US Building Permits Data Scraper - City, County & State (Census BPS)

Download new residential building permits for every US state, county and city/town - buildings, housing units and construction value, split into single-family, 2-unit, 3-4 unit and 5+ unit (multifamily) - monthly, year-to-date or annual, straight from the U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS).

One tidy row per place per period. No API key, no scraping of city portals.

What does this Actor do?

The Census Bureau publishes BPS as dozens of fixed-layout text files per month (one per geography level and region). This Actor:

• finds the latest month published automatically,
• downloads every file for your periods and geography,
• parses them into named columns (units1, units5plus, totalValueUsd...),
• normalises value to US dollars (state files are published in thousands - converted for you),
• adds totals, FIPS codes, CBSA/CSA and population for places,
• filters by state, name and minimum units.

Who uses it?

• Building-products and construction-materials companies - size markets and set territory targets by county (single-family vs multifamily demand).
• Home builders, developers and land teams - spot fast-growing cities and counties.
• Lenders, REITs and real-estate analysts - track pipeline and supply growth.
• Economic developers, planners and journalists - compare permit trends across jurisdictions.
• BI / data teams - schedule it monthly into a warehouse or Google Sheets.

Input examples

Washington counties, each month of 2026 so far:

{
  "geoLevel": "county",
  "periodType": "monthly",
  "startPeriod": "2026-01",
  "states": ["WA"],
  "minTotalUnits": 1
}

Annual permits for Austin and Houston, 2023-2025:

{
  "geoLevel": "place",
  "periodType": "annual",
  "startPeriod": "2023",
  "endPeriod": "2025",
  "states": ["TX"],
  "nameContains": ["Austin", "Houston"]
}

Year-to-date for all states plus US, regional and division totals:

{ "geoLevel": "state", "periodType": "ytd" }

Output example

{
  "period": "2026-08",
  "periodType": "monthly",
  "geoLevel": "county",
  "rowType": "county",
  "stateCode": "WA",
  "fips5": "53005",
  "name": "Benton County",
  "bldgs1": 64,
  "units1": 64,
  "value1Usd": 21980619,
  "bldgs2": 1,
  "units2": 2,
  "value2Usd": 311182,
  "units3to4": 0,
  "bldgs5plus": 1,
  "units5plus": 5,
  "value5plusUsd": 667406,
  "totalBuildings": 66,
  "totalUnits": 71,
  "totalValueUsd": 22959207,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www2.census.gov/econ/bps/County/co2608c.txt"
}

Field	Meaning
period, periodType	YYYY-MM (monthly/YTD) or YYYY (annual)
geoLevel, rowType	state / county / place (state level also returns national, region and division totals)
stateCode, stateFips, countyFips, fips5	Geography codes
placeId6, fipsPlace, cbsa, csa, population, zip	Place-level identifiers
bldgs*, units*, value*Usd	1-unit, 2-unit, 3-4 unit, 5+ unit structures
totalBuildings, totalUnits, totalValueUsd	Sums across all structure sizes
reported_*	Optional: reported-only figures (no imputation), state and county levels

Pricing

Pay-per-event:

Event	Price
Actor start	$0.005 per run
permit-record	$1.00 per 1,000 rows

Examples: all Washington counties for 8 months (~300 rows) ~ $0.30. Every permit-issuing place in the US for one month (~20,000 rows) ~ $20 - use states, nameContains or minTotalUnits to keep only what you need.

FAQ

Is this legal? Yes. The Building Permits Survey is published by the U.S. Census Bureau for public use; as a U.S. Government work it is in the public domain. The Actor downloads the Bureau's published files at a polite rate. The data are aggregate counts per jurisdiction - no personal or property-owner data.

What exactly is counted? New privately-owned housing units authorised by building permits. It does not include commercial buildings, remodels or demolitions. Value is the construction cost reported on the permit.

Why do monthly numbers differ from the annual file? Monthly place data is partly imputed for non-reporting places; the annual file is revised. Use annual for final numbers and reported_* columns to see non-imputed figures.

When is new data available? The Census Bureau publishes monthly figures a few weeks after month end. The Actor always detects and uses the latest month available.

Is metro (CBSA) level available? Place rows carry cbsa and csa codes, so you can group places into metros yourself.