US Building Permits Feed (37 Cities & Counties, One Schema)

Fresh building permits from official city and county open-data portals, all in one consistent schema, with trade tags so you can pull just the solar, roofing, HVAC, electrical, pool or ADU jobs you care about.

37 jurisdictions (33 cities and 4 counties), including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Jose, Austin, Columbus, Fort Worth, Washington DC, Denver, Nashville, Boston, Louisville, Baltimore, Detroit, Miami and Miami-Dade County. Every source is read live from the government's own public data service (Socrata, ArcGIS REST or CARTO APIs, or the city's official CSV export for Boston, San Antonio and San Jose). No API key, no login, no scraping of web pages.

Coverage

City / county	Key	Official source	Contractor name	Project value	Permits found, last 30 days*
Chicago, IL	chicago	data.cityofchicago.org (Socrata)	Yes (by role)	Yes	2,915
New York City, NY	nyc	data.cityofnewyork.us (Socrata)	Yes (permittee business)	Yes	5,000+
Los Angeles, CA	los_angeles	data.lacity.org (Socrata)	No	Yes	4,575
San Francisco, CA	san_francisco	data.sfgov.org (Socrata)	No	Yes	1,287
Austin, TX	austin	data.austintexas.gov (Socrata)	Yes, with business phone	Some	4,402
Seattle, WA	seattle	data.seattle.gov (Socrata)	Some	Yes	451
New Orleans, LA	new_orleans	data.nola.gov (Socrata)	Yes	Yes	1,300
Baton Rouge, LA	baton_rouge	data.brla.gov (Socrata)	Some	Some	650
Philadelphia, PA	philadelphia	opendataphilly.org (CARTO)	Yes	No	3,652
Washington, DC	washington_dc	opendata.dc.gov (ArcGIS REST)	No	No	3,418
Columbus, OH	columbus	opendata.columbus.gov (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Some	3,949
Fort Worth, TX †	fort_worth	data.fortworthtexas.gov (ArcGIS REST)	No	Some	5,000+
Nashville, TN	nashville	data.nashville.gov (ArcGIS REST)	Some	Yes	925
Denver, CO	denver	opendata-geospatialdenver.hub.arcgis.com (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Yes	458
Louisville, KY	louisville	louisville-metro-opendata-lojic.hub.arcgis.com (ArcGIS REST)	Some	Yes	1,175
Baltimore, MD	baltimore	data.baltimorecity.gov (ArcGIS REST)	No	Yes	2,456
Detroit, MI	detroit	data.detroitmi.gov (ArcGIS REST)	No	Yes	565
Miami, FL	miami	datahub-miamigis.opendata.arcgis.com (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Yes	2,584
Miami-Dade County, FL	miami_dade_county	gis-mdc.opendata.arcgis.com (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Yes	5,000+
Minneapolis, MN	minneapolis	opendata.minneapolismn.gov (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Some	2,799
Cleveland, OH	cleveland	data.clevelandohio.gov (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Yes	1,360
Raleigh, NC	raleigh	data-ral.opendata.arcgis.com (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Yes	424
Tacoma, WA	tacoma	www.cityoftacoma.org (ArcGIS REST)	No	Some	742
Bellevue, WA	bellevue	data.bellevuewa.gov (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	No	823
Boulder, CO	boulder	open-data.bouldercolorado.gov (ArcGIS REST)	Yes	Yes	756
Pierce County, WA	pierce_county	gisdata-piercecowa.opendata.arcgis.com (ArcGIS REST)	No	Some	805
Cincinnati, OH	cincinnati	data.cincinnati-oh.gov (Socrata)	Yes	Yes	931
Norfolk, VA	norfolk	data.norfolk.gov (Socrata)	No	Yes	976
Mesa, AZ	mesa	citydata.mesaaz.gov (Socrata)	Some	Yes	353
Cambridge, MA	cambridge	data.cambridgema.gov (Socrata)	No	No	1,129
Montgomery County, MD	montgomery_county_md	data.montgomerycountymd.gov (Socrata)	No	Yes	603
Marin County, CA	marin_county	data.marincounty.gov (Socrata)	Yes	Yes	404
Corona, CA	corona	corstat.coronaca.gov (Socrata)	No	Some	263
Everett, WA	everett	data.everettwa.gov (Socrata)	Yes	Yes	651
San Jose, CA ‡	san_jose	data.sanjoseca.gov (official CSV export)	Yes	Some	2,264
San Antonio, TX	san_antonio	data.sanantonio.gov (official CSV export)	No	No	5,000+
Boston, MA	boston	data.boston.gov (official CSV export)	No	Yes	263

* Rows the Actor read from each source for permits issued Sep 18 – Oct 18, 2026 (test on Oct 18, 2026), before your filters. Volumes change daily; this is a snapshot, not a guarantee. † Fort Worth doesn't publish an issue date, so the date window uses the filing date (appliedDate) and issueDate is empty. ‡ San Jose's official feed only covers the last 30 days.

"Contractor name": Yes = most records name a contractor business, Some = a minority do, No = the source doesn't publish one.

