Building Permits Scraper: Issued Permits from 13 US City and County Open Data Portals

$1 per 1,000 permits. Platform usage included. No rental, no minimum.

The four most used building permit actors on Apify Store charge $2.00 to $10.00 per 1,000 permits (Store prices checked 9 October 2026). This actor returns the same kind of data for $1.

Open it in Apify Console

New to Apify? [Create a free account](https://www.apify.com?fpr=ymnoit) (referral link). Runs from a free plan account return the first 10 results; any paid plan returns everything you ask for, up to your limit.

What it costs

Permits	This actor	Most used building permit actors on the Store
1,000	$1.00	$2.00 to $10.00
10,000	$10.00	$20 to $100
100,000	$100.00	$200 to $1,000

Plus $0.001 per run. A weekly pull of 1,000 new permits costs about $1.00 per run, or about $4 a month.

Cities and counties covered

The actor reads the official open data portals (Socrata, public API, no key) of these places. Each has its own dataset of issued permits, and all are mapped to the same fields.

Choose in the input	Place	Dataset
new-york-ny	New York City	Department of Buildings, DOB NOW approved permits
chicago-il	Chicago	Department of Buildings permits
los-angeles-ca	Los Angeles	Building and Safety, permits issued 2020 to present
austin-tx	Austin	Development Services, issued construction permits
seattle-wa	Seattle	Construction and Inspections, building permits
san-francisco-ca	San Francisco	Department of Building Inspection permits
orlando-fl	Orlando	Permit applications
cincinnati-oh	Cincinnati	Building permits
new-orleans-la	New Orleans	Permits (BLDS)
baton-rouge-la	Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish	Building permits
mesa-az	Mesa	Building permits
montgomery-county-md-commercial	Montgomery County, Maryland	Commercial permits
montgomery-county-md-residential	Montgomery County, Maryland	Residential permits
prince-georges-county-md	Prince George's County, Maryland	DPIE residential and commercial permits

Cities whose permits are published on other platforms, for example Boston and Philadelphia, are not covered. This list is fixed in the actor, so a new city needs a new release.

Why people switch

• One flat price. Compute is included, so the bill follows the number of permits and nothing else. The portals need no proxy and no key.
• One set of fields. Permit number, type, work type, description, status, dates, value, address, coordinates and contractor are named the same in every city.
• Filters that run at the source. Date range and description words are applied by the portal. Project value is applied by the portal for eight datasets and inside the actor for New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Cincinnati and Mesa. You only pay for rows that match.
• Honest about gaps. Fields a city does not publish are left out, and the list below says which.

Quick start

1. Open the actor, choose cities, press Start.
2. Or paste this input:

{ "cities": ["austin-tx", "seattle-wa", "chicago-il"], "searchTerms": ["solar"], "dateFrom": "2026-09-01", "maxItems": 200 }

3. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.

Use it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/one_dollar_store~city-building-permits-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"cities": ["austin-tx", "seattle-wa"], "maxItems": 100}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("one_dollar_store/city-building-permits-scraper").call(
    run_input={"cities": ["austin-tx", "seattle-wa"], "maxItems": 100}
)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["issuedDate"], item["portalName"], item["permitType"], item.get("valuation"), item["address"])

Use it from an AI assistant

Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other assistants can call this actor through Apify's MCP server. Add it with this server address:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=one_dollar_store/city-building-permits-scraper

Then ask, for example: "Get permits for new solar installations issued in Los Angeles and Chicago in the last two weeks."

Switching from another building permits actor

Most permit actors take a city, a date range and a result limit. Here they are cities (a list of the ids above), dateFrom, dateTo and maxItems. The core output fields are permitNumber, permitType, description, status, issuedDate, valuation, address and contractorName.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
cities	list	austin-tx, seattle-wa	Which portals to read, using the ids in the table above.
dateFrom, dateTo	text	30 days up to today	Issue date range as 2026-09-01.
searchTerms	list of text	none	Keep permits whose description contains any of these words, for example solar or roof. Not case sensitive.
minValuation, maxValuation	number	none	Project value range in US dollars. Permits without a stated value are left out when either is set.
maxItemsPerCity	number	0	Optional cap per city so the first city cannot use the whole run. 0 means none.
includeRaw	true or false	false	Adds a raw object with the portal's own columns (up to 60 fields, long text cut at 200 characters).
maxItems	number	100	Total permits for the run. Minimum 10.

Cities are read in the order you give them. Example:

{
  "cities": ["new-york-ny", "los-angeles-ca", "chicago-il"],
  "searchTerms": ["solar", "photovoltaic"],
  "minValuation": 20000,
  "dateFrom": "2026-09-01",
  "maxItemsPerCity": 300,
  "maxItems": 900
}

Output fields

Field	Meaning
portal, portalName	The id you chose and the city or county name.
permitNumber, permitType, workType	The permit, its type and the kind of work, as the portal words them.
propertyClass, propertyUse	Residential or commercial class, and the building use, where published.
description, status	What the permit covers and its status.
appliedDate, issuedDate, completedDate, expiresDate	Dates as 2026-10-06.
valuation, squareFeet, housingUnits	Stated project value in US dollars, floor area and housing units, where published.
address, borough, city, state, zip, latitude, longitude	Where the work is.
contractorName, applicantName, ownerName	Who is named on the permit, where published.
permitUrl	A link to the permit record, where the portal gives one.
dataset, datasetUrl, scrapedAt	The source dataset and its page, and the collection time.
raw	The portal's own fields. Only with includeRaw.

