# US Building Permits Scraper (Multi-City) (`orkanaltinsoy/us-building-permits-scraper`) Actor

Fresh building permit records from 8 major US cities (Chicago, Austin, Seattle, NYC, SF, LA, Denver, Fort Worth) in one normalized schema. Contractor names, project valuations, addresses — ideal for contractor lead generation.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/orkanaltinsoy/us-building-permits-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Orkan Altınsoy](https://apify.com/orkanaltinsoy) (community)
- **Categories:** Real estate, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 permit records

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## US Building Permits Scraper (Multi-City)

Get fresh **building permit records from 8 major US cities** in one clean, normalized schema — no need to learn 8 different city portals and APIs.

### Supported cities (verified data sources)

| City | Contractor names | Project valuation | Freshness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austin, TX | ✅ ~90% (with phone) | partial | Daily |
| Seattle, WA | partial | ✅ | Daily |
| Denver, CO (residential) | ✅ | ✅ | Daily |
| New York City (BIS + DOB NOW) | ✅ | ✅ (DOB NOW) | Daily |
| Chicago, IL | ✅ | partial | Daily |
| San Francisco, CA | — | ✅ | Weekly |
| Los Angeles, CA | — | ✅ | Weekly |
| Fort Worth, TX | — | partial | Hourly |

### What you get

Each record in a single normalized schema:

```json
{
  "city": "austin",
  "permit_id": "2026-061234 BP",
  "permit_type": "Building Permit",
  "work_description": "Kitchen remodel and roof replacement",
  "status": "Active",
  "issued_date": "2026-06-10",
  "address": "1100 Congress Ave",
  "valuation": 85000,
  "contractor_name": "ACME Construction LLC",
  "contractor_phone": "512-555-0100"
}
```

### Use cases

- **Contractor lead generation** — find homeowners/GCs starting projects in your trade (roofing, HVAC, electrical, remodel) the week the permit is issued
- **Building material & equipment sales** — target active job sites by valuation
- **Market research** — construction activity trends by city, neighborhood, project size
- **Real estate & investment analysis** — renovation signals by address

### Features

- **Incremental sync**: schedule it daily; it remembers the last permit per city and only fetches new ones (7-day overlap + dedupe, so late-arriving records aren't missed)
- **Valuation filter**: skip small jobs with `minValuation`
- **Resilient**: per-city error isolation (one city failing doesn't kill the run), automatic retry on rate limits
- Optional free Socrata app token for high-volume runs

### Pricing

Pay per result — you only pay for permit records actually delivered.

### FAQ

**Where does the data come from?** Official city open-data portals (Socrata/ArcGIS). Public records, refreshed daily by most cities.

**Why isn't city X included?** We only include cities with verified, actively-updated record-level feeds. Dallas (frozen since 2020), Phoenix and Houston (no record-level API) are excluded on purpose — quality over quantity. More cities coming; request yours in the Issues tab.

**Can I get this as a daily feed into Sheets/CRM?** Yes — use Apify Schedules + integrations (Google Sheets, webhooks, Make/Zapier/n8n).

# Actor input Schema

## `cities` (type: `array`):

Which cities to scrape. Default: all verified cities.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

Only permits issued on/after this date (YYYY-MM-DD). If empty, defaults to the last 30 days. Ignored when incremental sync has saved state.

## `maxRecordsPerCity` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap per city per run.

## `incremental` (type: `boolean`):

Remember last issued_date per city and only fetch newer permits (with a 7-day overlap window, deduplicated by permit_id).

## `minValuation` (type: `integer`):

Skip permits below this estimated project cost. 0 = keep all (records with missing valuation are always kept).

## `socrataAppToken` (type: `string`):

Free token from any Socrata portal raises rate limits significantly. Without it, heavy runs may hit HTTP 429.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "cities": [
    "chicago",
    "austin",
    "seattle",
    "nyc_bis",
    "nyc_dobnow",
    "sf",
    "la",
    "denver_res",
    "fortworth"
  ],
  "maxRecordsPerCity": 5000,
  "incremental": true,
  "minValuation": 0
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("orkanaltinsoy/us-building-permits-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("orkanaltinsoy/us-building-permits-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call orkanaltinsoy/us-building-permits-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,orkanaltinsoy/us-building-permits-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/yd826n7uloDav1dhA/builds/1UdLiJeBagLVXT6Jp/openapi.json