Tempe building permit search: how to look up permits on an address

Which addresses this covers

The City of Tempe Building Safety Division issues building, trade, pool, sign and demolition permits inside city limits only. Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale and unincorporated Maricopa County have their own permit offices.

How to look up the permits on a Tempe address

1. Confirm the property is inside Tempe city limits.
2. Open Citizen Access and choose Search by Address in the General Search menu.
3. Enter the street number and street name, widen the date range if the job is older, and search.
4. Open each record. Electrical, plumbing and mechanical work is usually its own permit, separate from the building permit.
5. Read the status and the inspections. Final, Finaled, CofO Issued or Closed means the job is done.
6. Check the contractor at the Arizona Registrar of Contractors; our Arizona licence guide explains the classes.

What the statuses mean

Of permits issued October 2024 to September 2025, 72% were finished by our count. Expiry is common on trade permits: 20.5% of electrical and 20.5% of plumbing permits issued then had expired.

When the record you want is not online

Tempe's open file starts in 2019. For older records, send a Public Records Request Form to CDprr@tempe.gov. The City's Building Safety Public Records page says the average processing time is 20 business days and hard copies are charged by the copy fee schedule. Building permits, certificates of occupancy and commercial plans are kept permanently, but "residential plans are NOT retained permanently; they are destroyed one year after final permit inspection" (read 24 October 2026).

What our Tempe pages add

Our Tempe page counts the city's permit file by kind of work, October 2024 to September 2026. Days to final are for permits issued October 2024 to September 2025 that reached a final.

62% of the 4,748 permits were for homes. The usual permit took 81 days from issue to final (middle half 36 to 190 days) on how long permits take; the permit statistics page has counts by year and month, browse permits lists the rows and permits by ZIP code splits them by area. Whether a job needs a permit is in Do I need a permit?

What this does not tell you

The city's open file leaves the contractor blank on building permits, so we cannot say who did the work or rank firms. The value is the estimated project cost on the permit; electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits are filed as no-value permits. Few roof replacements appear in the file, so roofing has no page.