BuildData
New Business
Openings API
Every Canadian business the first time a city licenses it, with renewals stripped out, joined to the building permit pulled at the same address before it opened. Covering 19 cities, geocoded and refreshed daily.
An opening is not a licence
A city issues a business licence every year the business stays in business. A roll of them reads exactly like a street of new openings to anyone selling to new businesses, and most licence datasets sell it that way. BuildData keys on the earliest licence a business name ever held in that city, so a renewal is a renewal and an opening is counted once. Where a restaurant and its patio were licensed the same day, that is still one opening.
Openings need the city's own issue date to say when the business opened. Nine cities on our business licence list publish licences without one; they are covered for licences and deliberately absent here rather than given an opening date invented from our ingest run.
The permit that came first
A business that fits out a space pulls a building permit months before it opens its doors. Because BuildData holds both sides on a canonical address, every opening carries the permit that preceded it: what it cost, what type of work it was, and how long it took to open afterwards.
In Vancouver, 11,656 openings since 2022 had a permit at the same address within two years. 41% opened within three months of that permit, 59% within six, 80% within twelve. That is the window in which a permit is a lead and the business does not exist yet.
Who uses business opening data
B2B sales
A business that just opened is buying everything at once: point of sale, insurance, payroll, signage, cleaning, supply. Reach it in its first weeks, filtered to your category and territory.
Commercial real estate
Track what is filling ground-floor space in a neighbourhood and how long fit-outs take from permit to open. Measure absorption by category rather than by square foot.
Suppliers and trades
Work the other direction: a commercial permit at an address with no active licence is a business that has not opened yet. That is a lead before the business exists.
Market research
Openings by category and city, month over month, as a read on where commercial activity is actually going, sourced from the city's own record rather than a survey.
API example
# Every business that opened in Vancouver this year, renewals excluded
# Returns: business_name, category_canonical, opened_on, address, lat/lng
# Calgary food businesses that opened after a permitted fit-out
# Adds: permit_lookback_value, permit_lookback_type, months_permit_to_open
Same endpoint pattern as business licences, building inspections, and building permits. One API key, one schema.
Start with 25 free requests per day
No credit card required. Full API access via RapidAPI. OpenAPI spec and docs included.
Part of the BuildData Canadian construction data platform. Also available: business licences, building inspections, see all coverage.