Chicago Permit Data Explained: Fields, Types and Caveats

By Metro Leads Daily Research · Updated October 23, 2026

The two public datasets

Everything on Metro Leads Daily comes from two City of Chicago open-data datasets:

• Building Permits (ydr8-5enu): every permit the Department of Buildings issues, with address, permit type, work description, reported cost, contractors and issue date.
• Business Licenses (r5kz-chrr): business licenses with business name, license type, address and dates.

Anyone can download them from the City's data portal. We read them daily, match records to trades and community areas, and show counts on our trade pages and neighborhood pages.

Permit types you'll see

• Express Permit: small, common jobs like reroofing, electrical service work, and water heaters. These are most of the volume.
• Renovation/Alteration: interior and exterior remodels and tenant build-outs, often with HVAC, plumbing and electrical scope.
• New Construction: new buildings. See new construction leads.
• Wrecking/Demolition: full demolitions. See demolition leads.
• Other types (signs, elevators, scaffolding and so on) exist but aren't trade leads for most subscribers.

Key fields and how to read them

How we match trades

Each trade uses plain rules on the permit type and keywords in the work description. For example, roofing matches express or renovation permits that mention reroofing, roof replacement, shingles or roofing. Solar matches "solar", "photovoltaic" or "PV" as whole words. One record can match more than one trade, so trade counts add up to more than the number of permits. Full rules are on our methodology page.

Caveats worth knowing

1. Boilerplate text. Many express permits use City-generated phrasing. For example, some HVAC permits literally state "ELECTRICAL WORK UNDER THIS PERMIT = NO", which a naive keyword search would count as electrical. Good filters exclude these.
2. Amendments. Some records only add or replace a contractor on an earlier permit ("FOR PERMIT ..."). They aren't new jobs.
3. Maintenance permits. Annual electrical maintenance permits for large buildings are done by in-house staff and aren't sales leads.
4. Reported value skews. One large project can dominate an area's total. The Near North Side's 30-day total of $169,799,853 reflects a handful of big jobs, so median values are a better guide to typical job size.
5. Location gaps. A small share of records can't be mapped to a community area.

Using community areas

Chicago's 77 community areas are stable official boundaries, which makes them better than ZIP codes for comparing activity. Current top areas:

Near North Side, Loop and Near West Side lead in total records; see all neighborhoods.

Practical steps for your own analysis

1. Download a 30-day slice from the portal, filtered by issue date.
2. Filter by permit type first, then by keywords.
3. Exclude amendments, maintenance permits and "= NO" boilerplate.
4. Use medians, not totals, to size typical jobs.
5. Compare areas by count and median, not by raw dollar totals.

A worked example: reading one record

Imagine a renovation/alteration permit in Lake View with this description: "Interior remodel of second-floor unit; new kitchen and bathroom; new plumbing fixtures and electrical throughout; replace furnace." Here's how to read it:

• Permit type: renovation/alteration, so it's a multi-trade job, likely with a general contractor.
• Trades matched: plumbing ("plumbing"), electrical ("electrical") and HVAC ("furnace"). It counts once in each of those three trade pages.
• Reported cost: compare it to each trade's median. If it's well above the plumbing median of $25,000, it's a full gut rather than a fixture swap.
• Contractors: if a general contractor is listed, subs and suppliers sell to them. If not, the owner may still be collecting bids.

Common misreadings

• "The permit was issued, so the work is done." No. Issue date marks the start of the window, not the end.
• "Reported cost equals what the owner will pay me." It's an application estimate, often rounded.
• "More dollars means a better area." A single high-rise job can make an area look busier than it is. Compare counts and medians.
• "Every keyword match is a real job." Boilerplate, amendments and maintenance permits create false matches unless you filter them out.

Glossary

• Express permit: a fast-track permit for common, limited-scope work.
• Self-cert / SPR: permit review routes where a licensed architect certifies code compliance (self-certification) or a standard plan review is done. You'll see these abbreviations at the start of many descriptions.
• CBRC: the Chicago Building Rehabilitation Code, cited on many renovation permits.
• Community area: one of the City's 77 official planning areas, used for our neighborhood pages.

Start getting these leads

Metro Leads Daily sends new Chicago building permits and business licenses to your inbox and portal every day, already sorted by trade and neighborhood. One category is $29/month, all categories are $49/month, and every plan starts with a 14-day free trial. See a free sample or compare plans.

Source: Metro Leads Daily live pages, read October 22, 2026, built from City of Chicago open data (Building Permits, dataset ydr8-5enu; Business Licenses, dataset r5kz-chrr). Live widgets on this page update automatically.

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