🏗️ US Building Permits Data — Census BPS by State, County & Metro

Get the US Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey as clean JSON — new privately-owned housing units, buildings and construction value authorized by permit, split into 1-unit, 2-unit, 3-4 unit and 5+ unit structures, for every state, county and metro area — straight from Census's own permit files.

Choose states (with division, region and US totals), counties or metro and micro areas (CBSA, from 2024), and monthly, year-to-date or annual files. With no dates, the actor reads the latest month Census has published. Valuation is always delivered in dollars.

The unit of output is one permits record: one state, county or metro area for one month or year. You pay per record delivered; a run that finds nothing costs nothing.

Who buys this and for what job

• Homebuilders, building-products makers and suppliers sizing demand by county and metro, single-family versus multifamily.
• Real estate investors and lenders tracking new supply pipelines in their markets.
• Economists and analysts following housing permits month by month.
• Local government and planning teams benchmarking against peer counties.

Buyers usually search for this as "building permits data" or "census building permits by county".

📊 Sample Output

period	name	total_units	one_unit_units	five_plus_units_units	total_valuation_usd
2026-08	Alabama	1731	1317	403	451645000
2026-08	Alaska	57	40	5	19039000
2026-08	Arizona	4266	2097	2116	1190862000
2026-08	Arkansas	884	738	89	225057000
2026-08	California	9649	4145	5262	2599020000
2026-08	Colorado	1900	1298	578	779079000

Rows from live run I8tz4glQAGFnK8cJv on Apify (the Store example: level state, latest month, 10 records). Notice the latest month Census has published (August 2026 here), with single-family (1-unit) and multifamily (5+ units) counts and valuation in dollars.

✅ What you get

Every field of each record:

• record_id — bPS:
• level — state, county or metro.
• period_type — monthly, year_to_date or annual.
• period — 2026-08 (monthly and year-to-date) or 2025 (annual).
• survey_date — survey date as published (YYYYMM or YYYY).
• name — state, county or CBSA name as published.
• state_fips — two-digit FIPS state code (state and county levels; division/region/US rows carry Census's own codes).
• county_fips — three-digit FIPS county code (county level).
• csa_code — combined Statistical Area code, or 999 when the CBSA is in none (metro level).
• cbsa_code — five-digit CBSA code (metro level).
• cbsa_type — metropolitan (part of a CSA or not) or Micropolitan.
• region — census region.
• division — census division.
• is_aggregate — true for division, region and US total rows in state files.
• total_buildings — sum of the four building-type columns (estimates with imputation).
• total_units — sum of the four unit columns.
• total_valuation_usd — sum of the four valuation columns, in dollars.
• valuation_published_unit — unit Census uses in this file (thousands of dollars for state and CBSA files, dollars for county files); valuation_usd fields are always in dollars.
• source — publisher survey.
• source_file — census file read.
• source_url — file URL.
• source_file_last_modified — last-Modified of that file.
• licence — licence notice.
• attribution — source line.
• observed_at — when this run read it (UTC).
• one_unit_buildings — 1-unit buildings (estimates with imputation).
• one_unit_units — 1-unit housing units (estimates with imputation).
• one_unit_valuation_usd — 1-unit valuation in dollars (estimates with imputation).
• two_units_buildings — 2-units buildings (estimates with imputation).
• two_units_units — 2-units housing units (estimates with imputation).
• two_units_valuation_usd — 2-units valuation in dollars (estimates with imputation).
• three_four_units_buildings — 3-4 units buildings (estimates with imputation).
• three_four_units_units — 3-4 units housing units (estimates with imputation).
• three_four_units_valuation_usd — 3-4 units valuation in dollars (estimates with imputation).
• five_plus_units_buildings — 5+ units buildings (estimates with imputation).
• five_plus_units_units — 5+ units housing units (estimates with imputation).
• five_plus_units_valuation_usd — 5+ units valuation in dollars (estimates with imputation).
• reported_one_unit_buildings — 1-unit buildings (reported only).
• reported_one_unit_units — 1-unit housing units (reported only).
• reported_one_unit_valuation_usd — 1-unit valuation in dollars (reported only).
• reported_two_units_buildings — 2-units buildings (reported only).
• reported_two_units_units — 2-units housing units (reported only).
• reported_two_units_valuation_usd — 2-units valuation in dollars (reported only).
• reported_three_four_units_buildings — 3-4 units buildings (reported only).
• reported_three_four_units_units — 3-4 units housing units (reported only).
• reported_three_four_units_valuation_usd — 3-4 units valuation in dollars (reported only).
• reported_five_plus_units_buildings — 5+ units buildings (reported only).
• reported_five_plus_units_units — 5+ units housing units (reported only).
• reported_five_plus_units_valuation_usd — 5+ units valuation in dollars (reported only).

