US Building Permits Scraper — Official City Data, One Clean Schema

Get fresh building permits from 38 official US city & county open-data sources — normalized into one consistent schema, classified by trade, and delivered as clean JSON/CSV/Excel. Built for contractor lead generation (roofing, solar, HVAC, plumbing, pools), real-estate and construction market intelligence, and AI agents that need structured permit data.

Every record comes straight from the jurisdiction's official public portal (Socrata, ArcGIS, CKAN, Carto, or published city files) — no third-party middlemen, no stale mirrors. Most sources update daily.

Why this Actor

• One schema for 38 jurisdictions. Every city publishes permits differently (different portals, field names, date formats). This Actor refines them into a single normalized record, so contractor_name means the same thing in Seattle as it does in Miami-Dade.
• Trade classification built in. Each permit is classified into roofing, solar, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, pool, demolition, fence, sign, fire, grading, building, or other — filter to exactly the leads you sell to.
• Honest pricing. You pay per permit record delivered. Zero results, a broken city source, or an invalid input = no per-record charges. Ever.
• Fresh. Verified update cadence: most sources publish within 1–3 days of issuance (see the coverage table — the few that lag are flagged).

What you get (output record)

{
  "city": "Denver",
  "state": "CO",
  "jurisdiction": "Denver, CO",
  "permit_number": "2026-RESCON-0001780",
  "permit_type": "Alteration/Tenant Finish",
  "permit_subtype": "Residential",
  "trade": "building",
  "description": null,
  "status": null,
  "issued_date": "2026-08-10",
  "applied_date": "2026-06-02",
  "expires_date": null,
  "finaled_date": null,
  "address": "599 S Dale CT",
  "zipcode": null,
  "latitude": 39.69,
  "longitude": -104.99,
  "valuation": 8000,
  "contractor_name": "SENNETT WINDOWS",
  "contractor_license": null,
  "contractor_phone": null,
  "applicant_name": null,
  "owner_name": null,
  "source": "Denver Open Data — construction permits",
  "source_dataset_url": "https://opendata-geospatialdenver.hub.arcgis.com"
}

Fields a jurisdiction does not publish are null — see the coverage table below for exactly what each city provides. We never invent or "enrich" data that isn't in the official record.

Coverage (verified live)

Jurisdiction	Address	Valuation	Contractor	Lat/Lon	Notes
Atlanta, GA	✓	✓	—	✓	recent-activity window (~1yr)
Austin, TX	✓	partial	✓ +phone	partial
Baltimore, MD	✓	partial	—	✓	2019–present
Arlington, TX	—	✓	—	✓	no street address published
Baton Rouge, LA	✓	✓	✓	✓
Boston, MA	✓	✓	—	✓	applicant published
Chicago, IL	✓	✓	✓	✓
Cincinnati, OH	✓	✓	✓	✓
Cleveland, OH	✓	✓	✓ +license	✓
Columbus, OH	✓	✓	—	✓	applicant business published
Denver, CO	✓	✓	✓	✓	no work description
Las Vegas, NV	✓	✓	✓	—	no work description
Detroit, MI	✓	✓	—	✓
Los Angeles, CA	✓	✓	—	✓	permits issued 2020+
Louisville, KY	✓	✓	partial	✓	active/recent permits
Maricopa County, AZ	✓	—	—	✓	unincorporated Phoenix metro
Marin County, CA	✓	✓	✓ +license	✓
Memphis, TN	✓	✓	—	✓
Mesa, AZ	✓	✓	✓ +license	✓
Miami, FL (city)	✓	✓	✓	✓
Miami-Dade County, FL	✓	✓	✓ +phone	—
Minneapolis, MN	✓	✓	✓	✓
Montgomery County, MD	✓	✓	—	✓	residential permits
Nashville, TN	✓	✓	✓	✓
New Jersey (statewide)	—	✓	—	—	municipality-level, huge volume
New Orleans, LA	✓	✓	✓	✓
New York City, NY	✓	✓	—	✓	DOB NOW; applicant + owner published
Philadelphia, PA	✓	—	✓	✓
Pittsburgh, PA	✓	✓	partial	✓	owner published
Raleigh, NC	✓	✓	✓ +phone	✓	past 180 days
Sacramento, CA	✓	✓	✓	—	source lags ~1–2 weeks; current year
San Antonio, TX	partial	—	—	—	applicant published
San Diego, CA	✓	partial	✓	✓	current year
San Francisco, CA	✓	✓	—	✓
Seattle, WA	✓	✓	—	✓
Tempe, AZ	✓	✓	partial +phone	✓
Tucson, AZ	✓	✓	—	✓
Washington, DC	✓	—	—	✓	current calendar year

