Job Start List covers 14 US metros. Every job comes from a building permit that the city itself published on its open data portal. This page lists, for each city, who publishes the data, the license that lets us reuse it, how fresh it is today, and which fields are missing. The numbers below are measured live from the same feeds that power your dashboard (cached up to 3 hours).
A permit is a signal, not an open job. It means a city approved work at an address, and often a contractor has already pulled it. Some work never gets a permit, some permits are never built, and cities publish on their own schedules. That is why we merge permits at the same address into one job, drop paperwork-only permits, rank by value and freshness, and show which trades usually come next. We never include owner names or phone numbers.
We add a city only if (1) its license or terms clearly allow commercial reuse, (2) the newest issued permit is 4 days old or less, and (3) it has at least 10 jobs in 7 days. Every city feed is ingested daily at 6:00 AM CT; live health is on the status page.
Jump to: Chicago · Austin · Seattle · New Orleans · Cincinnati · Montgomery County, MD · Cambridge, MA · New York City · Boston · Pittsburgh · Nashville · Detroit · Mesa, AZ · Louisville
Publisher: City of Chicago Data Portal. Dataset: Building Permits.
License: City of Chicago Data Terms of Use: reuse in applications allowed with the City's disclaimer, which we show.
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-14 (2 days ago). 380 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: No ZIP code field in the feed.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 0% |
| Project value | 88% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 100% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 65% |
Publisher: City of Austin Open Data. Dataset: Issued Construction Permits.
License: Public domain (dataset metadata).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-14 (2 days ago). 726 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: Austin does not publish project value, so Austin scores rely on freshness and description only. Many permits here do not match a trade from their wording yet; we are improving matching.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 0% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 80% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 59% |
Publisher: City of Seattle Open Data. Dataset: Building Permits.
License: Public domain (dataset metadata).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-14 (2 days ago). 90 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 94% |
| Project value | 100% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 99% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 86% |
Publisher: City of New Orleans Open Data. Dataset: Permits.
License: CC0 1.0 (dataset metadata).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-15 (1 day ago). 255 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: No ZIP code field in the feed.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 0% |
| Project value | 79% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 88% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 80% |
Publisher: City of Cincinnati Open Data. Dataset: Building Permits.
License: Public domain (dataset metadata).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-14 (2 days ago). 131 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: No ZIP code field, and descriptions are usually one or two words (for example "Addition"). Many permits here do not match a trade from their wording yet; we are improving matching.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 0% |
| Project value | 99% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 0% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 57% |
Publisher: Montgomery County, MD dataMontgomery. Dataset: Residential permits, Commercial permits.
License: Public domain (dataset metadata).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-15 (1 day ago). 136 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 99% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 99% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 77% |
Publisher: City of Cambridge Open Data. Dataset: New construction permits, Alteration permits.
License: ODC PDDL (dataset metadata).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-15 (1 day ago). 18 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: Low volume: usually under 20 jobs a week.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 100% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 94% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 100% |
Publisher: NYC Open Data, Department of Buildings (DOB NOW). Dataset: DOB NOW: Build, approved permits.
License: NYC Open Data Law: no registration, license or use restrictions; attribution requested, which we give.
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-14 (2 days ago). 1397 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: Many permits here do not match a trade from their wording yet; we are improving matching.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 86% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 98% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 45% |
Publisher: City of Boston, Analyze Boston. Dataset: Approved Building Permits.
License: Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-15 (1 day ago). 389 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 99% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 88% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 77% |
Publisher: City of Pittsburgh via the Western PA Regional Data Center (WPRDC). Dataset: PLI Permits.
License: CC BY 4.0. Credit: City of Pittsburgh via WPRDC.
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-12 (4 days ago). 78 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: The data endpoint sometimes returns errors; we retry and fall back to the last good copy.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 95% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 60% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 97% |
Publisher: Metro Nashville Open Data (GIS). Dataset: Building Permits Issued.
License: CC0 1.0 under Metro's open data policy; no endorsement by Metro is implied.
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-15 (1 day ago). 189 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: Many permits here do not match a trade from their wording yet; we are improving matching.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 100% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 100% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 55% |
Publisher: City of Detroit Open Data. Dataset: BSEED Building Permits.
License: Public domain per the City's published statement (no dataset-level license).
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-15 (1 day ago). 142 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: Many permits here do not match a trade from their wording yet; we are improving matching.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 100% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 66% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 17% |
Publisher: City of Mesa Data Hub. Dataset: Building Permits.
License: City of Mesa open data policy: open license, commercial use allowed.
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-14 (2 days ago). 64 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: No project value and no ZIP code in the feed.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 0% |
| Project value | 0% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 100% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 81% |
Publisher: Louisville Metro / LOJIC Open Data. Dataset: Active Construction Permits.
License: ODC PDDL under LOJIC terms. Mapping Data Source: LOJIC.
Freshness: Newest permit issued 2026-10-16 (today). 268 jobs in the last 7 days. Last daily ingest Oct 16, 7:14 AM CT.
Known gaps: The feed has categories and work types but usually no free-text description.
| Field | Jobs that have it |
|---|---|
| Street address | 100% (jobs without one are dropped) |
| ZIP code | 100% |
| Project value | 99% |
| Work description over 40 characters | 36% |
| Matched to at least one trade | 72% |
This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. Pittsburgh data: City of Pittsburgh via WPRDC (CC BY 4.0). Louisville: Mapping Data Source: LOJIC. Questions about a source? Email hello@jobstartlist.com.
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