Who it's for

• Contractors and installers (solar, roofing, HVAC, pools, windows) looking for neighbourhoods where work is happening, or for subcontracting partners
• Building-material suppliers and distributors finding active contractors
• Insurance, home-warranty and home-services marketers watching renovation activity
• Real-estate investors and analysts tracking new construction, ADUs and demolitions
• PropTech and data teams that want one schema instead of 37

Inputs

Input	Example	Notes
cities	["philadelphia", "columbus", "miami"]	Keys from the table above. Empty = all 37
issuedWithinDays	7	Cities publish with a lag of 1 to 10 days
trades	["solar", "roofing", "hvac"]	Keyword-based tags (see below)
keywords	["heat pump"]	Matches permit type, work class and description
minValue	50000	Declared project value in USD
requireContractor	true	Drops permits without a contractor name (and so cities that don't publish one)
includePersonNames	false	Off by default (see Privacy)
dedupe	true	One row per permit number per city
maxPerCity, maxItems	200, 1000	maxItems also caps your cost

Example input: roofing, solar and HVAC permits from the last 2 weeks that name a contractor

{
  "cities": ["philadelphia", "columbus", "cleveland", "miami", "raleigh"],
  "issuedWithinDays": 14,
  "trades": ["solar", "roofing", "hvac"],
  "requireContractor": true,
  "maxItems": 1000
}

Output

Every record has the same fields whatever the city. Fields a city doesn't publish are null. Example (real record from a test run):

{
  "city": "Austin",
  "state": "TX",
  "permitNumber": "2026-101809 MP",
  "permitType": "Mechanical Permit",
  "workClass": "Remodel",
  "status": "Active",
  "description": "INTERIOR REMODEL-RECEPTION AREA AND EXPANDING INTO 3500SF OFFICE SPACE THE REST OF THE SPACE IS PAINT AND FLOORING",
  "issueDate": "2026-10-16T00:00:00.000",
  "appliedDate": "2026-07-29T00:00:00.000",
  "estimatedValue": null,
  "address": "5301 SOUTHWEST PKWY BLDG 1 UNIT 460",
  "zip": "78735",
  "latitude": 30.24357546,
  "longitude": -97.84150985,
  "contractorName": "Airco Mechanical",
  "contractorTrade": "Mechanical Contractor",
  "contractorPhone": "512XXXXXXX (redacted in this README)",
  "contacts": [],
  "ownerName": null,
  "recordUrl": "https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/permit/public-search-other?t_detail=1&t_selected_folderrsn=13750684",
  "tradeTags": [
    "hvac",
    "remodel"
  ],
  "sourcePortal": "https://data.austintexas.gov/d/3syk-w9eu",
  "sourceApi": "https://data.austintexas.gov/resource/3syk-w9eu.json",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-17T12:48:07+00:00"
}

Trade tags

Tags come from keyword rules on the permit type, work class and description, such as "re-roof" → roofing or "heat pump" → hvac. They're useful but not perfect. A renovation that "removes the existing roof" gets tagged roofing, and cities with short permit types (Cambridge, Denver, Louisville) get fewer tags. Tags: solar, roofing, hvac, electrical, plumbing, ev_charger, generator, pool, new_construction, demolition, remodel, addition, adu, windows_doors, fence, sign, fire_protection, elevator, foundation.

Pricing

$3.00 per 1,000 permits, with no start fee. A weekly pull of 500 filtered leads costs $1.50.

Privacy and responsible use

• By default the Actor returns business information only: permit details, address of the work, and contractor business names. Homeowner names and sole-proprietor names are left out unless you turn on includePersonNames.
• For the 29 jurisdictions added in October 2026, owner names, applicant phone numbers and e-mail addresses are never downloaded or returned, even with includePersonNames on. Where a city's contractor/applicant column can hold either a company or a person (Nashville, Minneapolis, Louisville, Miami-Dade, Bellevue, Mesa, Marin County, Everett), names that don't look like a business are dropped unless includePersonNames is on.
• Some cities list individual tradespeople as the contractor (common in New Orleans). Those names are part of the official permit record.
• Permit records are public, but public doesn't mean any outreach is allowed. Phone and text marketing is regulated (TCPA, Do-Not-Call), and some states restrict commercial use of public records. You're responsible for how you use the data.
• This Actor isn't affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for any of these governments. Data is provided by each agency "as is", and the agencies don't warrant its accuracy, completeness or timeliness. Each record links to its source (sourcePortal, sourceApi). Check the source before relying on a record.

Limits

• Coverage is the 37 jurisdictions above. More can be added one dataset at a time.
• Los Angeles refreshes weekly and Baton Rouge with a lag of about a week. A 7-day window can return few or no rows for them, so use 14 to 30 days.
• Washington DC is read from its 2025 and 2026 yearly layers, so windows reaching before Jan 1, 2025 return nothing older for DC.
• NYC reissues the same permit number on renewals, and San Antonio repeats a permit number per sub-record. With dedupe on you get the latest row only.
• Boston and San Antonio are read from their full official CSV exports (about 50 MB and 28 MB), which can add a minute or two to runs that include them. They're listed last, so runs that hit maxItems earlier skip them.
• If one city's API is down, the run continues with the others, and the error is reported in the RUN_SUMMARY record.