How do I look up a building permit in Illinois?

Building permits in Illinois are public records filed with each city or county building department. PermitGrab tracks 9 Illinois cities and republishes the records — pick your city below to browse permits by address, contractor, type and value, free.

Are building permits public record in Illinois?

Yes. Building permits are public records in Illinois. Cities publish them through open-data portals and permit systems; PermitGrab aggregates the official feeds and updates them daily.

How many building permits were filed in Illinois recently?

Across the 9 Illinois cities PermitGrab tracks, 1,792 permits were filed in the last 30 days, out of 17,750 on record.

Home › Free Tools › Permit Lookup › Illinois

Illinois Building Permit Lookup — Free

Building permits are public record. PermitGrab tracks 9 Illinois cities with live data pulled from official city permit systems — browse by address, contractor, permit type and value. No signup needed to look.

17,750

Permits on record

1,792

Filed last 30 days

Cities covered

City	Last 30 days	On record	Newest permit	Status
Chicago, IL	1,749	13,485	—	no recent data
Cook County, IL	41	3,889	2026-05-29	this month
Chicago Heights, IL	1	1	—	no recent data
Merrionette Park, IL	1	1	2026-05-27	this month
Mount Prospect, IL	0	258	—	no recent data
Calumet City, IL	0	1	—	no recent data
Burbank, IL	0	11	—	no recent data
Palos Hills, IL	0	73	—	no recent data
Blue Island, IL	0	31	—	no recent data

How to look up a building permit in Illinois

Pick the city where the property sits — permits are filed with the local building department, not the state. Use the table above for any of the 9 Illinois cities we cover.
Search by address or contractor. Each city page lists recent permits with the address, permit type, declared value, status and (where the city publishes it) the contractor of record.
Click any record to expand the full details — project description, property owner, contact info, and related permit history at that address.

PermitGrab refreshes Illinois permit data daily from official municipal feeds. If your city isn't listed, the building department may not publish a public data feed yet.

Contractors: turn these permits into leads.

Get every new permit in your Illinois cities each morning — with contractor phones, owner names and project values. 14-day free trial.

Start free trial →

Other states

Alabama · 4 cities Arizona · 11 cities California · 71 cities Colorado · 4 cities Connecticut · 2 cities Florida · 31 cities Georgia · 4 cities Hawaii · 1 city Indiana · 1 city Iowa · 1 city Kansas · 1 city Kentucky · 2 cities Louisiana · 2 cities Maryland · 1 city Massachusetts · 6 cities Michigan · 3 cities Minnesota · 6 cities Missouri · 1 city Montana · 2 cities Nebraska · 2 cities Nevada · 4 cities New Hampshire · 1 city New Jersey · 1 city New Mexico · 6 cities New York · 4 cities North Carolina · 9 cities Ohio · 7 cities Oklahoma · 1 city Oregon · 2 cities Pennsylvania · 1 city South Carolina · 1 city Tennessee · 6 cities Texas · 46 cities Virginia · 4 cities Washington · 21 cities Wisconsin · 1 city