Open Registry Data

Sources and licences

Every dataset on this site comes from an official city open-data portal and is used only where the portal's own licence or the city's legal policy allows redistribution and commercial use. Licence text below is read from each portal's dataset metadata (the license field of the Socrata views API) on the retrieval date.

Datasets, publishers and licences
CityDatasetPublisherLicenceRetrieved
San FranciscoBuilding Permits
data.sfgov.org/i98e-djp9		San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (via DataSF)Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (terms)2026-10-24 11:58:55 UTC
AustinIssued Construction Permits
data.austintexas.gov/3syk-w9eu		City of Austin Development Services Department (via data.austintexas.gov)Public Domain U.S. Government (terms)2026-10-24 11:59:06 UTC
SeattleBuilding Permits
data.seattle.gov/76t5-zqzr		Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (via data.seattle.gov)Public Domain2026-10-24 11:59:15 UTC
New OrleansPermits
data.nola.gov/rcm3-fn58		City of New Orleans Safety and Permits (via data.nola.gov)Creative Commons 1.0 Universal (Public Domain Dedication) (terms)2026-10-24 11:59:23 UTC
CincinnatiCincinnati Building Permits
data.cincinnati-oh.gov/uhjb-xac9		City of Cincinnati Buildings & Inspections (via data.cincinnati-oh.gov)Public Domain2026-10-24 11:59:30 UTC
New York CityDOB NOW: Build – Approved Permits
data.cityofnewyork.us/rbx6-tga4		NYC Department of Buildings (via NYC Open Data)NYC Open Data legal policy: public data sets available 'without any restrictions on their use' (NYC Admin. Code 23-502(d), as amended by Local Law 251 of 2017); source, version and a description of modifications may be required (terms)2026-10-24 12:00:22 UTC

Modifications

For every dataset we selected columns, renamed them to one schema (record_id, date, address, area, category, subcategory, status, description, value_usd, latitude, longitude, record_url, source_dataset), filtered by date into monthly slices, did not download any owner, applicant, contractor, inspector or respondent name or phone fields, withheld any free-text description that contained an email address or phone number (they tend to name a person too), and removed exact duplicate rows. Modified data is not the city's official record.

Attribution

Contains data from the City and County of San Francisco (DataSF), the City of Austin, the City of Seattle, the City of New Orleans, the City of Cincinnati and the City of New York, used under the licences above. These agencies do not endorse this site.

Datasets we looked at and did not use