How Metro Leads Daily works
Last updated October 22, 2026
Sources
We use only official open data from the City of Chicago Data Portal: Building Permits (ydr8-5enu) and Business Licenses (r5kz-chrr), plus Community Area boundaries (igwz-8jzy). The data is used under the City's terms of use; the City makes no claims about its accuracy, timeliness or completeness. We don't scrape websites or buy data.
When data is pulled and sent
We check the City portal for new records every hour and publish each weekday's issue by 7 AM Central Time (CT), when subscribers get their email. The portal and these public pages refresh at the same time.
Data lag
The City usually publishes permits and licenses one business day after they are issued, so a Tuesday issue mostly contains Monday's records. Holidays and portal outages can add a day.
How trades are matched
Each record is checked against plain rules based on the City's permit type and the words in its work description:
- Roofing: express permit or renovation/alteration permits whose work description mentions reroof, roof recover, roof replace, shingle, roofing.
- Solar: express permit or renovation/alteration or new construction permits whose work description mentions solar, photovoltaic, pv.
- HVAC: express permit or renovation/alteration permits whose work description mentions hvac, furnace, boiler, air condition, duct, mechanical.
- Plumbing: express permit or renovation/alteration permits whose work description mentions plumb, water heater, sewer, drain.
- Electrical: express permit or renovation/alteration permits whose work description mentions electric, service upgrade, wiring, amps.
- Demolition: wrecking/demolition permits.
- New construction: new construction permits.
- New restaurant: newly issued food, liquor, tavern or catering business licenses.
One record can match more than one trade, for example a renovation that includes HVAC and electrical work.
Neighborhoods
Permits carry the City's community area number. Most business licenses do too; when one doesn't, we place its published coordinates inside the official community area boundary (point-in-polygon), and cache the result.
What we hide, and why
Public pages show partial addresses and only initials for people and companies, so the pages are useful without becoming a directory of individuals. Subscribers see the full public record exactly as the City publishes it.
Limitations
- Reported job values are self-reported by applicants and are often missing or low.
- Some records lack coordinates or a community area and are left out of neighborhood counts.
- Keyword rules can miss unusual descriptions or include borderline ones.
- Permit ZIP codes are approximate (nearest ZIP center).
Corrections
Spotted an error? Email hello@metroleadsdaily.com and we'll fix it.