Building Permit Data: New & Busy Contractors

Contractor Permit Signals is an Apify Actor by Sullivan Ventures that pulls building permits from official city open-data portals (Austin, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans and Mesa, AZ) and flags contractors that are new to the city in the last 12 months or busy this week. It's built for suppliers, insurers, lenders and staffing firms that sell to contractors, and it returns business contractors only.

Find contractors the week they show up. This Actor reads official city building-permit open data and tells you, for every permit:

• New contractor: the company pulled no permit in that city in the past 12 months (you pick the lookback).
• Busy contractor: the company pulled 3 or more permits in your window (you pick the threshold).
• Lien match (Phoenix metro): Mesa, AZ contractors that also appear in your Construction Distress Feed history of Maricopa County mechanics liens and lis pendens.

The "new" flag works on your first run. It is computed from the city's own permit history, not from your past runs.

Who uses it

• Building-material suppliers, lumber yards and equipment rental: reach contractors new to your city before your competitors do.
• Subcontractors: find general contractors that just got busy.
• Sureties, insurers, factoring and contractor software: watch for fast growth, or for growth plus liens.

Cities (official sources, no login, no captcha)

City	Dataset	License
Mesa, AZ (Phoenix metro)	citydata.mesaaz.gov dzpk-hxfb	City of Mesa Open Data Terms of Use (open license, commercial use allowed; source: City of Mesa)
Austin, TX	data.austintexas.gov 3syk-w9eu	Public Domain
Chicago, IL	data.cityofchicago.org ydr8-5enu	City of Chicago Data Terms of Use (disclaimer below)
Cincinnati, OH	data.cincinnati-oh.gov uhjb-xac9	Public Domain
New Orleans, LA	data.nola.gov rcm3-fn58	CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication

In a test week (Oct 15-21, 2026) the five cities issued about 2,470 permits. About 1,900 had a business contractor, and the run found 147 new contractors and 162 busy ones.

Privacy by design

• From the permit records, only contractor-type contacts are read; applicant names on permits are not stored.
• The optional property file adds the owner name as printed on the public assessor roll (only from sources whose terms allow reuse). No phones, emails or skip tracing for owners.
• Contractor names that look like a private person (no business words) are dropped and counted, not listed. Person names that cities add after a company name ("ACME LLC, John Smith") are removed.
• Job site address is given for commercial permits only. Residential addresses are withheld.
• Business phone and license number are included when the city publishes them.

Optional: property file (checkbox includePropertyFile)

Adds free public property facts to each permit row, at no extra charge:

Field	What it is
owner_name, owner_type	Owner as printed on the public assessor roll; type = individual, trust/estate, business/government
absentee_owner	yes = owner mailing address is elsewhere (house-number match)
market_value_usd, year_built, home_age_years	From the assessor roll (Chicago: assessed value x 10 for homes)
owned_since_year, owned_years_approx	From the last deed or sale date
code_cases_5yr, last_code_case_date	City code-enforcement cases at the address in the last 5 years
census_tract, tract_*	Tract median income, home value, year built and owner share (Census ACS 5-year)
flood_zone, in_100yr_floodplain	FEMA flood map

Coverage (local test, Oct 24 2026, 150 rows each; parcel match): Austin 85.3%, Chicago 94.7%, Cincinnati 99.3% (no year built in the free Hamilton County layer). Any city under an 80% parcel match on a run is left blank (city_dropped_low_match). Not covered: Mesa (Arizona A.R.S. 39-121.03 needs a commercial-purpose request to resell assessor data) and New Orleans (the free parcel layers have no owner, value or year data). Limit with propertyFileMaxRows (default 500).

Use rules: marketing use only. Not for credit, insurance, employment or housing/tenant decisions (FCRA). No phones or emails for owners, no skip tracing. You are responsible for your own TCPA / Do Not Call compliance.

Input

Field	Default	What it does
cities	["mesa_az"]	Any of mesa_az, austin_tx, chicago_il, cincinnati_oh, new_orleans_la
lastNDays	7	Permits issued in the last N days, ending yesterday
startDate / endDate		Optional fixed range (YYYY-MM-DD)
lookbackDays	365	History used for the "new contractor" flag
busyThreshold	3	Permits in the window that make a contractor "busy"
onlySignals	false	Output only permits with a new or busy contractor (or a lien match)
permitClass	all	all, commercial or residential
minValuation	0	Skip small jobs
joinDistressFeed	true	Join Mesa contractors with your Construction Distress Feed state

Example: weekly Phoenix-metro and Austin signals only:

{ "cities": ["mesa_az", "austin_tx"], "lastNDays": 7, "onlySignals": true }

Schedule it weekly. is_new_permit and seen_in_prior_runs use a named key-value store in your account (contractor-permit-state).