⚙️ Sample inputs

1. The Store example — states, latest month

{
  "level": "state",
  "maxRecords": 10
}

Returned the 10 records above from st2608c.txt in run I8tz4glQAGFnK8cJv; $0.50 on the Free plan.

2. Every Texas county, latest month

{
  "level": "county",
  "states": ["TX"],
  "maxRecords": 40
}

Read 3,018 counties from co2608c.txt and returned 40 of the 221 Texas counties in run OqHDi8aCAhwVJE1aw; raise maxRecords for all of them.

3. Annual permits for Texas metro and micro areas

{
  "level": "metro",
  "periodType": "annual",
  "yearFrom": 2025,
  "yearTo": 2025,
  "nameContains": ["TX"],
  "maxRecords": 20
}

Returned 20 of the 66 Texas CBSAs from cbsa2025a.txt in run Pjdni8tlQiGfyeveR.

Input fields:

Field	Meaning
level	Which Census permits file family to read.
periodType	Monthly current-month files, year-to-date files (include late reports for earlier months), or annual files.
monthFrom	First month wanted, e.g. 2025-01 (monthly and year-to-date). Leave both months empty for the latest month.
monthTo	Last month wanted, e.g. 2026-08.
yearFrom	First year wanted (annual files).
yearTo	Last year wanted (annual files).
states	Two-letter codes (TX) or FIPS codes (48); at state level also full names. Not for metro.
nameContains	Keep rows whose name contains any of these, e.g. Harris (county), Austin (metro), TX (metro names end with the state).
cbsaCodes	Five-digit CBSA codes, e.g. 12420 (metro level).
includeAggregates	State files end with division, region and US totals.
order	By period.
maxRecords	Stop after this many records (each is charged once).

🧾 JSON sample record

{
  "record_id": "BPS:state:monthly:01:2026-08",
  "level": "state",
  "period_type": "monthly",
  "period": "2026-08",
  "survey_date": "202608",
  "name": "Alabama",
  "state_fips": "01",
  "county_fips": null,
  "csa_code": null,
  "cbsa_code": null,
  "cbsa_type": null,
  "region": "South",
  "division": "East South Central",
  "is_aggregate": false,
  "one_unit_buildings": 1317,
  "one_unit_units": 1317,
  "one_unit_valuation_usd": 393913000,
  "two_units_buildings": 4,
  "two_units_units": 8,
  "two_units_valuation_usd": 1847000,
  "three_four_units_buildings": 1,
  "three_four_units_units": 3,
  "three_four_units_valuation_usd": 527000,
  "five_plus_units_buildings": 16,
  "five_plus_units_units": 403,
  "five_plus_units_valuation_usd": 55358000,
  "total_buildings": 1338,
  "total_units": 1731,
  "total_valuation_usd": 451645000,
  "reported_one_unit_buildings": 964,
  "reported_one_unit_units": 964,
  "reported_one_unit_valuation_usd": 300592000,
  "reported_two_units_buildings": 2,
  "reported_two_units_units": 4,
  "reported_two_units_valuation_usd": 560000,
  "reported_three_four_units_buildings": 0,
  "reported_three_four_units_units": 0,
  "reported_three_four_units_valuation_usd": 0,
  "reported_five_plus_units_buildings": 11,
  "reported_five_plus_units_units": 350,
  "reported_five_plus_units_valuation_usd": 45482000,
  "valuation_published_unit": "thousands of dollars",
  "source": "U.S. Census Bureau — Building Permits Survey",
  "source_file": "st2608c.txt",
  "source_url": "https://www2.census.gov/econ/bps/State/st2608c.txt",
  "source_file_last_modified": "Thu, 24 Sep 2026 11:46:16 GMT",
  "licence": "Work of the U.S. Government (17 U.S.C. 105): U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey; no copyright restrictions in the United States.",
  "attribution": "Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey (BPS)",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-12T04:08:53Z"
}

