How to Look Up Building Permits in Nashville
Every building permit filed in Nashville, TN is public record, maintained by the Metro Department of Codes and Building Safety. 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: the licensed contractor is named on most Nashville permits.
Step by step, using the city's own tools
- Open the Metro Nashville permit portal (epermits.nashville.gov) and search by address or parcel.
- Each permit lists the permit number, the permit type and subtype, the purpose of the work in full, the construction cost, the parcel, and the contact on the permit.
- Metro publishes the same records as open data: Building Permits Issued and Building Permit Applications, refreshed daily.
- The Davidson County property assessor's parcel number links the permits to the property record.
Things that trip people up
Nashville and Davidson County are one government, so a Madison, Antioch, or Bellevue address is still a Metro permit. Satellite cities like Belle Meade and Berry Hill issue their own.
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 contractor and owner named on the permits that record one — for $29, one time, delivered instantly.