Texas Building Permits (Austin)

Returns issued building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing and driveway permits from the City of Austin, Texas public open data (Socrata dataset 3syk-w9eu), with permit type/class, issue date, reported valuation, contractor company and trade, applicant organization, city, ZIP and project description.

Coverage: Austin only. Other Texas cities are not supported yet (see Limitations).

When to use

• You need recently issued Austin permits to find active contractors, subcontracting or supply opportunities, or to track construction activity.
• You want permits filtered by issue date, permit type (BP/EP/MP/PP/DS) or minimum valuation.
• You run on a schedule and want only permits not returned before (newOnly: true).

When not to use

• You need permits for Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth or any city other than Austin.
• You need contractor license numbers — Austin's dataset does not publish them (contractorLicenseNumber is always null).
• You need property owner or homeowner information — this actor does not output owners; personal names and street addresses are off by default.
• You need pending applications or inspections — only issued permits are returned.
• You need a consumer report or eligibility decision (see FCRA notice below).

Example input

{ "cities": ["austin"], "dateFrom": "2026-10-01", "dateTo": "2026-10-25", "permitTypes": ["BP"], "minValuation": 100000, "maxItems": 50 }

Example output (one record per permit)

{
  "city": "Austin",
  "permitNumber": "2026-139369 BP",
  "permitType": "BP",
  "permitTypeDescription": "Building Permit",
  "permitClass": "Residential",
  "workClass": "Repair",
  "description": "Express: Re-roof (located in WUI)",
  "issueDate": "2026-10-25",
  "status": "Active",
  "valuation": 1,
  "contractorCompanyName": "Kanga Roof LLC",
  "contractorTrade": "General Contractor",
  "contractorLicenseNumber": null,
  "contractorContactName": null,
  "contractorPhone": null,
  "applicantOrganization": "Kanga Roof LLC",
  "applicantName": null,
  "projectAddress": null,
  "projectCity": "AUSTIN",
  "zip": "78726",
  "isResidential": true,
  "isNewSinceLastRun": null,
  "sourceUrl": "https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/permit/public-search-other?t_detail=1&t_selected_folderrsn=13793679",
  "source": "https://data.austintexas.gov/d/3syk-w9eu"
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Allowed values / units	Meaning
cities	array of strings	["austin"]	"austin" (others cause an error)	Cities to collect
dateFrom	string	30 days ago	YYYY-MM-DD	Issue-date range start (inclusive)
dateTo	string	today	YYYY-MM-DD	Issue-date range end (inclusive)
sinceDate	string	none	YYYY-MM-DD	Overrides dateFrom
permitTypes	array of strings	empty = all	BP building, EP electrical, MP mechanical, PP plumbing, DS driveway/sidewalk	Permit types
minValuation	integer	none	US dollars, ≥0	Minimum reported total job valuation
maxItems	integer	200	1–100000 records	Output cap; newest issue date first
newOnly	boolean	false	true / false	Skip permits returned by previous newOnly runs
lookbackDays	integer	7	0–365 days	Only with newOnly: window starts this many days before the previous run
includeStreetAddress	boolean	false	true / false	Opt-in project street address (often residential)
includeContactNames	boolean	false	true / false	Opt-in contractor contact and applicant person names
includePhone	boolean	false	true / false	Opt-in contractor phone
appToken	string (secret)	none	Socrata app token	Optional; only reduces throttling

Output fields

Field	Type	Meaning
city	string	Source city (Austin)
permitNumber	string	City permit number
permitType / permitTypeDescription	string	e.g. BP / Building Permit
permitClass / workClass	string	e.g. Residential or Commercial / New, Remodel, Repair
description	string	Project description as entered by the city
issueDate	string YYYY-MM-DD	Permit issue date
status	string	Current permit status (e.g. Active, Final, Expired)
valuation	number or null	Reported total job valuation, USD (self-reported; may be 0 or 1 as a placeholder)
contractorCompanyName / contractorTrade	string or null	Contractor company (may be a sole proprietor) and trade
contractorLicenseNumber	null	Not published by Austin
contractorContactName, applicantName	string or null	Null unless includeContactNames
contractorPhone	string or null	Null unless includePhone
applicantOrganization	string or null	Applicant company
projectAddress	string or null	Null unless includeStreetAddress
projectCity, zip	string	Project location
isResidential	boolean	true when the city classes the permit as Residential
isNewSinceLastRun	boolean or null	true in newOnly mode, otherwise null
sourceUrl / source	string	City permit page / source dataset

Limitations — please read

• Austin only. Dallas publishes permits on Socrata but its dataset shows no license/terms, so it is not included; San Antonio and Fort Worth do not use Socrata APIs and were not evaluated for this version.
• No completeness or accuracy guarantee. Data comes from public records exactly as the city publishes them and may be delayed, incomplete, corrected later or contain errors. Verify important records with the city.
• Valuations are applicant-reported estimates, not contract values; many small permits show 0 or 1.
• About 5–10% of permits have no contractor company (e.g. owner-builder or not yet assigned).
• contractorCompanyName and applicantOrganization are published as entered and are sometimes an individual's personal name (e.g. a sole proprietor), even though personal-name fields are off by default.
• No contractor license numbers and no property owner names are available from this source.
• newOnly keeps its state in the named key-value store texas-building-permits-state in your own Apify account; delete it to reset.
• newOnly lookback gap: each newOnly run only re-checks permits issued from lookbackDays before the previous run. Permits the city publishes more than lookbackDays after their issue date are missed; raise lookbackDays if this matters.
• Each run checks the row count with Socrata count(*); if the fetched rows do not match (e.g. data changed mid-run), or the API errors or its columns change, the run fails with an error instead of returning partial or empty results. Requests are paced at ≥1 s per page.

Pricing

Currently free to use (Apify platform usage applies per Apify's terms). Any future pricing change will be announced in advance per Apify Store rules.

Source

Source: City of Austin, Texas — data.austintexas.gov, dataset "Issued Construction Permits" (3syk-w9eu), published as Public Domain. This actor only reads the public Socrata API and does not log in to anything. This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Austin.

Data & compliance notice

Data & compliance notice. All data is compiled from public government records (City of Austin open data) and is provided "as is" without warranty of accuracy or completeness. Some records may identify individual sole proprietors. You are solely responsible for how you use this data, including compliance with CAN-SPAM, the TCPA and the National Do Not Call Registry, state telemarketing laws, and privacy laws such as the CCPA/CPRA. Do not use this data for unsolicited robocalls/texts, harassment, or any purpose prohibited by law or by the source agency. This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by any government agency.

Not for use as a consumer report or for credit, employment, insurance, or housing eligibility decisions under the FCRA.