How to Look Up Building Permits in Austin
Every building permit filed in Austin, TX is public record, maintained by the Development Services Department. Here's how to pull the full history for any address — and the shortcut when you'd rather not do it by hand.
Why you'd want the permit history
- Buying a home: confirm that additions, remodels, and major repairs were permitted and finaled.
- Selling or refinancing: unpermitted work surfaces in inspections and appraisals — know before the buyer does.
- Insurance and disputes: a dated permit record is the evidence that work was done to code.
- Finding the contractor: Austin names the licensed contractor on some permits but not all — where it did, the name is on the record.
Step by step, using the city's own tools
- Open Austin Build + Connect (abc.austintexas.gov) and search permits by address.
- Each permit lists the type, description, total job valuation, applied and issued dates, current status, and the contractor's company, trade, and phone.
- The City of Austin Open Data portal publishes Issued Construction Permits (data.austintexas.gov, dataset 3syk-w9eu), updated nightly.
- Trade permits (electrical, plumbing, mechanical) are filed separately from the building permit, so a remodel may appear as several records.
Things that trip people up
Austin's dataset covers issued permits; applications that were never issued won't appear. For those, use Build + Connect's application search.
The shortcut
PingPermit pulls the same city records live and puts them on one page: a free preview (permit count, years active, declared work value, most recent filings), and the full report — every permit with description, value, status and dates, and the licensed contractor where Austin recorded one — for $29, one time, delivered instantly.