Two drawings, two different questions
A site plan answers "where on the property?" It's a top-down view of the whole lot: boundary, structures, driveway, and the distances between them. A floor plan answers "how is the space arranged?" It's a top-down view inside a structure: walls, rooms, openings, and their dimensions.
Contractors mix the two up constantly, and permitting offices don't — requesting the wrong drawing type is one of the most common reasons small permit applications bounce back for resubmission. Knowing which one a job actually needs, before the site visit, saves a second trip.
What a site plan shows
The property boundary with lot dimensions, existing structures at their footprints, setback distances from structures to property lines, driveways and hard surfaces, and the proposed work located precisely on the lot. Fences, decks, additions, pads, pools, and detached structures are all site plan territory.
Rule of thumb: if the work changes what sits on the land or where, the drawing is a site plan. See how to draw a site plan without CAD for the full step-by-step process.
- Property lines and lot dimensions
- Existing structures and their setbacks
- Proposed structures or work areas
- Driveways, walkways, and hard surfaces
- Relevant easements or right-of-way notes
What a floor plan shows
Exterior walls at the building's footprint, interior walls dividing the rooms, door and window openings, room names, and dimensions on the walls that matter. Kitchen remodels, basement developments, room additions (the interior portion), and layout changes are floor plan territory.
Rule of thumb: if the work changes how space inside a structure is arranged, the drawing is a floor plan — see SiteBuildHub's Floor Plan Maker for building one directly in the browser.
Deciding which one a job needs
| Job | Drawing needed | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New fence | Site plan only | Changes what's on the lot, not interior space |
| Kitchen remodel | Floor plan only | Interior layout change, no change to the lot footprint |
| Room addition | Both | Site plan for lot placement and setbacks, floor plan for the new interior layout |
| Detached deck | Site plan (often both) | Site plan for placement; a build-oriented layout may also help the crew |
| Basement finish | Floor plan only | Entirely interior, no change to the building footprint |
Many jobs genuinely need both
An addition is the classic example: the site plan shows where the addition sits on the lot and its setbacks; the floor plan shows the new interior layout. Decks often want both too — a site plan for the permit and boundary context, a construction-oriented layout for the build itself.
The two don't need to be separate tools or separate skill sets. In SiteBuildHub Draft, a site plan and a floor plan are just different templates using the same drawing tools — draw the site plan from the residential site plan template, the floor plan from the floor plan template, save both to the same project, and export both PDFs into the same quote package.
Common mistakes
- Submitting a floor plan when the permitting office actually needs a site plan showing setbacks
- Drawing a floor plan without confirming exterior wall dimensions match the actual structure
- Treating a site plan as sufficient for an addition when the interior layout also needs to be shown
- Not labeling which drawing is which when both are included in a submission or a quote package