This is the contractor-first version of our address-first permit guide. Use that one when you want to know whether a permit was pulled at your house; use this one before you sign.
What to read on a firm's permit history
| What you see | What it tells you | What is normal (examples) |
|---|---|---|
| Permits in the window | Whether the firm does this kind of work in this city often enough to judge | 355 Minneapolis roofing firms had 10 or more roofing permits; 563 had exactly one |
| Finished share | Of its permits a year or more old, how many the city signed off | Minneapolis roofing: 93.0% across all firms; Seattle electrical: 94.6% |
| Days to final | How long the usual permit stayed open | Minneapolis roofing 85 days; Seattle electrical 44 |
| Usual filed value | What the contractor told the city the job was worth | Minneapolis roofing $13,000; the middle half of roofing firms usually file $9,660 to $16,057 |
| License match | Whether the name on the permit matched an active state license on our snapshot date | 75.9% of Minneapolis roofing firms matched an active DLI license; 171 matched one that is no longer current |
| Last 12 months | Whether the firm is still filing | 144 Minneapolis roofing firms with 5+ permits filed none in the last 12 months |
Read the finished share against the firm's city, not against 100%. Among Minneapolis roofers with 10 or more permits, the 10th-percentile firm finished 75.6% and the 90th-percentile firm 98.8%; 19 of those 351 firms finished under 70%. A firm at the bottom of that spread has a lot of jobs the city never signed off, and you can ask why.
How to check, step by step
- Find the firm. Open your city's A to Z list in the table below and search the company name with Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac). Try the short name too: "ABC Roofing" may be filed as "ABC Roofing & Exteriors LLC" or as the owner's name.
- Open the trade that matches your job. A firm that pulled 300 electrical permits and one remodel permit has a remodel history of one.
- Read the six rows above on its firm page. Note the finished share and how it compares with the city's spread for that trade, which the firm page shows.
- Open one recent permit on the city's own portal (the official search for each city) and check that the status matches. The city portal is the live record; ours is a copy refreshed about monthly.
- Check the license separately on the state board (last column below). The permit record does not prove a license, and a license does not prove a permit history.
Pick your city and see every firm on record →
Search by contractor: all 52 cities
"Firm listings" counts each firm once per trade, so a company that does both plumbing and HVAC counts twice. The last column links our guide to the state license lookup.
| City | Permits on file | Firm listings | Months covered | Search by contractor | License check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albuquerque, NM | 5,009 | 698 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | NM |
| Ames, IA | 5,518 | 448 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | IA |
| Anaheim, CA | 9,903 | 2,999 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| Arlington, VA | 17,059 | 2,425 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | VA |
| Austin, TX | 87,588 | 7,594 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | TX |
| Bellevue, WA | 22,601 | 3,655 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | WA |
| Bellingham, WA | 8,682 | 778 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | WA |
| Bend, OR | 15,631 | 1,127 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | OR |
| Bismarck, ND | 6,867 | 455 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | ND |
| Boulder, CO | 12,984 | 2,141 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CO |
| Burlington, VT | 4,863 | 1,052 | 2023-04 to 2026-03 | A to Z | VT |
| Cambridge, MA | 15,278 | 4,965 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | MA |
| Cape Coral, FL | 39,494 | 4,299 | 2025-01 to 2026-09 | A to Z | FL |
| Cary, NC | 23,394 | 2,901 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | NC |
| Chicago, IL | 51,700 | 8,623 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | IL |
| Cincinnati, OH | 15,821 | 2,430 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | OH |
| Citrus Heights, CA | 8,422 | 1,705 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| Cleveland, OH | 27,300 | 2,801 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | OH |
| Colorado Springs, CO | 101,680 | 3,654 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CO |
| Columbus, OH | 75,332 | 3,526 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | OH |
| Denton, TX | 15,700 | 2,015 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | TX |
| Denver, CO | 10,375 | 2,300 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CO |
| Elk Grove, CA | 18,965 | 1,784 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| Greensboro, NC | 49,860 | 3,014 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | NC |
| Henderson, NV | 33,051 | 1,202 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | NV |
| Honolulu, HI | 31,950 | 2,000 | 2022-07 to 2025-06 | A to Z | HI |
| Marin County, CA (unincorp.) | 9,660 | 2,250 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| Medford, OR | 4,497 | 509 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | OR |
| Mesa, AZ | 4,663 | 486 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | AZ |
| Miami, FL | 40,918 | 9,141 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | FL |
| Minneapolis, MN | 74,258 | 5,675 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | MN |
| Naperville, IL | 7,312 | 1,959 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | IL |
| Nashville, TN | 121,932 | 7,146 | 2023-09 to 2026-09 | A to Z | TN |
| New York City, NY | 107,397 | 9,516 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | NY |
| Orlando, FL | 42,936 | 5,030 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | FL |
| Palo Alto, CA | 7,078 | 2,387 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| Pittsburgh, PA | 9,673 | 1,178 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | PA |
| Provo, UT | 1,149 | 323 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | UT |
| Raleigh, NC | 40,032 | 2,929 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | NC |
| Sacramento County, CA (unincorp.) | 33,488 | 4,829 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| Saint Paul, MN | 72,000 | 5,341 | 2022-07 to 2025-06 | A to Z | MN |
| San Diego, CA | 42,447 | 5,296 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| San Diego County, CA (unincorp.) | 27,509 | 3,916 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| San Francisco, CA | 24,197 | 7,361 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | CA |
| Scottsdale, AZ | 15,956 | 4,339 | 2023-01 to 2025-12 | A to Z | AZ |
| Seattle, WA | 57,209 | 1,983 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | WA |
| Somerville, MA | 11,222 | 3,583 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | MA |
| St. Louis, MO | 5,943 | 2,308 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | MO |
| Sugar Land, TX | 15,098 | 2,786 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | TX |
| Tyler, TX | 13,268 | 1,541 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | TX |
| Wheaton, IL | 5,250 | 1,253 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | IL |
| Wilmington, NC | 11,287 | 2,387 | 2023-10 to 2026-09 | A to Z | NC |
The unincorporated county files (San Diego, Marin, Sacramento) cover county permits only; a house inside a city in those counties is permitted by that city and is not in them.
