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Search business licences

GET/licence

Parameters

ParameterTypeDescription
municipalitystringoptionalFilter to one city by its slug, e.g. 'new_westminster', 'toronto', 'north_vancouver_city'. Exact match. This is the city filter for BuildData datasets (permits, development permits, planning applications, inspections); call /{entity_type}/coverage for the list of valid slugs. The 'city' param is accepted as an alias here. (For the US liquor/healthcare/tank datasets, 'city' is instead a distinct filter and 'municipality' does not apply.)
qstringoptionalFull-text search across the indexed fields of the record, including names (business, establishment, vendor, contractor) wherever the dataset carries them, e.g. q=brewery or q="Iron Hill". This is the name search: there is no separate name= parameter, and it works on every plan including free. It matches the BUSINESS or trade name, the address, city, county and licence/permit number. It does NOT match an owner, licensee or applicant's personal name: these datasets carry public business records only and never store an individual's name, so searching for a person returns nothing. Space-separated words require all terms (e.g. "wood panel"). Use OR to match any term ("wood OR panel OR acoustic"), quotes for exact phrases ("supply arrangement"), and a leading minus to exclude ("software -hardware").
statusstringoptionalFilter by status. Contracts/tenders: Active, Expired, Cancelled, Open (exact). Permits: use a status_canonical value instead (issued, in_review, completed, expired, cancelled, unknown).
is_activebooleanoptionalBusiness licences: true returns only currently active licences, false only inactive ones. Most licence records are historical, so this is usually what you want.
is_openingbooleanoptionalBusiness licences: true returns only business openings, meaning the first licence this business ever held in this city. Renewals reuse the name and are excluded. Pair with opened_from to get the businesses that opened in a period.
preceded_by_permitbooleanoptionalBusiness licences: true returns only openings that had a building permit at the same address in the two years before they opened, meaning the fit-out is on record. false returns openings that took space needing no work.
opened_fromstringoptionalBusiness licences: earliest opening date, YYYY-MM-DD. Filters on when the business was first licensed here, not on when this particular licence was issued.
opened_tostringoptionalBusiness licences: latest opening date, YYYY-MM-DD.
citystringoptionalFilter by city. For the US liquor/healthcare/storage-tank datasets this is a distinct filter (exact, case-insensitive). For all other datasets it is an alias for municipality.
issued_afterstringoptionalFilter by date >= YYYY-MM-DD (issued_date). Aliases: date_from, date_after
issued_beforestringoptionalFilter by date <= YYYY-MM-DD. Aliases: date_to, date_before
latnumberoptionalLatitude for proximity search. Send with lng.
lngnumberoptionalLongitude for proximity search. Send with lat.
radius_kmnumberoptionalRadius in km, 0.1 to 25. Optional: lat and lng with no radius search 1 km around the point. The radius actually applied is returned as radius_km in the response, so a default is never silent. For every record at one street address rather than everything near it, use /property.
sort_bystringoptionalSort field: published (publication_date, tenders only), date (event date; this is award_date for contracts/awards), value (the entity's value field), closing (closing_date for tenders)
sort_orderstringoptionalSort order: asc or desc
limitintegeroptional
offsetintegeroptional
cursorstringoptionalPagination cursor from next_cursor in a previous response. Use instead of offset for deep pagination.

Request

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com/licence' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY'
import requests

url = "https://builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com/licence"
headers = {"x-rapidapi-host": "builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com", "x-rapidapi-key": "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY"}
resp = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
print(resp.json())
const res = await fetch("https://builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com/licence", {
  headers: {
    "x-rapidapi-host": "builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com",
    "x-rapidapi-key": "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY",
  },
});
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);
<?php
$ch = curl_init("https://builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com/licence");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
    "x-rapidapi-host: builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com",
    "x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY",
]);
echo curl_exec($ch);
require "net/http"
require "uri"

uri = URI("https://builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com/licence")
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
req["x-rapidapi-host"] = "builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com"
req["x-rapidapi-key"] = "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY"
res = Net::HTTP.start(uri.hostname, uri.port, use_ssl: true) { |h| h.request(req) }
puts res.body
package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "io"
    "net/http"
)

func main() {
    req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com/licence", nil)
    req.Header.Add("x-rapidapi-host", "builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com")
    req.Header.Add("x-rapidapi-key", "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY")
    res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
    defer res.Body.Close()
    body, _ := io.ReadAll(res.Body)
    fmt.Println(string(body))
}
import java.net.URI;
import java.net.http.*;

