Canada Building Permits Search

Search 280,000+ Canadian building permits across Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Vancouver in one query — no coding required.

• ✅ Search 4 major Canadian cities for residential, commercial, and industrial permits
• ✅ Get contractor names, project costs, descriptions, addresses, and permit status
• ✅ 230,000+ Toronto records alone — one of the largest construction datasets in North America
• ✅ Pay only for what you use: $0.002 per permit record
• ✅ Free $5 Apify credit on signup = ~2,500 records to start with

Each Canadian city publishes building permits on its own open data portal — Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Vancouver each have different search interfaces, different formats, and different export limitations. This Actor searches all four at once and returns everything in one table.

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What you can do with it

1. Find contractor leads from recent building permits

Search for a trade keyword across all four cities to find active construction projects and the contractors working on them. Every permit includes the contractor name, project description, and estimated cost — ready-made leads for construction suppliers and subcontractors.

What you enter:

What	Example
Search term	renovation or commercial or plumbing
Cities	All 4 (default)
How many results	100 per city

What you get back:

City	Description	Contractor	Cost	Address
Toronto	Interior renovation of commercial space	ABC Construction	$450,000	100 King St W
Vancouver	Kitchen renovation — residential	West Coast Builders	$85,000	1200 Burrard St
Calgary	Office renovation — 3rd floor	Prairie Projects Ltd	$220,000	500 Centre St S

100 permits per city = 400 contractor leads across 4 Canadian markets for about $0.81 total.

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2. Analyze construction trends by city for real estate investment

Compare building permit volumes and project types across Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Vancouver to spot where construction activity is growing. A surge in residential permits signals rising demand; a surge in commercial permits signals economic growth.

What you enter:

What	Example
Search term	residential or condo or new construction
Cities	All 4

What you get back:

Permit counts and project values by city — sort by date to see trends over time. Toronto's 230,000+ records give you years of historical data for trend analysis.

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3. Monitor new permits weekly for business development

Set up a weekly scheduled run to catch new permits as they're filed. For construction material suppliers, subcontractors, and equipment rental companies, new permits = new sales opportunities.

What you enter:

What	Example
Search term	HVAC or electrical or demolition
Cities	Toronto, Vancouver
How many results	50 per city

Run weekly via Apify Scheduler or Make/Zapier — fresh leads every Monday.

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4. Research urban development patterns

Study how construction activity varies across Alberta (Calgary + Edmonton), Ontario (Toronto), and British Columbia (Vancouver). Useful for urban planning research, academic studies, and policy analysis.

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5. Use it from ChatGPT, Claude, or no-code automation

Ask your AI assistant "find recent renovation permits in Toronto" — it runs this Actor and returns real municipal permit data.

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How to use (no code required)

1. Click "Try for Free" at the top of this page
2. Type a keyword — renovation, commercial, HVAC, residential, or any term that appears in permit descriptions
3. Results come from all 4 cities by default
4. Click Start — results appear in seconds, ready to download as Excel, CSV, or JSON

The $5 free Apify credit covers ~2,500 permit records.

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What you get back

Each permit comes back as one row. Fields vary by city but typically include:

• Permit number and permit type
• Project description: what's being built or renovated
• Contractor name
• Estimated cost
• Address and location
• Status: issued, under review, complete
• Dates: application, issue, completion

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Coverage

City	Records	Province
Toronto, ON	230,000+	Ontario
Vancouver, BC	50,000+	British Columbia
Calgary, AB	—	Alberta
Edmonton, AB	—	Alberta

Total: 280,000+ permit records across 4 cities, 3 provinces. All data from official municipal open data portals.

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Pricing

Pay per record. No subscription.

What triggers a charge	Cost
Actor start (each run)	$0.005
Each permit record	$0.002

$5 free Apify credit = ~2,500 records.

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Connect to your tools

Platform	How to connect
Make.com	Search "Apify" → "Run Actor" → Actor ID lentic_clockss/canada-building-permits-search
n8n	Add Apify node → "Run Actor" → same Actor ID
Zapier	Apify integration → "Run Actor" trigger
ChatGPT / Claude / Cursor	Connect via Apify's MCP endpoint
LangChain, Python, custom code	Via Apify SDK or direct API call

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When to use something else

If you need...	Use this instead
US building permits	US Building Permits Scraper — 8 US cities
Canadian federal corporation data	Canada Business Entity Search
Canadian government contracts	Canada Government Contracts Search
Permits from other Canadian cities	Not yet covered — these 4 cities are current coverage

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FAQ

Q: Which cities are covered? A: Calgary AB, Edmonton AB, Toronto ON, and Vancouver BC.

Q: How current is the data? A: Each run queries the SIP gateway, which syncs regularly with each city's open data portal. Updates vary by city.

Q: Can I search for a specific address? A: Yes. Enter an address or street name as the search term.

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Related Actors

• Canada Business Entity Search — search 1.55M+ Canadian federal corporations
• Canada Government Contracts Search — search CanadaBuys procurement data
• US Building Permits Scraper — 8.8M+ US building permits across 8 cities
• Australia Government Data Search — 28 Australian government databases

→ Browse all Actors: apify.com/lentic_clockss

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Also Available

• Direct API: https://opendata.best/api/v1/data — use with any HTTP client and your API key
• Postman Collection: Fork and test — pre-built requests with example responses
• GitHub: Collection source files — import JSON into any API client