Municode Ordinances & Municipal Code Scraper by City

What does Municode Ordinances & Municipal Code Scraper do?

It searches the Municode Library for the cities you choose and returns municipal code sections and adopted ordinances as clean, structured records. Each record has the city, title, section number, chapter path, a keyword snippet, the full section text, a direct link, and the date the code was last updated. Filters keep runs small, and pricing is per result.

Data source

The Actor reads the public JSON API behind library.municode.com, the same data the website shows to any visitor, so results match the current published code of each city.

Why use it?

• Compliance and legal research: pull every section that mentions "short term rental", "setback" or "signage" across several cities in one run.
• Real estate and development: compare zoning rules between municipalities.
• Monitoring: schedule a run and track new ordinances adopted since last time (use ordinanceYearFrom and the stable id).
• It replaces copying sections by hand out of the Municode web viewer.

How to use it

1. Open the Actor and enter your cities as "City, ST" plus a search phrase.
2. Click Start. Download results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.
3. Add a Schedule and an Integration (Slack, Google Sheets, webhook) to get new records automatically.

Input

Field	Description
cities	List of cities written as "City, ST", for example "Austin, TX". The city must have a Municode library.
searchText	Keyword or phrase searched in the code and ordinances. Leave empty to list everything.
contentTypes	BOTH, CODES (code sections) or ORDINANCES (adopted ordinances).
includeFullText	Fetch the full text of each code section. Off gives snippets only and runs faster.
ordinanceYearFrom	Skip ordinances adopted before this year. 0 keeps all.
maxResults	Hard stop for the run. You are billed per result, so this caps the cost.
proxyConfiguration	Apify proxy is recommended for larger runs.

Example input:

{
    "cities": ["Abilene, TX", "Austin, TX"],
    "searchText": "zoning",
    "contentTypes": "BOTH",
    "includeFullText": true,
    "maxResults": 50
}

Output

Every record has the same shape:

{
    "id": "942:CODES:PTICH_ARTVIPLZO_S83PLZOCORECO",
    "type": "code",
    "city": "Abilene",
    "state": "TX",
    "title": "Sec. 83. - Planning and zoning commission, Created; composition.",
    "sectionNumber": "83",
    "path": "PART I - CHARTER > ARTICLE VI. - PLANNING AND ZONING",
    "year": null,
    "snippet": "There shall be established a planning and zoning commission which shall consist of seven (7) citizens...",
    "text": "There shall be established a planning and zoning commission ...",
    "url": "https://library.municode.com/tx/abilene/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTICH_ARTVIPLZO_S83PLZOCORECO",
    "nodeId": "PTICH_ARTVIPLZO_S83PLZOCORECO",
    "codeVersion": "Supplement 14",
    "codeLastUpdated": "2026-07-20T12:32:50.000Z",
    "codifiedThrough": "Ordinance No. 47-2026, enacted May 28, 2026.",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-13T08:40:19.001Z"
}

Field	Meaning
id	Stable key, safe for deduplication between runs
type	code for a code section, ordinance for an adopted ordinance
city, state	Municipality as listed on Municode
title, sectionNumber	Section or ordinance heading and its number when present
path	Chapter and article hierarchy (for ordinances, the adoption year)
year	Adoption year, ordinances only
snippet	Text around your keyword match
text	Full section text (code sections, when includeFullText is on)
url	Link to the item in the Municode Library
codeVersion, codeLastUpdated, codifiedThrough	Which supplement of the code the record comes from, when it was updated, and the last ordinance included

Pricing

Pay per event: a small fee when a run starts, then a fixed price per result returned. You only pay for records that pass your filters. Set maxResults to cap any run.

Limitations

• Only cities that publish on Municode are covered, and the city name must match the Municode library name.
• Ordinances return the title, year and a snippet. The full ordinance text is only available as a PDF in the web viewer.
• Heading nodes (chapters, articles) can come back with empty text because the text lives in their child sections.
• Results are capped by maxResults and follow Municode's own ranking.

FAQ

Is this legal? The Actor reads listings the site publishes for any visitor without a login and stores only business information published for that purpose. You are responsible for how you use the data.

Something is missing or broken? Open an issue in the Issues tab; response time is usually under a day.