What a Chicago building permit tells you about a project — and what it doesn't
We sell permit alerts for a living, so we have every incentive to oversell the data. We won't. A Chicago building permit record is a useful, limited, public document — and knowing exactly where its edges are is what separates contractors who profit from permit data from contractors who waste mornings on it. Field by field, here's the truth.
What the record includes
Every permit the City of Chicago publishes on its open-data portal carries essentially the same set of fields. You can see them laid out in the sample alert on our homepage — a real filing, shown exactly as a subscriber receives it:
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Address
Where the work is happening. Street address of the property, in general. This is the project location — not necessarily the owner's mailing address, and not a phone number.
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Permit number
The record's unique ID. Useful as a reference when you call ("permit number 101085786") and when you're tracking a project across multiple filings.
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Permit type
The broad category — new construction, renovation/alteration, and similar high-level types. Tells you the shape of the project, not the details.
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Status
Where the permit stands — issued, expired, withdrawn, and so on, in general terms. A freshly issued permit is a live signal; an old one may mean the work is done or never started.
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Work description
The one-to-three-sentence scope. The most important field on the record — and the briefest. Written by the applicant, in the applicant's words.
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Reported estimated cost
The number the applicant put on the application. A rough size band, not a budget and not a bid. Good for sorting; dangerous for assuming.
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Contractor name & license
Who pulled the permit. Often a general contractor, sometimes the owner, sometimes a sub for a specific scope. Read it before you call — it decides who your call is actually for.
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Issue date
When the city authorized the work. The official timestamp — not the day work starts, and not necessarily the day the record became visible to you.
That's the whole record. Eight fields, no attachments, no owner contact information, no plans. Everything a contractor does with permit data starts from this list — and everything it can't do starts here too.
What each field is actually worth
The address tells you where, not who
The address is the property. In general, it is not the owner's contact address, and the record doesn't say whether the owner lives there, rents it out, or holds it through an LLC. Driving by tells you the building; the public record won't tell you who decides. Getting from an address to a decision-maker is the actual work of prospecting — the permit just gives you the starting point.
The work description is brief by design
One to three sentences, written by whoever filled out the application, in whatever words they chose. Some descriptions are precise ("remove and replace 2,200 sq ft modified bitumen roof system"); some are vague ("renovation per plans"). The description tells you what the applicant declared, which is usually — but not always — what the project actually is. Read it literally, and when it's vague, treat the permit as a question mark rather than a lead.
The reported value is an estimate, not a price
The estimated cost is the applicant's number, filled in on a form, generally without much precision. It's reliable as a rough band — a $250,000 alteration is a bigger job than a $2,500 one — and unreliable as anything more specific. It is not the contract price, not the owner's budget, and not what you'll get paid. Use it to sort your list; never use it to quote.
The contractor field names who pulled the permit — nothing more
A named general contractor doesn't mean every trade is staffed. An owner-builder doesn't mean every trade is open. The field tells you who filed the paperwork, which is a strong hint about who to call, but it's not a roster of the project team. If you're a sub, the named GC is your best first call either way — to offer your trade, or to learn it's covered.
The issue date is authorization, not a start date
The city authorized the work on the issue date. Work might start the next day, or in three months, or never — permits expire, projects stall, financing falls through. And there's a second timing wrinkle: the issue date is when the city stamped it, but the date you can act on is when the record became visible. Public portals publish on their own schedule. When we built LeadFiling we separated these explicitly — our "detected" date is when our pipeline first saw the row — because confusing the two makes you think you're faster than you are. Whoever supplies your data, know which date you're looking at.
What the permit doesn't tell you
The honest list, because nobody else in this business will give it to you straight:
Owner contact information. The public feeds give name and address only — no phone numbers, no emails. This is the single biggest gap in permit data, and it's structural: the city doesn't collect it, so no feed can include it. (On our pricing page we're explicit about this: verified phone numbers come through a separate, paid enrichment add-on, because they're a separate product built on separate data.)
Whether the job is staffed. Nothing on the record says "contractor hired" or "still shopping." The contractor field hints; the description hints; nothing confirms. The only confirmation is a conversation.
The real budget or timeline. The reported value is rough, and the record says nothing about when work starts. A permit is an authorization window, not a schedule.
The full scope. The description covers what was declared. Renovations grow; owners add work; the permit for the kitchen doesn't mention the roof that gets replaced while the crew is there. The record is a floor, not a ceiling.
Whether the record is even current. Permits expire. Projects die. Addresses go stale. An old permit is a rumor, not a lead — which is why recency is the first filter in our prospecting workflow.
How to use a permit anyway
None of this makes permit data useless — it makes it honest. Here's the checklist we give every new subscriber:
1. Read the description literally. Strong match (names your trade), possible match (adjacent work), or skip. Decide in thirty seconds.
2. Check the contractor field. It tells you who to call and what to say. Don't dial blind.
3. Check the date. Fresh permits first. Old permits are a separate, lower-priority list.
4. Size it with the reported value. Rough band only. Big jobs get the morning; small jobs get the afternoon.
5. Accept what you don't know — then go find out. The permit tells you a project is authorized at an address. Everything else — who's hired, what the budget is, when it starts — comes from the conversation the permit earned you. That's the whole game: the record gets you in the door, and you do the rest.
A permit is a head start, not a closed deal. Worked with clear eyes about its limits, it's one of the best public lead sources a contractor has. Worked as if it were a guaranteed bid, it's a fast way to waste mornings.
If you want the head start without the daily filtering, that's what LeadFiling does: the city's permit feed, checked on your schedule, with only the new matches for your trade and territory in your inbox — strong and possible matches separated, so you always know what you're looking at. See what an alert looks like, compare speeds on the pricing page, and start with the free Scout tier if you want to see the data before you pay for the speed.
One more thing the permit gives you that a shared lead never will: it was never sold to anyone else. The public feed is the same for everyone, but most contractors never look at it — they pay for the repackaged version, split five ways, and call it a lead. Reading the record yourself, with clear eyes about its limits, is still the cheapest honest way to find work in this city. Sign up free and read the source before it's ever somebody's lead.