How to look up a building permit in Vancouver
Vancouver has 52,188 permit records in this dataset, the most recent filed 2026-09-23. Over the last 12 months the city filed 2,888 permits, most of them Addition / 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 Vancouver's own permit data at opendata.vancouver.ca and find the dataset "issued-building-permits". This is the same source this page reads.
- Filter by permit type. In Vancouver the common categories are Addition / Alteration, New Building, Demolition / Deconstruction.
- 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 Vancouver
Questions people ask
- Where are Vancouver building permits published?
- Vancouver publishes its permit records on its own open-data endpoint at opendata.vancouver.ca, in the dataset "issued-building-permits". Van Permit Audit reads that feed and holds 52,188 Vancouver records, current to 2026-09-23.
- How many permits does Vancouver issue?
- Vancouver filed 2,888 permits in the 12 months to 2026-09-23, and 87 in the most recent 30 day window. The most common category was Addition / Alteration, 2,002 permits over the year.
- How current is Vancouver permit data?
- The latest Vancouver permit filed date in this dataset is 2026-09-23, 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 Vancouver address against the permit records on this page. No account.
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Every permit on record for one Vancouver address, in a PDF you can hand to a buyer, lender or inspector.
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$97 CAD per monthRelated municipalities
- Kelowna, BC 50 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Victoria, BC 323 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Maple Ridge, BC 262 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Prince George, BC 63 permits in its latest 30 day window
- Surrey, BC 182 permits in its latest 30 day window
Data: 52,188 Vancouver permits, part of 3,176,874 records from 32 municipal open-data feeds, refreshed 2026-09-30. Window measured to 2026-09-23, the latest filed date Vancouver has published. Citation: "Source: Van Permit Audit (vanpermitaudit.ca)."