Building Permit Scraper: Contractor Leads & Status (Accela)

Pull building permit data and building permit leads from any city or county that runs Accela Citizen Access, the permitting portal used by hundreds of US jurisdictions. Give it an agency and a date range; get one clean row per permit with the type, status, address, valuation and, if you want them, the contractor's name, licence and phone from the permit page.

Built for people who buy permit data on a schedule: roofing, solar, HVAC and remodeling contractors looking for fresh projects, lead sellers, suppliers watching new construction, and anyone who needs a weekly feed instead of a one-off export.

What you get

One row per permit. Every field is flat, so the dataset drops straight into Google Sheets, Airtable or a CRM.

Field	Example
permitNumber	BP-202603758
permitType	Commercial - Fire Sprinkler
permitTypeNormalized	roofing, solar, hvac, new_construction, electrical, plumbing, demolition or other
status	Routed for Review
appliedDate	2026-09-15
addressFull, street, addressCity, addressState, zip	140 CHASTAIN PARK AVE NW, ATLANTA GA 30339
description	Project description as published
declaredValuationUsd	48500 (from the permit page, when published)
contractorName, contractorLicense, contractorPhone	From the permit page with includeDetails
parcelId, issuedDate, finalDate	From the permit page, when published
detailUrl	Direct link to the public permit record
agencyKey, agencyName, city, state, module	Which portal the row came from
isNewSinceLastRun, previousStatus, statusChanged	Set by the incremental and monitoring modes
scrapedAt	UTC timestamp

Anything the portal does not publish is null. Owner names are off by default because owners are usually private individuals; turn on includeOwnerName together with includeDetails if you need them and your use allows it.

How to use it

Pick an agency, choose how far back to look, run.

{
  "agency": "ATLANTA_GA",
  "module": "Building",
  "lastDays": 7,
  "maxResults": 200
}

lastDays is prefilled at 7: the last 7 calendar days ending today (UTC), including today, so a saved task stays current. For a fixed window, set lastDays to 0 and give dateFrom and dateTo; both dates are inclusive. A run that gives neither also searches the last 7 days. maxResults caps the rows you pay for.

permitTypeContains keeps only rows whose record type contains one of your words. To choose types yourself instead, set recordTypes to names from the selected module's Record Type menu, for example ["Commercial Demolition"] in Atlanta. Up to 25 types are accepted. A name the portal does not offer stops the run and lists examples of what it does offer; if the portal publishes no menu, clear recordTypes and the actor searches every type. permitTypeContains still filters the rows when recordTypes is set, and leaving both empty returns every type. A narrow filter can still take a while on portals where the actor has to read the whole date window.

maxPages (60 by default) is the most result pages one run reads, counting every record type it searches, even types with no matches. A run that reaches it stops and tells you to raise maxPages, shorten the date window or pick fewer recordTypes. What you keep from a run that stops early depends on the mode:

• A run without includeDetails or a status monitor saves rows page by page, so you keep every finished page even if a later page fails or the run is aborted.
• With includeDetails, rows are saved at the end, once the actor has checked that enough permit pages loaded (see Good to know). A details run that is aborted or times out before then saves no rows, so give it enough time.
• A status monitor saves all or nothing: an incomplete run delivers no rows and leaves the saved statuses as they were. statusMonitorMaxPages also limits monitors, and the lower of it and maxPages applies.
• An incomplete run never moves the sinceLastRun marker forward, so nothing is skipped; rows it did deliver may come again, and be charged again, on the next run.

Recent permits on a schedule: set lastDays: 14 to search the last 14 calendar days ending today (UTC), including today. The date window moves automatically on every run, overriding dateFrom and dateTo, so saved tasks stay current. Set lastDays to 0 to use fixed dates.

Roofing and solar jobs worth $10,000 or more, with contractor details:

{
  "agency": "SACRAMENTO",
  "module": "Building",
  "dateFrom": "2026-09-01",
  "dateTo": "2026-09-15",
  "permitTypeContains": ["roof", "solar"],
  "minValuation": 10000,
  "includeDetails": true
}

permitTypeContains matches any of the words against the permit type. Valuation and contractor fields live on the permit page, so includeDetails must be on for minValuation to apply.

Only permits you have not seen before: create a key-value store in Apify Console, select it as stateStoreId, set sinceLastRun: true, and reuse the same run configuration (a saved task). Each complete run remembers the newest applied date it delivered and the next run emits only permits with a newer applied date. It also remembers which permits it delivered, so a permit the portal republishes without an applied date is not sent to you twice. A run that hits a cap or an error never moves that marker, so nothing is skipped.

Status changes on a schedule: create a key-value store in Apify Console, select it as statusStateStoreId, and schedule the task. The first complete run stores every permit's status; later runs emit only permits whose status changed, with previousStatus filled in. Give each schedule its own store. Set maxResults above the number of permits in your window (for example 5000): a monitor that reaches maxResults saves nothing and the run fails, so the schedule shows it. A week of Atlanta building permits is already more than the default 200.