What a thin or missing history means
A short history is not a bad sign by itself. Rule these out first:
- The work did not need a permit. Seattle, for example, does not require a re-roof permit on one- and two-family homes when the building envelope is not changed, and needs one for repairs over 500 square feet (SDCI, read October 2026). That is why our Seattle roofing file is small: 633 permits from 61 firms, against 18,620 in Minneapolis.
- The firm works mostly outside the city limits. Each file is one city's permits.
- A subcontractor pulled the permits. On a remodel, the electrical and plumbing permits often carry the trade firm's name, not the general contractor's.
- The firm is new. Check the earliest permit date on its page.
What should prompt a question: a long list of permits with no final, many permits "expired" rather than "final", or a firm that asks you to pull the permit in your own name. The FTC lists "Scammers ask you to get any required building permits" among its warning signs (FTC, accessed October 2026).
What the permit history does not show
It shows permits, inspections, dates and filed values. It does not show the contract, the price you would pay, workmanship the inspector did not look at, complaints or court cases. A permit can also stay open because the homeowner never let the inspector in. Permits in Seattle expire 18 months after issue unless renewed (SDCI), so an open permit is a question to ask, not a verdict. For complaints, use the state license board; Washington's L&I Verify shows bond lawsuits and citations on the same page as the license (Washington L&I).
How we know this
Every count on this page comes from the cities' own permit files, matched to contractor names (and license numbers where the city records them), for the months shown in the table. Finished share is the share of permits a year or more old that the city closed with a final; the firm spread uses firms with 10 or more permits in that trade. The Seattle permit rules are quoted from SDCI pages read 20 October 2026.
Numbers come from public permit records in 53 cities, data through October 17, 2026. Nobody paid to be on this page and nobody can.
Questions
- Can I search a city's own permit portal by contractor name?
Some portals let you, many only take an address or a permit number. Our firm pages are built the other way round, by contractor, from the same city files. Use ours to find the jobs, then open one permit on the city's portal to confirm the status.
- How many permits should a contractor have?
There is no right number, but one permit in three years tells you little. In Minneapolis, 49.4% of remodel firms filed exactly one remodel permit in the window; in Chicago, 23.6% of masonry firms did. A firm with 20 or more permits gives you a finished share you can compare.
- What finished share is normal?
It depends on the city and the trade, so compare a firm with its own city. Among Minneapolis roofers with 10 or more permits, the 10th-percentile firm finished 75.6% and the 90th-percentile firm 98.8%. Among Austin HVAC firms the same spread was 60.3% to 96.2%.
- The contractor works under two names. Which one do I search?
Both, plus the owner's name. Permits are filed under whatever name the applicant typed, and a trading name, a parent company or a former name can each hold part of the history. Our A to Z lists show the spellings we found.
- How far back does a contractor's permit history go?
On our firm pages, three years in most cities (New York City: 2023-10 to 2026-09); the table below gives each city's months. City portals usually go further back, but not always online: Duluth, Minnesota, for example, has permit history online only from 1992 and takes a property history request form for older records. For a firm, the last three years are the part that tells you how it works now.
- Does the permit history show complaints or lawsuits?
No. It shows permits and inspections. Complaints are with the state license board and court records are with the county court. Washington's L&I Verify page is one of the few official records that shows lawsuits against a contractor's bond.
Build your own list
Pick your city and the kind of work. Every firm with a permit on record, sorted by what you value.
Related guides
- Re-Roof Permit — Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (accessed 2026-10-20)
- Building Permit Renewals — Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (accessed 2026-10-20)
- Verify a contractor, tradesperson or business — Washington L&I (accessed 2026-10-20)
- How To Avoid a Home Improvement Scam — FTC Consumer Advice (accessed 2026-10-20)
- Search Permit History or Property — City of Duluth Construction Services (accessed 2026-10-21)