US Building Permits Scraper (Accela)

Get new building permits as daily leads from any US city or county that runs Accela Citizen Access (the "ACA" permit portals at aca-prod.accela.com/... and self-hosted …/CitizenAccess). For every permit you get record number, type, trade category, status, opened date, address with city/state/ZIP, description and a link to the record. Turn on details to add job valuation, contractor name, license, phone and address, parcel number and the portal's extra fields.

Built for roofers, solar installers, HVAC and pool contractors, remodelers, suppliers, lead-generation agencies and n8n / Make / Zapier users who want fresh permits every morning instead of paying for a one-off city extraction.

Keywords: building permit leads, new permits API, Accela permits scraper, roofing permits, solar permits, pool permits, HVAC permits, new construction permits, contractor leads, permit data export.

What you can do

• 🏗️ Search one or many cities/counties at once: 30+ known portals in a dropdown (Tampa, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Sacramento, Clark County NV, Pima County AZ, Salt Lake City, Denver, Atlanta, Louisville, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Virginia Beach, …) plus any other Accela agency by code or portal URL
• 🔧 Filter by trade: roofing, solar, pool, hvac, electrical, plumbing, new-construction, remodel, demolition, … or any keyword; or let the portal filter by its own record types
• 💰 Details: valuation, contractor company, license number and type, phone, address, parcel number, applicant company
• 🔔 Monitor mode: each run saves only permits it has not seen before, with alerts on Telegram, Slack, email or a webhook (n8n, Make, Zapier). Schedule it daily
• 🛡️ Privacy by default: owner and applicant names are left out unless you switch them on
• ⚡ Efficient and robust: plain HTTP with ASP.NET postbacks (no browser for most portals), the portal's CSV export for big pulls, automatic retries and a real-browser fallback for portals that block plain requests

Quick start

Roofing and solar permits in Tampa and Hillsborough County, last 7 days, with contractor and valuation:

{
  "agencies": ["TAMPA", "HCFL"],
  "lastNDays": 7,
  "permitTypes": ["roofing", "solar"],
  "includeDetails": true
}

Every building permit opened in September in a city that is not in the list:

{
  "customAgencies": ["https://aca-prod.accela.com/SPOKANE/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Building"],
  "dateFrom": "2026-09-01",
  "dateTo": "2026-09-30",
  "maxRecordsPerAgency": 0
}

Daily pool-permit leads to a Make/n8n webhook (schedule once a day):

{
  "agencies": ["PINELLAS", "PASCO", "HCFL"],
  "permitTypes": ["pool"],
  "includeDetails": true,
  "lastNDays": 5,
  "monitorName": "tampa-bay-pools",
  "webhookUrl": "https://hook.eu1.make.com/your-hook-id"
}

Output

One item per permit (dataset views: Permits and Contractors & valuation):

{
  "agency": "PINELLAS",
  "agencyName": "Pinellas County, FL",
  "module": "Building",
  "recordNumber": "BLD-26-04001",
  "recordType": "Residential Solar",
  "category": "solar",
  "status": "In Review",
  "openedDate": "2026-09-27",
  "issuedDate": null,
  "expirationDate": "2027-03-26",
  "address": "1037 SEMINOLE BLVD",
  "city": "Seminole",
  "state": "FL",
  "zip": "33772",
  "fullAddress": "1037 SEMINOLE BLVD, SEMINOLE FL 33772",
  "parcelNumber": "19-29-15-10001-000-0100",
  "description": "Install 11 kW roof mounted photovoltaic system with battery",
  "projectName": null,
  "valuation": 32100,
  "contractorName": "BRIGHT SKY SOLAR INC",
  "contractorPerson": "QUALIFIER 1",
  "contractorLicense": "CVC5730001",
  "contractorLicenseType": "Certified Solar Contractor",
  "contractorPhone": "(727) 555-2001",
  "contractorAddress": "501 INDUSTRIAL WAY, LARGO, FL, 33771",
  "applicantName": null,
  "applicantCompany": "PERMIT RUNNERS INC",
  "ownerName": null,
  "ownerMailingAddress": null,
  "moreDetails": { "Job Value($)": "$32,100.00", "Construction Type": "V-B" },
  "detailsFetched": true,
  "detailUrl": "https://aca-prod.accela.com/PINELLAS/Cap/CapDetail.aspx?Module=Building&TabName=Building&capID1=26CAP&capID2=00000&capID3=…",
  "portalUrl": "https://aca-prod.accela.com/PINELLAS/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Building&TabName=Building",
  "source": "grid",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-27T17:07:15.510Z"
}

(Example values from the test portal.) Fields the portal does not publish are null. Without details you get everything up to description plus the links. issuedDate is only filled where the portal's results list has an issued-date column; most portals list the opened (applied) date, which is what the date search filters on. In monitor mode items also carry monitorName, isNew and detectedAt. The run summary (OUTPUT in the key-value store) lists per agency how many records were read, matched and saved, how the portal was read (HTTP / browser, grid / CSV) and any error.

Input

All fields are optional; with no input the Actor returns the last 7 days of building permits from Pinellas County and Hillsborough County, FL.