Other record types: set module to Enforcement for code enforcement cases or Planning for planning and zoning cases. The same fields are used; permitNumber holds the case number.

Any other Accela portal on aca-prod.accela.com: set agency to the portal's agency code and portalUrl to its base URL, for example https://aca-prod.accela.com/CITYNAME/. Portals a city hosts on its own domain are not supported yet. Portals must offer a public General Search with a date range; a handful do not, and the run reports that clearly.

Quick start

No code needed; about two minutes from input to spreadsheet. For a longer walkthrough with example output, read the guide Build a permit research spreadsheet.

1. Open the example "Sacramento roofing and solar permits, last 14 days" on this actor's page, or paste one of the inputs above into the input form.
2. Click Start and wait until the run shows Succeeded.
3. Open the Output tab to see the permits as a table.
4. Click Export, choose CSV or Excel, and download the file.
5. In Google Sheets, choose File > Import > Upload and select the file.

Automate it

A weekly permit pull: keep lastDays in the task (for example 7 or 14) so the date window moves with every run. Click Save as a new task, then add a schedule for that task under Schedules in Apify Console (for example every Monday at 07:00). To get only permits you have not received before, turn on sinceLastRun and select a key-value store as stateStoreId; for status changes use statusStateStoreId as described above.

Into Google Sheets with n8n: add the Apify node with the On new Apify Event trigger, choose your task and the succeeded event, then add an Apify node with Get Dataset Items using the run's defaultDatasetId, and finish with a Google Sheets node that appends the rows. Every scheduled run then adds its permits to the same sheet. Make and Zapier have Apify integrations that work the same way.

Pricing

Pay per event. There are no platform usage charges on top.

Event	Price	When
actor-start	$0.01	Once per run
permit-record	$0.006	Per permit row delivered
contractor-detail-page	$0.004	Per permit page fetched, only when includeDetails is on

Examples: 200 permits without details cost $1.21. Twenty permits with contractor details cost $0.21. A weekly pull of 500 permits with details is about $5.01. A run that finds nothing costs $0.01.

Set a maximum charge on the run if you want a hard ceiling; the actor stops cleanly at the cap.

Coverage

These portals are bundled and verified. Any other portal hosted on aca-prod.accela.com works with portalUrl; portals a city hosts on its own domain are not supported yet.

Agency key	Jurisdiction	State
ANAHEIM	Anaheim	CA
ATLANTA_GA	Atlanta	GA
BREA	Brea	CA
CRYSTALLAKE	Crystal Lake	IL
CULVERCITY	Culver City	CA
DELAND	DeLand	FL
DOWNEY	Downey	CA
FONTANA	Fontana	CA
GOODYEAR	Goodyear	AZ
HARTFORD	Hartford	CT
HCFL	Hillsborough County	FL
HERMOSABEACH	Hermosa Beach	CA
LOVELAND	Loveland	CO
MANTECA	Manteca	CA
MILWAUKEE	Milwaukee	WI
MISSOULA	Missoula	MT
MONTEREYPARK	Monterey Park	CA
PALOALTO	Palo Alto	CA
RENO	Reno	NV
SACRAMENTO	Sacramento	CA
STOCKTON	Stockton	CA
TAMPA	Tampa	FL
THURSTONCO	Thurston County	WA
VISALIA	Visalia	CA

Some fields vary by agency: valuation comes from each permit's own page, so it needs includeDetails and some portals do not publish it, and a few portals list the address in a different column. Rows always carry what the portal shows.

Good to know

• If a permit's own record page still fails to load after retries, the permit is delivered from the search results with detailFetchFailed: true, the fields that come only from that page empty, and no contractor-detail-page charge. If more than 25 record pages, or more than 20% of those tried, fail, the run stops and saves no rows.
• Public records only. If a portal blocks access, the run fails with a clear message rather than returning an empty result.
• Dates are the portal's local calendar dates. A permit's applied date is what the agency shows in its search results; on some portals that is the last update date.
• The actor is not affiliated with Accela or with any listed agency. Public records can be incomplete or corrected later.

FAQ

How do I get a list of new building permits for my city?

If your city or county runs Accela Citizen Access (the site address usually contains aca-prod.accela.com), enter its agency key and a date range or lastDays. The Coverage table lists the portals we have verified.

Can I get roofing, solar or HVAC permit leads only?

Yes. Put words from the permit type in permitTypeContains, for example ["roof", "solar"], and turn on includeDetails for the contractor's name, licence and phone.

Can I look up a permit by address?

The actor searches by date, not by address. Pull the date range you need and filter the address column in your spreadsheet.

Is building permit data public?

Yes. Permits are public records, and the actor reads the same public pages anyone can open on the city's portal.

Related actors

• Code Violation Leads: code enforcement cases from Accela cities and counties.
• New Homeowner & Business Leads (Certificates of Occupancy): newly finished homes and business premises.
• Florida Lis Pendens, Pre-Foreclosure & Deed Leads: lis pendens and deeds from six Florida county clerks.

Questions or a portal that misbehaves? Open an issue on the actor page and include the agency and date range.