A submittal in construction is a document or sample a subcontractor is required to send to the design team. In many cases, submittals function to prove that what the subcontractor intends to install matches the project specifications before it's ordered, fabricated, or built. The general contractor reviews it against the drawings and specs as a first pass before sending it to the architect or design team. The design team either approves it, approves it with notes, or rejects it and sends it back.
Once a submittal is approved, the material or method it describes is locked in. Catching a mismatch before approval is a paperwork problem. Catching it after installation is a rework problem.
What are the different types of construction submittals?
The primary submittal types in construction include product data, shop drawings, operations and maintenance (O&M) manuals, physical samples, third-party test reports, qualifications, warranties, certificates, and sustainability / LEED documentation.
Product data sheets are the type Trunk Tools reviews most often, making up roughly 85.5% of the submittals on our platform, followed by third-party test reports (5.6%) and operation and maintenance manuals (2.9%). That mix reflects what shows up for review most on active projects, not a definitive breakdown of every submittal type across the industry.
Beyond those, teams also submit shop drawings (fabrication-level drawings for items like curtain wall or ductwork), samples and mock-ups (physical pieces reviewed for finish, color, or texture), and transmittals (the cover document logging what was sent and when). Qualifications, which establish that a contractor or manufacturer meets the requirements for the job, are typically submitted early, before work begins, rather than at closeout. Sample and final warranties, certificates, and sustainability or LEED documentation round out the rest, and those cluster toward closeout, once the work they cover is actually complete.
How does the submittal review workflow work, and who's responsible for each stage?
The submittal moves through a chain: the manufacturer or supplier prepares it, the subcontractor reviews and stamps it, the general contractor's project engineer or assistant project manager runs the first-pass review against the drawings and specs, and the architect or engineer of record makes the final compliance call. The general contractor's first pass carries the most weight in practice, since it determines whether the design team sees a clean package or a flawed one.
How long does a submittal review actually take?
A thorough review by an early-career project engineer or assistant project manager can take anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes for a low-complexity submittal checked against a single spec section, up to 3 to 4 hours for a complex, multi-hundred-page package like door hardware.
What are the most common reasons a submittal gets rejected?
Compliance problems are the norm, not the exception. In Trunk Tools platform data, around 55% of reviewed submittals carry significant compliance gaps, and another 35% to 40% carry minor to moderate gaps that still need a human judgment call. The gaps aren't distributed evenly across trades. MEP divisions (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) fail at nearly twice the rate of structural divisions, with non-compliance between 60% and 70%. Concrete sits at the other end, with the lowest non-compliance rate of any division at just 32%. The single largest driver of non-compliance is manufacturer source: an unapproved substitution instead of the specified product. The quality of the design firm's spec itself also plays an important role in the submittal process. A clear, well-written spec produces cleaner submittals long before a reviewer opens the package.
What's the difference between a submittal, a shop drawing, product data, and a sample?
Submittal is the umbrella term for many types of trade partner submissions for approval. A shop drawing is a fabrication-level drawing showing exactly how a component will be built or installed. Product data is the manufacturer's printed or digital spec sheet for a product. A sample is a physical piece of material, like a paint chip or a flooring swatch, submitted for approval of color, finish, or texture. All of these are logged and tracked through the same review process, and a submittal register typically lists which type each spec section requires.
How long does the full submittal cycle take?
The median submittal cycle, from upload to design team approval, commonly runs around 55 days on projects relying on manual first-pass review, and roughly 43% of submittals get "stuck," taking more than 60 days to close out. The bottleneck is a combination of the General Contractor’s team having the bandwidth and experience to complete the manual comparison against the spec, the design team's contractual window to review and provide a response to the submittal, and any additional time needed for revisions before resubmission. Fewer stuck submittals also means fewer delays for material procurement, deliveries, and installation.
How does submittal review affect early-career project engineers?
The people running first-pass review are often the least experienced on the team, which is exactly where the risk concentrates. Spec quality drives most of the variation in compliance rates project to project, but reviewer experience determines how much gets caught before the package reaches the architect. That gap between a junior and a senior reviewer is the real cost of putting first-pass review on the newest person on the team without the right tools to assist.
How does Trunk Tools help with submittal review?
TrunkSubmittal, Trunk Tools' submittal review agent, reads every new submittal against the applicable spec sections and prior RFI responses, flags what's non-compliant, and drafts a response to the trade partner before an issue ever reaches the design team or architect.
In Trunk Tools platform data, projects using TrunkSubmittal have seen median cycle time drop from around 55 days to about 14 days, a 74% reduction. Further, the average time saved by a project engineer with fewer than five years of experience is 1.54 hours per submittal review on a large project, scaling from around 30 minutes on a simple submittal to 180 minutes on one requiring 12 or more spec requirements checked.
Frequently asked questions
What is a submittal in construction used for? A submittal proves that the actual product and installation plan a subcontractor intends to use matches the project specifications, so the design team can catch a mismatch before it's ordered or installed.
What is the difference between an RFI and a submittal in construction? An RFI asks a question to clarify a drawing or spec. A submittal proposes a specific product, material, or method for approval against a spec that's already written. One resolves ambiguity; the other confirms compliance.
Who approves a submittal in construction? The general contractor runs the first-pass review, but final compliance approval belongs to the architect or engineer of record.
What happens if a submittal is rejected? A rejected submittal is returned to the subcontractor with the compliance gap noted, revised, and resubmitted, which restarts the review clock and can delay procurement if the item has a long lead time.
How many submittals does a typical construction project have? Volume depends on project size and scope, but large commercial jobs regularly generate thousands of individual submittals over the project lifecycle.
Last updated August 21, 2026.
Sources: Trunk Tools platform data; Trunk Tools case studies and customer interviews.