Free Building Permit Checker

These field definitions come from the City of Chicago's official Building Permits dataset (ydr8-5enu), shown here as an example of how Chicago labels its own permit data. For most permit types, ISSUE_DATE marks the City's decision that a permit is ready to issue, subject to the required fee being paid — it does not confirm the fee was actually paid. Only permits run through the Express Permit Program are issued after the full fee has been paid. Neither date confirms that work has started or that a job is still available at that address. CONTACT_1_TYPE labels how the first listed contact relates to that permit only — not a universal "contractor of record" field; a blank value means the role is unknown. See the dataset's field definitions, reviewed for this glossary on October 13, 2026 (not a records-freshness date).