🔧 How it works

1. Robots check. www2.census.gov/robots.txt is read on every run; it sets no rules for general crawlers, so the permit folders are allowed. A robots file that disallowed them would stop the run with nothing charged.

2. Find the files. The actor reads Census's folder listing for your level (State, County or CBSA) to see which monthly (c), year-to-date (y) and annual (a) files exist, then picks the latest one or the ones in your date range.

3. Parse the official layout. Each comma-delimited file is read using Census's documented record layout: identification fields, then buildings, units and valuation for 1-unit, 2-unit, 3-4 unit and 5+ unit structures, first with imputation and then reported only.

4. Deliver, then charge. Records are pushed file by file, newest period first, each batch charged after delivery. Reading stops at maxRecords or your maximum charge.

5. Receipt. RUN_RECEIPT records the robots result, the files read and their row counts, and delivered and charged counts.

No login, API key, proxy or bot workaround.

💰 Pricing example

Per record delivered, no start fee, no monthly charge:

Apify plan	Price per record
Free	$0.05
Bronze	$0.045
Silver	$0.04
Gold, Platinum, Diamond	$0.0335

• 10 records (the Store example): $0.50 on the Free plan, $0.335 on Gold.
• 1,000 records (the default cap): $50 on Free, $45 on Bronze, $40 on Silver, $33.50 on Gold.

Coverage and size. States (with 4 regions, 9 divisions and the US total) and counties back to the 1990s, metro and micro areas (CBSA) from January 2024; the latest month on 12 Oct 2026 was August 2026. State and CBSA valuation is published by Census in thousands of dollars (its documentation says so) and delivered here multiplied to dollars; county valuation is published in whole dollars (the county documentation does not state the unit; the figures are whole dollars) and delivered as published. total_* fields are the sum of the four structure-type columns. Metro files before 2024 (old MSA definitions) are not read.

⚖️ Legal & ToS

Data: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey (www2.census.gov/econ/bps). A work of the U.S. Government, not subject to copyright in the United States (17 U.S.C. §105). Every record carries that notice in licence and the source line in attribution. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the Census Bureau.

Counts for states, counties and metro areas only — no personal data. robots.txt is honoured. Public files only, declared User-Agent, no login, key, proxy or form.

❓ FAQ

What is the difference between 'estimates with imputation' and 'reported only'? Census fills in permit offices that did not report (imputation); the reported_* fields show only what offices reported. Most users use the imputed figures.

Monthly or year-to-date? Monthly files cover that month only. Year-to-date files sum January to that month and include late reports for earlier months.

Why is the latest month not this month? Census publishes permits with a lag; the actor reads the newest file it finds.

Do I need a Census API key? No. The actor reads Census's public files.

🆘 Troubleshooting

• 0 records at county level — give states as two-letter codes (TX) or FIPS codes (48); names are not accepted at county level.
• Metro run before 2024 — CBSA files start in January 2024.
• A name filter matched too much — nameContains matches anywhere in the name; use cbsaCodes for an exact metro.
• SOURCE UNAVAILABLE message — the source did not answer after four tries; nothing was charged — run again later.
• CAPPED message — your maximum total charge was reached; raise it in the run options.
• Run failed with "Invalid input" — a filter value is malformed; the message names the field. Nothing was charged.

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