US Building Permit Leads: Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, Charlotte

New building, electrical, HVAC and plumbing permits from five US cities in one Actor and one schema. The data comes straight from each city's official open-data feed. Pick a city, set your filters, and get a lead list you can send to Google Sheets, a CRM or email.

City	Source	Typical volume	Trades checked
Chicago, IL	City of Chicago Building Permits	~2,500 permits / month	Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing
Los Angeles, CA	LADBS building, electrical and mechanical permits	~15,000 / month	Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing
Austin, TX	Austin Development Services issued permits	~5,000 / month	Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing
Seattle, WA	SDCI building, electrical and trade permits	~4,500 / month	Electrical, Mechanical
Charlotte, NC	Mecklenburg County Accela permits	~11,000 / month	Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing

What makes it different: open-trade leads

Most permit scrapers copy one city's table and stop there. This Actor reads every city's trade permits as well and matches them to each project by address and parcel. For every project permit (new building, addition, remodel, tenant improvement, pool…) you get:

• tradePermitsOnFile: the trades that already have a permit (or, in Chicago, a licensed contractor listed on the permit)
• tradesNotYetPermitted: the trades that don't have one yet

Set Only projects still missing this trade to Electrical, Mechanical or Plumbing to get just the jobs where that sub may still be open. On a typical week that's about 20% of Chicago projects and most new projects in Austin, Seattle and Los Angeles.

One input, one output format, five cities. Switch the city, keep your Zap, Make scenario or spreadsheet.

Who uses it

• Electricians, HVAC and plumbing contractors finding projects before the trade work is awarded
• Solar, EV-charger, generator and low-voltage installers: evCharger and solar flags, plus keyword filters
• Suppliers and distributors tracking new construction by ZIP code or neighborhood
• Lenders, investors and market researchers comparing construction activity across cities

Input

Field	What it does
City	Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle or Charlotte (required)
Days back / Start date / End date	Issue-date range. Default: the last 7 days the city has published.
Only projects still missing this trade	Electrical, Mechanical or Plumbing
Work types	Every city uses New, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing; plus city types like Renovation/Alteration (Chicago), Pool/Spa (LA), Remodel (Austin), Tenant Improvement (Seattle)
Residential or commercial	Both, Residential or Commercial
Towns or neighborhoods	Chicago community areas (Logan Square), LA plan areas (Hollywood), Austin-area towns, Charlotte-area towns
ZIP codes	Limit the area (Chicago's feed has no ZIPs; use neighborhoods)
Minimum project value	Declared construction cost
Keywords	Match the description or building use (e.g. ADU, generator, restaurant)
Max results	Cap the number of results (and the cost)

Output

One item per permit, the same fields for every city:

{
  "city": "Austin, TX",
  "permitNumber": "2026-050095 BP",
  "issueDate": "2026-10-26",
  "status": "Active",
  "workType": "Addition and Remodel",
  "category": "Commercial",
  "description": "Addition and Remodel to Existing Admin Office Building to Create Visitors Center and Office (42552 SF).",
  "projectValue": 1000000,
  "address": "11920 WILSON PARKE AVE",
  "zipCode": "78726",
  "jurisdiction": "Austin",
  "latitude": 30.4228954,
  "longitude": -97.85178342,
  "mapUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=30.4228954,-97.85178342",
  "isProjectPermit": true,
  "tradePermitsOnFile": [],
  "tradesNotYetPermitted": ["Electrical", "Mechanical", "Plumbing"],
  "tradesChecked": ["Electrical", "Mechanical", "Plumbing"],
  "contractorCompany": "Spawglass Contractors Inc",
  "evCharger": false,
  "solar": false,
  "lookupUrl": "https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/permit/public-search-other?t_detail=1&t_selected_folderrsn=13691852"
}

Also included where the city publishes them: neighborhood, parcel ID, square feet, housing units and building use. lookupUrl opens the permit on the city's own site (Austin, Seattle and Los Angeles link to the exact permit). Download as JSON, CSV or Excel, or connect it to Google Sheets, Zapier or Make.

Tips

• Daily lead list: schedule one run per city each morning with Days back = 2 and send the dataset to Google Sheets or email.
• Los Angeles posts weekly, so its newest permits are usually 1 to 8 days old. "Days back" counts from the newest day each city has published, so a 7-day run always returns a full week.
• "No electrical permit yet" means none has been issued at that address or parcel since a month before the project permit. The builder may already have a sub who hasn't pulled it, and in Los Angeles trade permits are often pulled late in the job. Treat it as a lead, not a guarantee.
• Seattle's plumbing permits are issued by King County public health, not the city, so Seattle checks electrical and mechanical only (tradesChecked says which trades were checked for every result).

Data and privacy

Public permit records published by each city or county. Owner, applicant and contact names, phone numbers and email addresses are not collected. Contractor company names are included for Chicago and Austin only when they are clearly a business. This Actor is not affiliated with any of these cities or counties.