Is this tool really free?

Yes. The permit freshness checker is free, requires no signup, and has no usage limits. PermitGrab's paid product ($149/mo) gives unlimited contractor phone reveals + daily email digests + multi-city alerts — the free tool is a permanent loss-leader that exists to help anyone verify our data depth before subscribing.

Where does the data come from?

Official municipal building-permit feeds. We index Socrata, ArcGIS, and CKAN open-data portals from 60+ U.S. cities and county departments. Each record is a public-record permit filed with the issuing authority — same data anyone can pull via the city's FOIA request, just aggregated and refreshed daily.

Can I embed this widget on my site?

Yes. Copy the iframe snippet at the bottom of this page and drop it into your contractor or real-estate website. The widget auto-updates daily with the city's latest permit count, freshness date, and active contractor count. Backlinks welcome.

Which cities are available?

60 sellable cities are currently live, including Miami-Dade, Phoenix, Fort Worth, Chicago, NYC, Houston, Tampa, Cape Coral, Mesa, Scottsdale, Orlando, Anaheim, Henderson, Raleigh, Nashville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and more. The dropdown above shows the full current list.

Free Building Permit Checker

Check live permit-filing volume + contractor activity in any of 60+ U.S. cities. Free, no signup, no usage limits. Built by Marcus Reeves, Head of Permit Research at PermitGrab.

New Orleans, LA

1,903

Permits filed (last 30 days)

9,665

Total permits tracked

4,202

Active contractors

Newest permit on file: 2026-05-23 fresh — under 24h

Want this data daily, with phone numbers?

$149/mo, unlimited cities, contractor phones inline, daily 7am Central digest. 30-day money-back guarantee.

See PermitGrab Pro →

Embed this checker on your site

Copy + paste this snippet. The widget refreshes daily with the city's latest permit + contractor counts.

<iframe src="https://permitgrab.com/tools/permit-check/embed?city=new-orleans-la" width="100%" height="380" style="border:1px solid #e5e7eb;border-radius:12px"></iframe>

Data comes from official municipal permit feeds (Socrata / ArcGIS / CKAN) maintained by issuing authorities. PermitGrab refreshes the index daily. Public-record permits are aggregated and normalized; we do not modify or annotate the underlying records.