Field	Default	What it does
agencies	["PINELLAS", "HCFL"]	Known portals (dropdown). If one portal is down, the others are still saved and the failed one is named in the run status.
customAgencies	–	Other portals: agency code (KERNCO) or full URL of the search page, also self-hosted ones.
module	agency's usual	Building, Permits, Development, … as in CapHome.aspx?module=….
lastNDays / dateFrom / dateTo	7 days	Period of the record opened date.
permitTypes	all	Trade names (roofing/roof, solar, pool, hvac, electrical, plumbing, new-construction/new, addition, remodel, demolition, windows, fence, sign, accessory-structure, mobile-home) or any keyword.
excludeKeywords	–	Drop permits mentioning these words.
statuses	any	Keep permits whose status contains e.g. Issued.
recordTypes	–	Let the portal filter by its "Record Type" dropdown (text contains).
maxRecordsPerAgency	500	Newest first; 0 = no limit.
includeDetails	false	Detail page per permit: contractor, valuation, parcel, extra fields.
includePersonalNames	false	Owner / applicant names and owner mailing address (with details).
monitorName	–	Monitor mode: only permits not seen before.
telegramBotToken + telegramChatId, slackWebhookUrl, webhookUrl, emailTo	–	Alerts in monitor mode.
proxyConfiguration	Apify Proxy	Use RESIDENTIAL (US) if a portal refuses datacenter IPs.
exportMode	auto	grid (links for every permit), csv (portal's "Download results"), auto (CSV only for >100 results without details).

Advanced: searchWindowDays (7), maxPagesPerAgency (100), browserFallback (true), forceBrowser (false), requestDelayMs (700), maxRetries (3), saveDebugPages (true), stateStoreName, reportAllOnFirstRun, resetState, notifyMaxItems, webhookMaxItems, notifyOnNoChanges, emailSubject.

Finding an agency code

Open the city's permit search in your browser. If the address looks like https://aca-prod.accela.com/TAMPA/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Building, the agency code is TAMPA and the module is Building. You can also paste the whole address into customAgencies. If the module is wrong, the log lists the modules the portal offers.

Monitor mode and alerts

1. Set monitorName (e.g. "tampa-roofing") and your filters, then schedule the Actor (daily is typical).
2. The first run is a silent baseline: it remembers the permits currently in the period without saving them (turn on reportAllOnFirstRun to get them too).
3. Every following run saves only new permits and sends one message per channel. Keep lastNDays at 3–7 so permits that the city enters a few days late are still caught; duplicates never come back.
4. The webhook receives JSON: { "event": "permits.new", "monitorName", "summary": { "newPermits", "checked", "agencies", "failedAgencies" }, "resultsUrl", "runId", "datasetId", "message", "permits": [ … ] }. In n8n use a Webhook trigger node, in Make a Custom webhook.

Changing the filters of a monitor starts a new baseline so you are not flooded with old permits. resetState forgets everything.

How AI agents call this Actor

Through the Apify MCP server (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, the n8n AI Agent): connect https://mcp.apify.com?tools=egra_van/accela-building-permits and the agent sees this Actor as one tool, with its input schema. With the default https://mcp.apify.com, an agent finds Actors with search-actors, reads the input with fetch-actor-details, runs them with call-actor and reads the results with get-dataset-items.

Through the REST API, in one HTTP call (waits for the run and returns the dataset items):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/egra_van~accela-building-permits/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"agencies": ["PINELLAS", "HCFL"], "lastNDays": 7, "maxRecordsPerAgency": 25}'

Agents that pay with crypto can buy a prepaid Apify API token through Apify AGI (x402) and use it with this Actor like any other token.

Tips for agents:

• The JSON above is a complete, working input; every other field has a default (see the input section above).
• Set maxTotalChargeUsd in the run options to cap the cost of a run.

Pricing (pay per event)

Event	Price	When
permit	$0.01	Each permit saved to the dataset
permit-details	$0.01	Each permit whose detail page was loaded (includeDetails)

Searching, paging and monitor baselines are free; failed detail pages are not charged. 1,000 permits cost $10, or $20 with contractor and valuation. Set a maximum cost per run and the Actor stops cleanly at that budget; in monitor mode, permits that did not fit are reported on the next run.

How it works

ACA portals are ASP.NET WebForms applications. The Actor opens the module's General Search page, fills the start/end date fields and posts the form back with the page's __VIEWSTATE and ACA_CS_FIELD like a browser would, then follows the result grid's pager (10 rows per page) or clicks Download results for a CSV of the whole list. Long periods are split into windows (7 days by default, newest first). Grid columns differ per agency, so they are mapped by their header text. When exactly one record matches, ACA opens it directly; that is handled too.

If a portal blocks plain HTTP (Cloudflare/WAF answer), the Actor rotates to a new proxy IP, then loads the portal once in a real Chrome and continues over HTTP with the browser's cookies, and finally works entirely inside the browser. Pages that do not look as expected are saved to the key-value store as DEBUG-… and the log says what the portal answered.

Limits and good to know

• Only public search pages work. Modules behind a login and portals with a CAPTCHA on the search are reported with a clear message and skipped.
• The date search filters on the record's opened/applied date. To get only issued permits, set statuses: ["Issued"] with a period long enough to cover the city's issuing delay (e.g. lastNDays: 30); in monitor mode note that a permit is reported once, the first time it matches.
• Coverage and field names depend on each city's configuration. Some cities do not publish contractor or valuation on the detail page.
• Please keep the default delay between requests; these are city servers.

Legal and privacy

Building permits are public records, and this Actor only reads pages any visitor can open without an account. Owner and applicant names are off by default; if you switch them on, you are responsible for complying with privacy, telemarketing (TCPA / Do-Not-Call) and anti-spam laws when contacting people, and with the terms of use of each portal. The Actor is not affiliated with Accela, Inc. or any government agency.

Support

Missing a city, a wrong field, or a portal that changed? Open an issue on the Actor's page with the portal URL and the run ID. The OUTPUT summary and DEBUG-… pages usually show exactly what happened.