Sample results

Real rows from a test run on 9 October 2026, with descriptions shortened.

[
  {"portal": "austin-tx", "portalName": "Austin", "permitNumber": "2026-091667 PP", "permitType": "Plumbing Permit", "workType": "New",
   "propertyClass": "Residential", "status": "Active", "issuedDate": "2026-10-07", "address": "8105 PEERLESS PASS", "city": "AUSTIN", "state": "TX",
   "zip": "78744", "contractorName": "Victory Plumbing Company",
   "permitUrl": "https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/permit/public-search-other?t_detail=1&t_selected_folderrsn=13738794",
   "datasetUrl": "https://datahub.austintexas.gov/d/3syk-w9eu"},
  {"portal": "seattle-wa", "portalName": "Seattle", "permitNumber": "7136366-CN", "permitType": "Building", "workType": "New",
   "propertyClass": "Residential", "status": "Ready for Issuance", "issuedDate": "2026-10-07", "valuation": 781487,
   "description": "Construct new East one family dwelling (Unit A) per plan. (Establish use as housing for detached dwe ...",
   "address": "12017 10TH AVE NW", "city": "SEATTLE", "state": "WA", "zip": "98177",
   "permitUrl": "https://services.seattle.gov/portal/customize/LinkToRecord.aspx?altId=7136366-CN", "datasetUrl": "https://cos-data.seattle.gov/d/76t5-zqzr"}
]

Limits

• Fixed list of places. Only the 13 places in the table are covered. Permits that are not on those portals are not found.
• Each city publishes different things. Gaps seen in a test of every portal on 9 October 2026: Los Angeles, San Francisco and both Montgomery County datasets show no contractor; Chicago shows no ZIP code; Baton Rouge has no status; Prince George's County has only the permit type, case name, cost, address and issue date; Orlando and Prince George's County gave no coordinates in the rows we saw; Austin leaves out the value on many permits. A missing field is left out of the row, never guessed.
• Not every permit. The portals publish what each city chooses to release. New York covers DOB NOW permits only, and Los Angeles covers permits issued from 2020. Some portals publish only building permits, others include electrical, plumbing and other trades.
• Status words are the city's. Seattle, for example, can show Ready for Issuance for a permit that already has an issue date. Check the status before you treat a permit as final.
• Names and values as filed. Text is as the city stores it, often in capitals. valuation is the value on the permit, which is not always the true construction cost, and some permits show 0 or no value.
• Portal delay. Portals refresh on their own schedule, usually daily. When we tested on 9 October 2026 the newest permit in most portals was issued on 5 to 7 October, in Los Angeles on 3 October, in Prince George's County on 25 September and in Orlando on 23 September.
• Description search is plain text. searchTerms looks for the word anywhere in the description, so roof also finds roofing and proof.
• Pace. A check of all 14 datasets with 3 permits each took 13 seconds. The portals return up to 1,000 rows per call. Large runs are paced by the platform's one row at a time delivery.

FAQ

What is the cheapest building permits scraper on Apify? This actor costs $1 per 1,000 permits with platform usage included. The most used building permit actors on the Store charged $2.00 to $10.00 per 1,000 when we checked on 9 October 2026.

How much does it cost to scrape 10,000 building permits? $10, plus $0.001 for each run.

Do I pay for compute or proxy on top? No. Platform usage is included in the $1 per 1,000 price. The portals are read directly, so no proxy is used.

Which cities are covered? The 13 places in the table near the top of this page: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Orlando, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Mesa, Montgomery County (Maryland) and Prince George's County (Maryland).

Can you add my city? A city can be added if its permits are on a public Socrata portal without a key. Each one needs its own field mapping, so it comes with a new release of the actor.

How do I find contractor leads? Pick cities that publish a contractor (New York, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Orlando, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Mesa), filter by searchTerms and minValuation, and use contractorName. Check what each portal publishes before you rely on it.

Is it legal? The actor reads public data only, with no login. The permits are open government data that cities publish for anyone. They can include names and addresses of people, so follow privacy and marketing rules such as TCPA and CAN-SPAM, each portal's terms, and the law where you live.

Is this an official city or Socrata product? No. It is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any city, county or Socrata.

Do I need an Apify account? Yes. Actors run from an Apify account, and a free account is enough to start: it includes $5 of platform usage every month. You can sign up here. This is a referral link and it costs you nothing.

Is there a limit on the free plan? Yes. A run started from a free plan account delivers the first 10 results, then ends with a message and a link to the plans. Any paid plan returns everything you ask for, up to your own limit. The price per result is the same on every plan.

More from The One Dollar Store

Every actor here costs $1 per 1,000 results, platform usage included. See the whole store: https://apify.com/one_dollar_store

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Changelog

• October 2026: first release.