Output

Dataset: one row per permit. Sample:

{
  "permit_number": "PMT26-13069",
  "issue_date": "2026-10-15",
  "city": "Mesa, AZ",
  "state": "AZ",
  "permit_class": "commercial",
  "permit_type": "Tenant Improvement (Interior Only)",
  "description": "Tenant improvement in existing 4,557 SF, type VB construction, B occupancy suite for offices. Permit includes previous unpermitted construction of interior partitions and ceilings for (2) single user restroom on SE, (8) offices, (1) kitchenette area, and open office area and associated MEP to be permitted under this permit. New modifications include enlargement of (1) restroom for ADA compliance, new partitions to create additional office spaces and a foyer area. Deferred fire sprinklers. Approved with comments. Results in CoO.",
  "valuation_usd": 1156760.08,
  "job_address": "6913 E REMBRANDT AVE",
  "job_zip": null,
  "contractors": [
    "WAY CONSTRUCTION & DEVELOPMENT"
  ],
  "contractor_keys": [
    "WAY CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT"
  ],
  "has_new_contractor": true,
  "has_busy_contractor": false,
  "new_contractors": [
    "WAY CONSTRUCTION & DEVELOPMENT"
  ],
  "busy_contractors": [],
  "contractor_permits_in_window": 1,
  "contractor_permits_prior_lookback": 0,
  "contractor_with_maricopa_liens": null,
  "contractor_license": "315255 KB-1",
  "contractor_phone": "480-529-1054",
  "contractor_city": "MESA",
  "contractor_state": "AZ",
  "is_new_permit": true,
  "source": "Mesa, AZ open data (citydata.mesaaz.gov, dataset dzpk-hxfb)",
  "source_url": "https://citydata.mesaaz.gov/d/dzpk-hxfb",
  "license": "City of Mesa Open Data Terms of Use (open license, commercial use allowed, credit the City of Mesa)",
  "fetched_at": "2026-10-23T16:58:00.000Z"
}

Key-value store:

• CONTRACTORS / CONTRACTORS_CSV: one row per contractor with signal (new_and_busy, new, busy), permits this window, prior permits, value, license, phone and permit numbers.
• SUMMARY: counts per city, top signals, rate-limit log.

company_key uses the same normalization as the Construction Distress Feed, so you can join the two datasets yourself in a spreadsheet.

Pricing

Pay per event: $4.00 per 1,000 permit rows ($0.004 per permit). There is no start fee. You only pay for rows in the dataset. The contractor roll-up and summary are included free.

• One city, one week is usually 40 to 1,200 permits, so $0.16 to $4.80. With onlySignals it costs much less.
• Set Max cost per run in the run options. The Actor stops at your limit and keeps signal permits first.

Limits

• Contractor names are as typed by city staff, so the same company can appear under two spellings. The roll-up merges common suffix and punctuation differences.
• "New contractor" means new to that city's permits in the lookback window. It does not mean a newly formed company.
• If a city renames a column, the run fails loudly with "SCHEMA CHANGE DETECTED" instead of returning bad data.
• Chicago has no residential/commercial field, so the permit class is null.

FAQ

Where can I get a list of new contractors in my city?

If your city is Austin, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans or Mesa, AZ, run this Actor. It reads the city's official permit data and marks any contractor company that pulled no permit there in the past 12 months. In the week of Oct 15-21, 2026 it found 147 new contractors across the five cities.

Is building permit data free and legal to use?

The permit data comes from official city open-data portals. Austin and Cincinnati publish it as public domain, New Orleans as CC0, and Mesa and Chicago under their open-data terms. The Actor keeps business contractors only and drops individuals. You're responsible for following marketing laws like CAN-SPAM when you contact anyone.

How do I find contractors who are busy right now?

Set the busy threshold (default 3 permits in your window). Every contractor at or above it is flagged busy. In the Oct 15-21, 2026 test week, 162 contractors were flagged busy across about 2,470 permits.

How much does contractor permit data cost?

$4.00 per 1,000 permit rows ($0.004 each) plus Apify platform usage. One city for one week is usually 40 to 1,200 permits, so $0.16 to $4.80. Turn on onlySignals to get only the new and busy contractors and pay less.

Does it cover my city?

Today it covers Austin, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans and Mesa, AZ. Many other US cities and counties, and some cities abroad, publish permit data, and we add them on request when the data is public and allowed for reuse. Coverage: we confirm data availability for your area before you run it; ask in the Issues tab.

Source disclaimers

Data comes from official open-data portals. The cities make no warranty about it.

Chicago: "This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one's own risk."

Mesa: source City of Mesa, Arizona (Open Data Terms of Use License Agreement).

Stalled and expired home permits mode

Set mode to stalled to get home permits that expired, expire within the next N days, or were issued long ago and still have no final in the city data. Built for licensed contractors who want to find jobs that another contractor left unfinished.

• Cities: Austin TX and Cincinnati OH (expired and expiring soon), New Orleans LA (expired and open with no final), Mesa AZ (open with no final). Chicago is skipped in this mode.
• Output: job address and zip, permit number, type, description, valuation, issue date, status, status date, expiration date, the business name of the contractor of record, and the official source link.
• Never output: owner or applicant names, and no phone numbers of any kind.
• Limits: status comes from each city system and can lag. "Open with no final" means just that, not a confirmed abandoned job. These datasets don't publish failed-inspection results.
• Price: the same per-permit row event as signals mode.

Example input: {"mode":"stalled","cities":["austin_tx"],"expiringWithinDays":30}