US Building Permits Scraper: New Permit & Contractor Leads

Get new US building permits from nine city open-data portals in one format: address, category, estimated cost, contractor and owner, ready for lead lists and alerts.

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What it does and who it is for

This Actor reads the official open-data portals of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Cincinnati, Baton Rouge and Mesa and returns one flat record per permit: city, permit number and type, an automatically detected category (new construction, roofing, solar, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, pool and more), status, description, address, ZIP, issue and application dates, estimated cost, contractor name, license and phone, applicant and owner, use type, units, latitude/longitude and a link.

Filter by city, keyword, category, ZIP code, minimum project cost and issue date range. Turn on Only new for a daily lead feed.

Use cases

• Roofers, solar installers, electricians, HVAC and pool companies: find properties where work was just permitted.
• Building-materials suppliers and subcontractors: reach contractors with active projects.
• Real-estate investors and appraisers: track construction activity by area.
• Lenders, insurers and analysts: monitor new construction and renovations.
• AI agents: answer "which solar permits were issued in Austin this week?".

Why use this instead of the free official site or API

The underlying data is public and the official sources are free. What this Actor adds is convenience: nine different city feeds become one consistent format.

What you need	Official site / API	This Actor
Covering several cities	Each city has its own portal, column names and quirks	One input, one record format for all nine cities
Finding a type of job	Free-text search per portal	A category field (roofing, solar, electrical and others) detected from the permit text
Lead lists	Export each portal and merge by hand	Contractor, owner and cost columns in the same place for every city
Only newly issued permits	Compare exports yourself	Only new mode with a named alert

If you only need a single lookup now and then, the official site is fine. If you want the same data on a schedule, as flat rows you can feed to a spreadsheet, CRM or agent, this saves the glue work.

Data fields

Field	Type	What it contains
city	text	City that issued the permit.
state	text	State.
permitNumber	text	Permit number from the city.
permitType	text	Permit type as named by the city.
category	text	Category detected by the Actor from the permit text (new_construction, roofing, solar and so on).
status	text	Permit status as published by the city.
description	text	Description of the work.
address	text	Property address.
zip	text	ZIP code, when the city publishes it.
issuedDate	date	Date the permit was issued.
appliedDate	date	Date the permit application was filed, when published.
estimatedCost	integer	Estimated project cost in USD, when published.
contractorName	text	Contractor name, when published.
contractorLicense	text	Contractor license number, when published.
contractorPhone	text	Contractor phone, when published.
applicantName	text	Applicant name, when published.
ownerName	text	Owner name, when published.
useType	text	Use type (for example Residential).
units	integer	Number of dwelling units, when published.
latitude	number	Latitude, when published.
longitude	number	Longitude, when published.
url	text	Link to the permit record or the city portal.
source	text	The open-data dataset the record came from.
scrapedAt	datetime	When the Actor collected the record (UTC).

Fields a source does not publish are null. Cities publish different columns, so contractor, cost, owner and ZIP are only filled where the city provides them.

"New since yesterday" alerts

Turn on Only new and the Actor remembers what it has already returned, so each scheduled run delivers only records you have not seen before.

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console and set the input, with Only new since last run switched on and a fixed alert name (stateKey). Example input:

{
  "cities": ["nyc", "chicago", "la", "sf", "seattle", "austin"],
  "categories": ["roofing", "solar"],
  "issuedWithinDays": 7,
  "maxResultsPerCity": 200,
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "onlyNew": true,
  "stateKey": "daily-roofing-solar-permits"
}

2. Click Save as task, then open Schedules, create a schedule (for example the cron expression 0 7 * * * for every day at 7:00 in the time zone you pick) and add the task to it.
3. Under the task's Integrations, send the results to Slack, email, Google Sheets, a webhook or your own system.

Cities update their portals at different speeds. A 7-day window with Only new keeps late-posted permits from being missed.

The first run returns everything that matches your window (all matching permits issued in the last 7 days); later runs return only unseen records. Use a different alert name for each task so each keeps its own memory. A run with nothing new returns no results.

