Norfolk VA Business Licenses Scraper — New Business Leads

The Norfolk VA business licenses scraper gives you one row per Norfolk business license for Norfolk, Virginia, straight from the City of Norfolk Commissioner of the Revenue via the official data.norfolk.gov API. No login or coding needed: run it in your browser, on a schedule, or through the Apify API, and export results as JSON, CSV or Excel.

Get newly opened and active City of Norfolk, Virginia businesses as a ready-to-use lead list. The data comes from the Norfolk Commissioner of the Revenue through the official open-data API (data.norfolk.gov dataset dpi6-sct5). The city updates the dataset on weekdays; the newest opened date at audit time (2026-11-04) was 2026-11-02.

What you get

Each row is one business license record as published by the City of Norfolk: trading-as name, primary owner, license classification, opened date, Norfolk location address and ZIP, mailing address, coordinates and census tract. Rows are sorted newest opened date first with a stable :id tiebreak, so large runs never skip or repeat rows. If the source ever emits the exact same record twice, the duplicate is dropped and the run status says how many were dropped.

Sample output (real run)

{
  "businessName": "LINGLING'S DIM SUM HOUSE",
  "owner": "F&C LINGLING INC",
  "classification": "Full-Service Restaurant",
  "openedDate": "2026-10-11",
  "locationAddress": "2000 COLLEY AVE",
  "locationZip": "23517",
  "mailingAddress": "2000 COLLEY AVE NORFOLK VA, 23517",
  "latitude": 36.8703,
  "longitude": -76.2962,
  "censusTract": "51710003700",
  "source": "Norfolk Commissioner of the Revenue via data.norfolk.gov"
}

Output fields

Field	What it is
businessName	Trading-as (DBA) name as published
owner	Primary owner as published (often a company; for sole proprietors, the person's name as it appears in the public license record)
classification	License classification (the city's NAICS-style description text; null on the small share of records the city publishes without one)
openedDate	Business opened date (YYYY-MM-DD)
locationAddress	Street address in Norfolk (null when the city lists "NO NORFOLK ADDRESS REQUIRED")
locationZip	ZIP split off the end of the published location address
mailingAddress	Mailing address as published
latitude / longitude	Coordinates, present only on the records the city has geocoded (7,421 of 10,382 at audit time); null otherwise
censusTract	Census tract GEOID (same geocoded subset)
source	Always "Norfolk Commissioner of the Revenue via data.norfolk.gov"

Use cases

• B2B sales: reach brand-new Hampton Roads businesses that need insurance, accounting, payroll, banking, signage, websites or POS.
• Contractor and trade lists: naicsContains: ["Contractor"].
• Restaurant suppliers: naicsContains: ["Restaurant"].
• Market research: new-business formation in Norfolk by classification and month.

How to scrape Norfolk VA business licenses

1. Click Try for free (or Start) on this page. A free Apify account is enough.
2. Leave the prefilled input to get a quick sample, or set the filters described below.
3. Set maxItems to cap how many rows (and how much) a run returns.
4. Click Start and wait a few seconds to a minute.
5. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or connect them to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or a webhook.

Canary input (small labeled check run): {"maxItems": 5} returns the 5 newest licenses and ends Complete.

Input

Field	Description
openedSince	Optional real date, YYYY-MM-DD. Invalid dates fail fast with a clear message. Empty = all 10,382 licenses (opened since 2019; count as of 2026-11-04).
naicsContains	Classification text, e.g. Restaurant, Contractor, Salon
nameContains	Matches business name or owner
norfolkAddressOnly	Default false. On drops the 2,666 "NO NORFOLK ADDRESS REQUIRED" records (special-event / out-of-town vendors)
maxItems	Default 200

Run status

Every run ends with a status you can trust:

• Complete: every matched license was delivered. If maxItems stopped the run early, the status says so and gives the full matched total (for example, "Complete: 200 of 10,382 matched license(s) delivered, capped at maxItems 200"). A run whose filters match nothing ends "Complete: 0 licenses matched your filters" and states how many licenses the source holds.
• PARTIAL: something material is disclosed in the status. Source-caused reasons (the status then ends with the Issues-tab line): rows skipped because the source data did not match the expected format; rows whose coordinate, census-tract or ZIP values were unusable and shipped as null; exact duplicate source rows dropped; a core column that carried no value on any scanned row; a stale source (newest opened date in the source over 14 days old, named in the status); future-dated source records ignored for the freshness measurement. The one user-caused PARTIAL reason is the max charge limit: the status says the limit was reached and how to raise it, with no Issues-tab line.
• Failed with a clear message: the source returned no records at all, the source response is missing an expected column, over 20% of scanned rows were invalid, or an input was not usable (for example, a date that is not a real date).

