BuildData
The Canada-Wide
Construction Data API.
Permits, inspections, business licences, contractor profiles, and planning data across 60 Canadian cities, normalized to one schema, geocoded, and automatically refreshed. Available as a REST API or live in your Snowflake warehouse.
Used by proptech, real estate, mortgage, insurance, and urban planning teams · Get Market Brief →
Six datasets, one API
Every dataset shares the same schema and the same endpoints: search, stats, per-city coverage, and lookup by ID. Replace one path segment to switch datasets.
Building permits
3.4M records · 60 cities (54 active). New construction, renovations, additions, demolitions. Canonical permit_type and status, construction value, geocoded. /permit
Building inspections
3.5M records · 3 cities. Inspection type, result, and date tied to permits. Track pass/fail rates and inspection activity. /inspection
Business licences
690K records · 27 cities. Active and historical business licences with category, address, and status. /licence
Contractor profiles
136K profiles · 17 cities. Permit history, licence status, and trade type aggregated per contractor. Verify credentials, build lead lists, assess risk. /contractor
Development permits
368K records · 7 cities. Land use and development applications with subtype, status, and decision dates. /development_permit
Planning applications
147K records · 30 cities. Rezonings, variances, and subdivisions across Canadian municipalities. /planning_application
/zone
Why teams use BuildData
One schema across every city and dataset, monthly market briefs for your region, and plain-language questions. No portal-hopping, no manual geocoding.
Normalized schema
Canonical fields across every dataset and city. Query permits in Toronto and inspections in Calgary the same way.
Geocoded
Lat/lng on every record via Statistics Canada's address database. Search by proximity with radius_km.
Kept current
Automated pipelines re-check each city's open data portal on a daily-to-weekly cadence by dataset, so your data is as fresh as the city publishes it.
Simple REST API
Filter by city, keyword, date range, type, or proximity across any dataset. Paginated JSON responses, OpenAPI spec included.
Coverage
Building permits span 60 cities across 9 provinces: 54 active and 6 historical (where the municipality stopped publishing new permits; existing records remain queryable). We re-check permits daily and other datasets weekly, though each city's data is only as current as the city itself publishes. Inspections, business licences, development permits, and planning applications are added city by city as each municipality publishes open data. Permit cities by province:
Simple, consistent API
Same four endpoints for every dataset: search, stats, per-city coverage, and lookup by ID. Filter by city, keyword, date range, type, or proximity.
Who it's for
Different teams use BuildData for different reasons. Same data, different lens.
Proptech & real estate
Track permits, development applications, and planning pipelines. Power neighbourhood intelligence dashboards and investment screening from one feed.
Mortgage & insurance
Pull permit and inspection history for any address to verify renovations, assess property condition, and flag unpermitted work during underwriting.
Construction & B2B sales
Monitor competitor permit activity, surface upcoming projects from planning applications, and build licence-based lead lists across 60 cities.
Urban planning & research
Analyse construction, inspection, and development patterns across Canadian municipalities. Full historical data via cursor pagination.
Two ways to access the data
Same data, normalized, geocoded, and automatically refreshed. Call it as a REST API, or get the full dataset live in your data warehouse.
REST API · RapidAPI
For developers and product teams. Query permits, inspections, licences, contractors and more by city, type, value, or location. Per-request pricing with a free tier to start, so you can build it straight into your app.
Snowflake Marketplace
For data and analytics teams. Get the full BuildData dataset live in your Snowflake account and query it with SQL next to your own data. No API calls, no ETL, no pipeline to maintain.
Pricing
Start free. Scale when you need to.