How to Look Up Building Permits in New Orleans
Every building permit filed in New Orleans, LA is public record, maintained by the Department of Safety and Permits. 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: New Orleans 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 the city's One Stop App (onestopapp.nola.gov) and search permits by address.
- Each permit lists the permit number, the work description, the applied and issued dates, the current status, and the estimated project cost.
- The city publishes the same records as open data on data.nola.gov, refreshed regularly.
- Historic district work goes through the Historic District Landmarks Commission as well, and those records are held separately.
Things that trip people up
Orleans Parish and the City of New Orleans are the same jurisdiction, so anything inside the parish is a city permit. Work in the Vieux Carre and other historic districts often carries a second approval that the building permit record does not show.
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 New Orleans recorded one — for $29, one time, delivered instantly.