Philadelphia permit leads: who's pulling permits this week, by trade
Read this first. The City of Philadelphia stopped publishing project addresses, ZIP codes, property owners, and job values in its permit feed in March 2020. Every official feed since then leaves those fields blank. So this is contractor-activity data — who pulled commercial permits, in what trade, this week — not project addresses. Anyone selling "current" Philadelphia permits with job locations is selling data that stops in March 2020.
Every week, Philadelphia publishes the building permits it just issued. I pull the commercial ones and send you who's actually working.
What's in a drop
Each drop is a spreadsheet (CSV + Excel) of commercial permits issued in Philadelphia in the last 7 days, pulled from the city's open L&I records, updated daily at the source. Columns: permit number, issue date, permit type, type of work, contractor name as published, and the contractor's published business address. That's the contractor's own business address — not the project address.
Each drop also includes permit counts by trade and a per-contractor count for the week, so you can see who's busiest.
What the data actually looks like
I pulled a full 30 days to check this before selling it (permits issued September 21 – October 21, 2026):
- 3,918 permits issued in 30 days; 1,237 of them commercial — about 285 commercial permits a week
- After the businesses-only filter (commercial, tradesperson applicant, named contractor), roughly 245 rows per weekly drop — the count varies by week and I state the real count on every cover sheet
- Contractor name is published on 88.2% of commercial rows, with the contractor's business address
- Commercial permits by type in that month: Electrical 266, Building 221, Plumbing 216, Zoning 173, Mechanical 121, Fire Suppression 97, Demolition 8, plus smaller general and operations buckets
- No phone numbers or emails anywhere in the feed, and I don't invent them
Who buys it
Supplier and equipment-rental sales reps working a territory. GCs scouting which subs are busy and active. Commercial insurance agents. People who prospect contractors, not addresses.
Packages
| First Drop | Four Mondays | Full Quarter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $35 | $115 | $315 |
| Drops | 1 weekly drop | 4 consecutive weekly drops | 12 consecutive weekly drops |
| Permit types | All commercial types | All, or filtered to your trades | All, or filtered to your trades |
| Per-trade summary (counts by permit type) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Per-contractor activity ranking (busiest first) | No | Yes | Yes |
| New Philly business licenses sheet | No | No | Yes — one monthly sheet per month covered |
| Format | CSV + Excel | CSV + Excel | CSV + Excel |
| Cover sheet (date range + exact row count) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Extras: a 90-day backfill file is $50. A monthly new-business-licenses sheet is $25 for First Drop and Four Mondays buyers. Ask about contractor contact enrichment or other metros before ordering — those are custom quotes, not checkbox extras.
How drops work
Drops go out every Monday, covering the previous Monday to Sunday. The cover sheet states the exact date range and row count. Thin week, thin count — I don't pad lists to hit a number. Holiday weeks and bad-weather weeks run thinner. If a drop ever comes in under 50 commercial rows, message me and I'll extend your package by a week.
Order
Orders go through Fiverr. The $35 First Drop is the paid trial: one real week, priced so a sales rep can expense it without asking anyone.
Questions first? [email protected]
How the permit-leads line works · Chicago permit leads — the full project-lead version · FAQ