Name: Census Building Permits
Creator: U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey

API access

Your AI client reaches Census Building Permits through one ParcelOps MCP endpoint, so there is no separate key to hold for it and no per-source client to write. Reaching it takes no credentials of your own.

Set up Census Building Permits in Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor Get every fact on this page as JSON

Where it came from

PublisherU.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey

Sourcehttps://www2.census.gov/econ/bps/County/

API basehttps://www2.census.gov/econ/bps/County

Docshttps://www.census.gov/construction/bps/index.html

Freshness and coverage

FreshnessScheduled · every month · Monthly and year-to-date county files follow the Census publication schedule; annual files are also available.

Places coveredUnited States counties represented in the published BPS files

Time covered1995 → present · The connector exposes the current county-file layout from 1995 forward.

CredentialsNo credentials required

What this source cannot tell you

⚠ Anything outside United States counties represented in the published BPS files. A request past that edge comes back empty rather than approximated.
⚠ Anything from before 1995.
⚠ Anything U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey does not publish. ParcelOps returns this source as it stands and never fills a blank field from a different one.
⚠ BPS contains aggregate residential authorizations, not individual permits, parcel records, completions, or proof that construction occurred.
⚠ Estimated values include Census imputation; reported-only values are returned separately.
⚠ Nonresidential permit statistics were discontinued after 1995.

Methods (2)

A method is one call your agent can make against this source.

getCountyBuildingPermits

read

Get one monthly, year-to-date, or annual county file, optionally filtered by FIPS.

What you must provideperiodyear

FreshnessScheduled · every month (source-level)

Input schema

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "period": {
      "type": "string",
      "enum": [
        "current_month",
        "year_to_date",
        "annual"
      ]
    },
    "year": {
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1995,
      "maximum": 2100
    },
    "month": {
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 12
    },
    "stateFips": {
      "type": "string",
      "pattern": "^\\d{2}$"
    },
    "countyFips": {
      "type": "string",
      "pattern": "^\\d{3}$"
    },
    "limit": {
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 500
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "period",
    "year"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

getServiceInfo
read
Return file conventions, coverage, cadence, fields, and aggregate-data limitations.
FreshnessScheduled · every month (source-level)
Input schema
```
{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {},
  "required": [],
  "additionalProperties": false
}
```

Where this source is used

Residential real estate
The parcel record, the housing programs that touch an address, and the conditions a buyer asks about.
Realtors and brokerages
The facts behind a listing, the programs a buyer may qualify for, and your own files in the same place.
What building permits have been pulled near this property?

Census Building Permits API and MCP server