HttpRequest req = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
    .uri(URI.create("https://builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com/licence"))
    .header("x-rapidapi-host", "builddata-canadian-construction-data-api.p.rapidapi.com")
    .header("x-rapidapi-key", "YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY")
    .build();
HttpResponse<String> res = HttpClient.newHttpClient()
    .send(req, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());
System.out.println(res.body());

Example response

{
  "entity_type": "permit",
  "count": 1,
  "offset": 0,
  "results": [
    {
      "record_id": "24 223023 PLB:00",
      "municipality": "toronto",
      "lat": 43.65401,
      "lng": -79.42376,
      "work": "Building Permit Related(PS)",
      "status": "Permit Issued",
      "address": "865 COLLEGE ST",
      "description": "Plumbing - INTERIOR ALTERNATION OF 3RD FLOOR SUITE",
      "issued_date": "2025-01-29",
      "permit_type": "Plumbing(PS)",
      "application_date": "2024-10-07",
      "construction_value": null
    }
  ]
}

Response fields

One licence record. Measured over 5,446 live records sampled across municipalities. Percentages say how often each field is populated: sources publish different columns, so a field missing from a given record is normal rather than an error.

FieldTypeDescription
addressstringPopulated in 89% of sampled records.
business_namestringPopulated in 97% of sampled records.
categorystringPopulated in 99% of sampled records.
category_canonicalstringLicence category mapped onto a shared vocabulary. Always present.
citystringAlways present.
expiry_datestringPopulated in 34% of sampled records.
fetched_atstringWhen Nimbus last ingested this record. Bookkeeping, not source data. Always present.
first_licensed_atstringPopulated in 95% of sampled records.
geocode_failedbooleanPopulated in 14% of sampled records.
is_activebooleanAlways present.
is_contractorbooleanAlways present.
issued_datestringPopulated in 67% of sampled records.
last_updatedstringPopulated in 20% of sampled records.
latnumberPopulated in 33% of sampled records.
legal_namestringPopulated in 24% of sampled records.
licence_numberstringPopulated in 89% of sampled records.
licence_typestringPopulated in 85% of sampled records.
lngnumberPopulated in 33% of sampled records.
months_permit_to_opennumberPopulated in 11% of sampled records.
municipalitystringCity slug. Call /{entity_type}/coverage for every slug in this dataset. Always present.
neighbourhoodstringPopulated in 47% of sampled records.
normalized_addressstringAddress normalized for joining the same property across datasets. Populated in 87% of sampled records.
normalized_business_namestringBusiness name normalized for joining the same business across datasets. Populated in 96% of sampled records.
opened_onstringPopulated in 63% of sampled records.
opened_on_precisionstringPopulated in 63% of sampled records.
permit_lookback_datestringPopulated in 11% of sampled records.
permit_lookback_typestringPopulated in 11% of sampled records.
phonestringPopulated in 30% of sampled records.
postal_codestringPopulated in 36% of sampled records.
preceded_by_permitbooleanTrue when a building permit at this address preceded the licence. Populated in 59% of sampled records.
provincestringPopulated in 96% of sampled records.
record_idstringStable identifier for this record. Pass it to the /{entity_type}/{record_id} endpoint. Always present.
statusstringAlways present.
12 more fields published by only one or two cities

Present on under 10% of records. Useful when you are working with a specific city, not something to rely on across the dataset.

FieldTypePopulated
area_m2string3.7%
cancel_datestring0.0%
descriptionstring3.7%
is_openingboolean7.1%
licence_yearstring3.7%
naics_codestring3.7%
num_employeesstring3.7%
number_of_employeesnumber3.7%
operation_start_datestring3.7%
permit_lookback_valuestring5.8%
wardstring3.5%
zonestring3.7%

Errors

Every error returns {"detail": "…"}, a sentence naming what was wrong and, where there is one, the fix.

StatusWhen
400The request is understood but cannot be served as asked, e.g. offset above 9500, or cursor combined with sort_by=value. The message names the fix.
403Missing or invalid API key.
404No such endpoint, or no record with that id.
422A parameter is invalid: an unknown city slug, an impossible date, a limit above 500, an unrecognised sort field, or a misspelled parameter name. The message names the parameter and, where there is one, the nearest valid value.
429Rate limit or plan quota exceeded.
500Unexpected server error.
504The query took too long. Narrow it with a municipality or a date range.
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