How to look up a building permit in Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay has 14,723 permit records in this dataset, the most recent filed 2026-05-13. Over the last 12 months the city filed 958 permits, most of them Plumbing System Only - Single Detached Dwelling. 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 Thunder Bay's own permit data at services5.arcgis.com and find the dataset "Building Permits". This is the same source this page reads.
- Filter by permit type. In Thunder Bay the common categories are Plumbing System Only - Single Detached Dwelling, Addition/Alteration - Single Detached Dwelling, New - Detached Garage.
- 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 Thunder Bay
Questions people ask
- Where are Thunder Bay building permits published?
- Thunder Bay publishes its permit records on its own open-data endpoint at services5.arcgis.com, in the dataset "Building Permits". Van Permit Audit reads that feed and holds 14,723 Thunder Bay records, current to 2026-05-13.
- How many permits does Thunder Bay issue?
- Thunder Bay filed 958 permits in the 12 months to 2026-05-13, and 70 in the most recent 30 day window. The most common category was Plumbing System Only - Single Detached Dwelling, 366 permits over the year.
- How current is Thunder Bay permit data?
- The latest Thunder Bay permit filed date in this dataset is 2026-05-13, 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 Thunder Bay address against the permit records on this page. No account.
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Every permit on record for one Thunder Bay address, in a PDF you can hand to a buyer, lender or inspector.
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$97 CAD per monthRelated municipalities
- Vaughan, ON 28 permits in its latest 30 day window
- St. Catharines, ON 262 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Barrie, ON 142 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Ottawa, ON 1,034 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Mississauga, ON 98 permits in its latest 30 day window
Data: 14,723 Thunder Bay permits, part of 3,176,874 records from 32 municipal open-data feeds, refreshed 2026-09-30. Window measured to 2026-05-13, the latest filed date Thunder Bay has published. Citation: "Source: Van Permit Audit (vanpermitaudit.ca)."