How to look up a building permit in Hamilton
Hamilton has 51,846 permit records in this dataset, the most recent filed 2023-12-22. Over the last 12 months the city filed 6,143 permits, most of them Alteration. Here is how to check one address, and what this dataset already shows.
Step by step
- Start with the civic address exactly as the city writes it, street number, street name, unit. Municipal feeds match on the address string, so "123 Main St" and "123 Main Street" can return different rows.
- Open Hamilton's own permit data at services.arcgis.com and find the dataset "Building & Demolition Permits 2017-present". This is the same source this page reads.
- Filter by permit type. In Hamilton the common categories are Alteration, New Construction, Deck/Porch.
- Check the status and the issue date, not just the filing. A filed permit is not an issued permit, and an issued permit is not a finalized one. A permit still open on the record is the one that stalls a sale.
- If nothing comes back, the work may predate the city's published range, or it may have been done without a permit. Both look identical in an open-data search, which is why a written report matters at a closing.
What this dataset shows for Hamilton
51,846
Records held
Hamilton, ON
6,143
Filed, last 12 months
2022-12-23 to 2023-12-22
2023-12-22
Latest filed date
The newest record the city has published
2026-09-30
Data refreshed
Last warehouse rebuild
Questions people ask
- Where are Hamilton building permits published?
- Hamilton publishes its permit records on its own open-data endpoint at services.arcgis.com, in the dataset "Building & Demolition Permits 2017-present". Van Permit Audit reads that feed and holds 51,846 Hamilton records, current to 2023-12-22.
- How many permits does Hamilton issue?
- Hamilton filed 6,143 permits in the 12 months to 2023-12-22, and 567 in the most recent 30 day window. The most common category was Alteration, 1,990 permits over the year.
- How current is Hamilton permit data?
- The latest Hamilton permit filed date in this dataset is 2023-12-22, and the dataset was refreshed on 2026-09-30. Municipal feeds publish on their own cycle, so a permit filed in the last few days may not appear in either the city's feed or here yet.
Look up an address, free
Search any Hamilton address against the permit records on this page. No account.
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Every permit on record for one Hamilton address, in a PDF you can hand to a buyer, lender or inspector.
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$97 CAD per monthRelated municipalities
- Greater Sudbury, ON 182 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Mississauga, ON 98 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Kitchener, ON 74 permits in its latest 30 day window
- St. Catharines, ON 262 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Vaughan, ON 28 permits in its latest 30 day window
Data: 51,846 Hamilton permits, part of 3,176,874 records from 32 municipal open-data feeds, refreshed 2026-09-30. Window measured to 2023-12-22, the latest filed date Hamilton has published. Citation: "Source: Van Permit Audit (vanpermitaudit.ca)."