Building Permit

A building permit is the official authorization an AHJ grants to construct, alter, repair, or demolish a structure or one of its systems. It is the atomic record behind the PermitStack API: each permit carries a permit number, an address (and often a parcel/APN), a type and description, filed and issued dates, a status, and frequently a job valuation and contractor.

Building permits exist because most construction work legally requires review against the building code before it begins. That requirement is what makes the resulting records so valuable — they are a dated, government-issued log of physical changes to the built environment. PermitStack normalizes permits from hundreds of jurisdictions into one consistent schema and classifies each into one of ~20 categories. We currently hold 78M+ permit records from 8,000+ U.S. cities in all 50 states, drawn from 772 active data sources. Related: AHJ, permit status, and our data methodology.