How to Look Up Building Permits in San Francisco
Every building permit filed in San Francisco, CA is public record, maintained by the Department of Building Inspection (DBI). 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 San Francisco permits.
Step by step, using the city's own tools
- Open DBI's Permit & Complaint Tracking System at dbiweb02.sfgov.org/dbipts and choose "Search by Address."
- Enter the street number and street name only (no suffix, no unit). Results list every permit application at that parcel.
- Click a permit number to see the description, filed/issued/completed dates, estimated cost, and status. Contractor and owner names are on the "Contacts" tab.
- For a machine-readable version, DataSF publishes the same records: the Building Permits dataset (i98e-djp9) and Building Permit Contacts (3pee-9qhc), both updated nightly.
Things that trip people up
SF's records go back to the 1980s but older entries can be sparse. A permit with no "completed" date and a status of "issued" or "filed" may indicate work that was never finaled — a common flag in disclosures and inspections.
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.