Cost per run

This Actor uses pay-per-result pricing: $3.00 per 1,000 results ($0.003 per result), with the Apify platform fee included. You are charged for the records a run returns and nothing is added on top for platform usage. A run that finds nothing new returns no results, so it has no per-result charge. The Max results input caps what a run can return (and so what it can cost).

Worked example: a daily alert that returns 60 new permits costs 60 × $0.003 = $0.18 per run, about $5.40 for a 30-day month. A pull of 10,000 permits costs $30.00.

The pricing is configured in Apify Console; the Pricing tab on this page is the authoritative source if it ever differs from this text.

Example input and output

The output below comes from real test runs of this Actor. Email addresses are masked and very long text is shortened here; the Actor returns the full values.

Input used for the example:

{
  "cities": ["austin", "seattle", "chicago", "nyc"],
  "keyword": "solar",
  "categories": ["solar"],
  "issuedWithinDays": 14,
  "minProjectCost": 0,
  "onlyNew": true,
  "stateKey": "solar-permits",
  "maxResultsPerCity": 3,
  "maxResults": 50
}

Output (the first 2 records of a test run):

[
  {
    "city": "Austin",
    "state": "TX",
    "permitNumber": "2026-132984 EP",
    "permitType": "Electrical Permit - Auxiliary Power",
    "category": "solar",
    "status": "Active",
    "description": "Tindall 40-25134 - Install new _6.9__kW rooftop solar system to existing residential only using backfed breaker only.",
    "address": "6637 QUINTON DR",
    "zip": "78747",
    "issuedDate": "2026-10-21",
    "appliedDate": "2026-10-08",
    "estimatedCost": null,
    "contractorName": "Power Home Remodeling",
    "contractorLicense": null,
    "contractorPhone": "(610) 874-5000",
    "applicantName": null,
    "ownerName": null,
    "useType": "Residential",
    "units": 1,
    "latitude": 30.1525935,
    "longitude": -97.74191386,
    "url": "https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/permit/public-search-other?t_detail=1&t_selected_folderrsn=13786332",
    "source": "data.austintexas.gov dataset 3syk-w9eu",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-23T12:12:08.244Z"
  },
  {
    "city": "Austin",
    "state": "TX",
    "permitNumber": "2026-052150 EP",
    "permitType": "Electrical Permit - Auxiliary Power",
    "category": "solar",
    "status": "Active",
    "description": "Solar installation at 5973 Hi Line Rd SHM Emerald Point.",
    "address": "5973 HI LINE RD",
    "zip": "78734",
    "issuedDate": "2026-10-21",
    "appliedDate": "2026-04-27",
    "estimatedCost": null,
    "contractorName": "RENERGY SOLAR LLC",
    "contractorLicense": null,
    "contractorPhone": "(830) 570-3214",
    "applicantName": null,
    "ownerName": null,
    "useType": "Commercial",
    "units": 1,
    "latitude": 30.43181507,
    "longitude": -97.94133438,
    "url": "https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/permit/public-search-other?t_detail=1&t_selected_folderrsn=13694144",
    "source": "data.austintexas.gov dataset 3syk-w9eu",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-23T12:12:08.253Z"
  }
]

Limits worth knowing

• Each city updates its portal on its own schedule, usually daily or weekly. Use a window of 7 days or more with Only new.
• Chicago and Mesa do not publish a permit ZIP code, so they return nothing when you filter by ZIP.
• Cost, contractor, owner and applicant fields are only filled where the city publishes them.
• The category is detected from permit text by rules, so some permits land in other or an unexpected category.
• With a small Max results and Only new on, each run returns the next unseen batch.
• Anonymous access is enough for alerts. A free city app token only raises rate limits for very large pulls.

FAQ

Which cities are covered?

New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Cincinnati, Baton Rouge and Mesa.

Can you add my city?

We only add cities with a public, current, keyless open-data feed. Tell us the city you need.

Does it include contractor contact information?

Only what the city publishes, which for some cities includes a contractor name, license and phone.

Do I need an API key?

No.

How do I find only roofing or solar permits?

Use the Categories filter.

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Data comes from city open-data portals and is public record. This Actor is not affiliated with any city. Permit data can be delayed, incomplete or corrected later.