Building Permit Leads for Contractors

What building permit leads are

Building permit leads are construction projects identified from public permit filings. Every major city publishes permit data, and each new filing is an early signal that a project is moving forward. The work is turning that raw data into a short list of opportunities that match your business.

What is in a permit filing

Field	Why it matters
Address and jurisdiction	Is it in your service area?
Filing date and status	How early you are, and where the project sits in review.
Owner / applicant	Who is driving the project.
Architect	Often named early; a path to the project.
Scope and declared value	Type and rough size of the work.
Contractor / permittee	Whether a GC is named yet.

How a filing becomes a lead

A permit is filed and becomes public record.
The fields above are read and scored for fit, timing, scope, and trade.
The strongest matches are surfaced to you, before the project is obvious to everyone.
You reach the owner or architect with a specific, well-timed message.

Example signal (illustrative): Filing date June 1, owner and architect named, scope listed as an interior commercial alteration, declared value in your range, no GC named in the public filing yet. That is a building permit lead worth a closer look.

Filed vs issued, and why timing matters

A filed permit that has not issued yet is still in review, which usually means the team may still be forming. Once it issues, the opportunity becomes harder to enter. See how filing-to-issuance timelines compare by city.

Where the data comes from

PermitPipeline reads public filings from the NYC Department of Buildings, the City of Chicago, San Francisco DBI on DataSF, and Miami-Dade county and city feeds, then turns them into scored construction leads.

About the data. PermitPipeline was built by Josh Steinman, who spent 20 years in construction as a carpenter, estimator, and project manager. It monitors public permit filings from the NYC Department of Buildings, the City of Chicago, San Francisco DBI, and Miami-Dade. Coverage and fields vary by jurisdiction, and a filing is an opportunity signal, not proof a project is open or awarded. Built for general contractors, specialty trades, business development, preconstruction, and estimating teams, focused on commercial, multifamily, renovation, and retrofit work, not homeowner repair leads.

Frequently asked

What are building permit leads?

Building permit leads are construction projects identified from public permit filings. Each new filing shows address, owner, architect, scope, value, and status, which can be scored into an early lead for contractors.

Are building permit leads the same as construction leads?

They are the source. Building permit data is the mechanism; the construction lead is the scored, qualified opportunity that comes out of it.

How current is the data?

PermitPipeline reads city permit feeds regularly. Freshness and available fields vary by jurisdiction.

See current projects that match your market

Tell us your city and trade. We will send 3 current, permit-backed matches. No card needed.

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What just got filed, where the work is, and what the data shows.