Every status names the newest opened date in the source as a whole, measured before your filters are applied.

Troubleshooting

• Zero matches: widen or clear the filters. The status tells you the source is healthy and how many licenses it holds, so a zero is a filter result, not a broken run.
• Stale data: if the city stops publishing, runs end PARTIAL naming the newest opened date in the source. The dataset is updated on weekdays, so short gaps over weekends and holidays are normal.
• Caps: maxItems caps rows (stated in the status with the matched total). The max charge limit stops a run PARTIAL; raise maxTotalChargeUsd to get more rows.
• Anything else: open an issue on this actor's Issues tab and we'll fix it fast.

Pricing (pay per event)

$3 per 1,000 rows ($0.003 each) plus Apify's minimal $0.00005 start fee. Example: 200 leads = 200 x $0.003 + $0.00005, about $0.60. If a run hits your max charge limit, it stops cleanly and reports how many rows it delivered.

Data caveats

Data is provided as published by the City of Norfolk. locationZip is split off the end of the published location address (a ZIP+4 suffix splits to its 5-digit base); "NO NORFOLK ADDRESS REQUIRED" becomes null. The classification is the city's NAICS-style description text, not a numeric NAICS code. Coordinates and census tract exist only on the records the city has geocoded. Owners are often companies; owner names are public license records. No phone numbers or emails are in the source and none are added.

License and disclaimer

Source: City of Norfolk Open Data. No open-data license published; public records. This actor uses only the official public open-data API and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Norfolk or its Commissioner of the Revenue.

Owner names / outreach: output includes owner names from public license records. You are responsible for complying with CAN-SPAM, TCPA, GDPR/CCPA and any other applicable laws when using this data for marketing or outreach.

Changelog

• 0.2.1 (audit candidate fix round, 2026-11-04): no output change on healthy data. Closes the hollow-column class for its remaining shapes: structural text columns valueless on every scanned row and the geocoded trio renamed across a material scan now end PARTIAL naming the column; an empty census tract ships null with the drift counted; ZIP+4 splits to its 5-digit base and malformed ZIP shapes are counted instead of passing silently.
• 0.2 (audit candidate, 2026-11-04): no output change on healthy data. Adds a payload core-column sentinel and per-row validation with skip counting, exact-duplicate dropping with the count stated, the Complete:/PARTIAL: run status contract with matched totals, a freshness measurement on the source as a whole, coordinate and census-tract value checks, and the fleet retry standard. Categories set to BUSINESS only.
• 0.1 (2026-10-12): first release.

FAQ

How much does it cost to scrape Norfolk VA business licenses?

You pay $0.003 per result ($3 per 1,000) plus a $0.00005 start fee, and nothing else. That is the free-plan price: on paid Apify plans you pay less per result (Bronze 10%, Silver 20%, Gold and above 30% off). Apify's free plan includes $5 of monthly credit, which covers about 1,600 results. See Pricing above for a worked example.

Is it legal to scrape Norfolk VA business licenses?

This Actor reads public records from the City of Norfolk Commissioner of the Revenue via the official data.norfolk.gov API, using only public endpoints (no login, no CAPTCHA bypass, no private accounts). See the source/license section above for the dataset's terms. You are responsible for how you use the data; this is not legal advice.

How fresh is the data?

Each run reads the source live, so you get whatever the agency has published at that moment. The city updates the dataset on weekdays; the run status names the newest opened date in the source on every run.

Can I use it via API, on a schedule, or with Google Sheets?

Yes. Every Apify Actor has a REST API and client libraries for Python and JavaScript. You can schedule daily or weekly runs, and send results to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, n8n, webhooks, or an AI agent via the Apify MCP server.

I need another city, county or field. Can you add it?

Open an issue on the Issues tab with the city or data source you need. We build new public-records scrapers regularly.

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