Before you buy a building, hire a contractor or start work next door to someone else's job, you will probably want to see what DOB has on file. Permit records in New York City are public and free to search, and you do not need an account. The catch is that they live in two different systems, and a search in only one of them can miss half the history.
Two systems, and why you need both
DOB moved filings into DOB NOW over several years, one job type at a time. Jobs filed in DOB NOW appear in the DOB NOW Public Portal at nyc.gov/dobnow. Jobs filed earlier through eFiling or at a borough office stay in the older Buildings Information System (BIS) at nyc.gov/bis. DOB is clear that the Public Portal does not show BIS filings. An older building can easily have an active DOB NOW alteration and a decades-long BIS history, so check both.
The third source is NYC Open Data, which publishes the filings from both systems as datasets. It is the most complete view, but it is built for spreadsheets rather than for looking up one address.
Searching the DOB NOW Public Portal
- Go to nyc.gov/dobnow and choose the property search under Search the Public Portal. No login is needed.
- Search by address, by borough, block and lot (BBL), by BIN (Building Identification Number) or by job number.
- The Property Profile opens. The job filings list shows each DOB NOW job with its work type and current status. Open a job to see its work permits.
- On the work permit you can see the permit holder (the contractor) and the permit's expiration date.
Two limits to know. Jobs still in pre-filing are not shown to the public. And plans are not viewable in the portal; drawings have to be requested through DOB NOW: BIS Options as a records request.
If you are an occupant of a building with construction under way, the same screen is where the Occupant Notice for a Tenant Protection Plan job can be printed: open the job, go to the Work Permit, and print the notice.
Searching BIS
- Go to nyc.gov/bis and open Building Information Search.
- Pick the borough, enter the house number and street, and continue to the Property Profile Overview.
- Select Jobs/Filings for BIS job applications and their permits. Actions shows older pre-BIS job numbers.
- If you already have a number, BIS also searches directly by BIS job number or permit number.
BIS is also where 311 complaints and OATH/ECB violations live. Neither appears in the DOB NOW portal, so if you are doing due diligence you will be in BIS anyway.
Reading the status
A job and its permit are separate records. The job is the application; the permit is DOB's authorization to do the work once the job is approved. A job can be approved and still have no permit, for example while the contractor's insurance is being filed.
- In DOB NOW, the job status reads in words: under plan examiner review, objections, approved, permit issued, signed off.
- In BIS, the status is a letter code. The ones you will see most are P (approved), Q (permit issued for part of the job), R (permit issued for the entire job, shown as "Permit-Entire"), J (disapproved) and X (signed off).
- A permit has an expiration date. Expired permits are a common reason inspections cannot be scheduled and sign-off stalls, so check the date as well as the status.
What a permit search will not tell you
A permit search tells you what was filed. It does not tell you whether the work on site matches the plans, whether a job was abandoned without being withdrawn, or whether old work was done with no permit at all. Open jobs that were never signed off are one of the most common problems we find on buildings that are being sold or refinanced, because they have to be closed before a new Certificate of Occupancy can be issued or before some lenders will close.
A faster way
Our free Property Report pulls DOB NOW and BIS jobs, permits, violations, complaints and certificates of occupancy for an address into one page, so you do not have to work through each system by hand. If the report shows open jobs or permits you do not understand, send us the address and we will tell you what they mean and what it takes to close them. And if your question is which permits your own project needs, start with the Permit Wizard.