Maricopa County building permit search: Permit Center and the historic viewer

Which addresses this covers

Maricopa County Planning & Development permits unincorporated land only: Sun City, Sun City West, Anthem and New River, Rio Verde, Tonopah, Wittmann, county islands and similar places. Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Glendale and the other cities run their own permit offices; a city address will not be in Permit Center's building records.

How to look up the permits on a county address

1. Open the Permit Center Citizen Portal and select the Search tab. No login is needed.
2. Type the address or the parcel number (APN). Decide whether to keep Exact Phrase on, pick a category if you want only permits, and select Search.
3. Sort the results and click each permit number to reach its summary page.
4. For anything finished before June 2024, open the Historic Permit Viewer and search the parcel number. It accepts a partial number, and you can combine it with the city name.
5. If you own the house and want full details, register in Permit Center. The county says to use the same email you used in its old Accela system to see existing records.

What the statuses mean

Of permits issued October 2024 to September 2025, 80.0% had finished, 14.2% had expired and 5.8% were still open by our 23 October 2026 snapshot. Electrical (22.3% expired) and plumbing (21.9%) lapse most often; pools least (5.6%).

When the record is not online

The county's Public Records page sends requests for "Building code violations, certificates of occupancy, or building permits" to its non-commercial request form. Arizona law treats a commercial-purpose request (for example, collecting names and addresses to solicit or resell) separately, under A.R.S. §39-121.03 (read 24 October 2026).

What our Maricopa County pages add

Our Maricopa County page adds the county's permits up, October 2024 to September 2026:

Solar permits fell 39% from the first 12 months of the window to the last (1,768 to 1,072). 93% of the 18,381 permits were on homes. The permit statistics page has year, month and season counts, how long a permit takes has the ranges, permits by ZIP code shows where they are (85355 led with 1,557 in the same window), and browse permits lists the rows. The plumbing and remodel pages cover the smaller trades. To check the contractor on a permit, see How to check a contractor's license in Arizona.

What this does not tell you

The county's file names no contractor and carries no job value, so there are no firm lists or costs here. The county moved to its new permit system between 2022 and 2024 and older permits were not carried into this file, which is why our window starts in October 2024.