"partial" = the official source populates the field on some records only. Contractor phone numbers come through on Austin, Raleigh, Tempe, and Miami-Dade.

How to use it

1. Pick your cities (or all).
2. Set the date window — e.g. permits issued in the last 14 days.
3. Optionally filter by trade (e.g. roofing, solar), minimum valuation, or search text.
4. Run. Export JSON/CSV/Excel from the dataset, or call it on a schedule / via API / as an MCP tool for your AI agents.

Example: roofing leads in Texas metros, last 7 days

{
  "cities": ["austin", "san-antonio", "arlington-tx"],
  "issuedAfter": "2026-08-04",
  "trades": ["roofing"],
  "maxRecordsTotal": 500
}

Example: high-value commercial activity in Chicago

{
  "cities": ["chicago"],
  "issuedAfter": "2026-07-01",
  "minValuation": 1000000
}

Pricing

Pay per event: a small Actor-start fee plus $0.005 per permit record delivered. 1,000 fresh permit leads ≈ $5. Compare: permit lead services charge $79–$249 per ZIP code per month, and permit data APIs start at $599/month. No subscription, no seat licenses, no sales call.

• Zero matching permits → $0 in record charges (you only pay the start fee).
• A city source being down → $0 for that city, clearly reported in a status record.

✅ What this Actor CAN do

• Pull permits issued in a date window across any of the 38 covered jurisdictions
• Normalize official records into one schema with ISO dates and numeric valuations
• Classify permits by trade and filter by trade, valuation, or free text
• Return contractor names (and licenses/phones where the city publishes them)
• Feed spreadsheets, CRMs, dashboards, or AI agents (works as an MCP tool via Apify)

❌ What this Actor does NOT do

• No jurisdictions beyond the coverage table. If a city isn't listed, it isn't covered (yet — coverage grows; suggest cities in the Issues tab).
• No data the city doesn't publish. Fields marked "—" are null for that city; we don't buy, scrape, or guess contact details from elsewhere.
• No permit applications (except where noted) — this is issued/approved permits.
• No guarantee of same-day data where the official source itself lags (flagged in the table).
• No historical backfill beyond each source's own window (e.g. DC = current year, Raleigh = 180 days; most others go back years).

FAQ

Where does the data come from? Directly from each jurisdiction's official open-data portal — Socrata (Chicago, NYC, LA, SF, Seattle…), ArcGIS (Denver, DC, Miami, Nashville…), CKAN (Boston, San Antonio, Pittsburgh), Carto (Philadelphia), and official published files (San Diego). Sources are re-verified continuously; each record carries its source_dataset_url.

How fresh is it? Most sources update daily; the newest permits are typically 1–3 days old. Sacramento and a few others lag 1–2 weeks (flagged above).

Can I run this on a schedule? Yes — schedule it in Apify Console (e.g. daily, issuedAfter = yesterday) and pipe new permits to Google Sheets, webhooks, Make/Zapier, or your CRM.

Is this legal? Yes. Building permits are public records, published by the jurisdictions themselves specifically for public reuse.

A city I need is missing / a field looks wrong? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab — coverage requests are prioritized.