Building permits by ZIP code in Columbia

How these numbers are made

Source: City of Columbia GIS, Building Permit Application Status (ArcGIS layer behind the city's Development Permits Viewer), read 19 Oct 2026. We count permits issued October 2024 through September 2026; denied and withdrawn permits are left out.

Building and trade permits the City of Columbia issues inside city limits for homes and other non-commercial work: new houses, duplexes and townhouses, home alterations and additions, re-roofs, heating and cooling, electrical, plumbing and gas, residential solar, decks and foundation repair. Commercial building permits, right-of-way and utility permits, fire systems, signs and grading in the same file are not counted, and neither is unincorporated Boone County, which issues its own permits.

• The city's file names no contractor on permits issued since its 2018 system change, so there are no contractor lists, rankings or firm pages for Columbia.
• The city doesn't split trade and re-roof permits into homes and businesses; we count one as a home permit when the lot is zoned for one- or two-family homes or manufactured homes, or the permit's description names a house.
• A new house gets separate electrical, mechanical and plumbing sub-permits, so one project can count several times, once under each kind of work.
• The value is the valuation on the permit; many trade permits carry none.
• A final date is the city's finaled date. Trade sub-permits under a building permit add no days, because the file dates most of them on the day they closed; permits that expired carry no final date even where the file shows one.

Counts are permits, not jobs: one job can need several permits. Nobody paid to be on this page and nobody can. Sources and definitions →