917
- 00918
- 00920
- 00921
- 00923
- 00924
- 00925
- 00926
- 00927
Post Office
- 100 Calle Alondra, 00924
- 100 Paseo De Colon Ste 1, 00901
- 1959 Calle Loiza Lbby, 00911
- 361 Calle Juan Calaf, 00918
- 369 Calle San Claudio Frnt, 00926