Deschutes County building permit search: ePermitting, DIAL and old permit files

Which addresses this covers

Deschutes County Community Development runs the building programme for unincorporated land and the cities of Sisters and La Pine. Bend and Redmond run their own permit offices; for a Bend address see Bend building permit search and our Bend pages.

How to look up the permits on a Deschutes County address

1. Open DIAL and search the address or tax account.
2. Click the Development tab on the left to see the property's permit history. The county says DIAL can lag current information by up to about a week.
3. For a permit's status and inspections, open the ePermitting building search and enter just the exact street number and the first few letters of the street name, as the search page advises.
4. Check the jurisdiction on each result: the county warns that broad searches "may return results from jurisdictions outside of Deschutes County". County permit numbers start with 247-.
5. For plans and older paperwork, use DIAL's Development - Documents menu or search DevDocs by the taxlot number.

What the statuses mean

The Assessor's copy of county permits carries these statuses. This is how our pages count them:

Of the permits issued in 2023, 59.7% had finished, 21.9% were still open and 18.4% had expired in the Assessor's copy (read 23 October 2026). Statuses there are as of the Assessor's last update and can lag the permit office, so check ePermitting before acting on one.

When the record is not online

The county's DevDocs page says you can search by "a Map / Taxlot number (Ex: "171232AD01400" - alphanumeric, no spaces), a File Number, or use the Description box", that "County documents dating back to 1970 are available", and that new documents are scanned and uploaded daily (read 24 October 2026). For anything not there, ask Community Development at the Deschutes Services Building, 1300 NW Wall St., Bend.

What our Deschutes County pages add

The portals answer "what was permitted at this address". Our Deschutes County page answers "what gets built here, and how long the county takes to sign it off", from the Assessor's copy of permits issued January 2023 to December 2024:

90% of the 1,345 permits were on homes. The usual permit issued in 2023 took 382 days to reach a final and a new home 408 days; 68.3% of the new-home permits issued in 2023 had finished. See how long a permit takes. The permit statistics page breaks the file down by year and month, and browse permits lists the rows without owner names or addresses. To check a contractor's CCB license, use How to check a contractor's license in Oregon.

What this does not tell you

The Assessor's copy holds only the permits that change a property's value: new and manufactured homes, additions, garages, shops and barns, remodels and demolitions. Electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits are not in it, it stops at December 2024, and it names no contractor and no ZIP code. A finished permit means the county closed it, not what the work cost or whether you were happy with it.