King County Permit Status

King County Permit Status

Look up building permit history and status across King County, WA jurisdictions — county-level permits (septic, critical areas, grading) and city-level permits (building, mechanical, electrical) can all apply to the same address. Coverage is live where a jurisdiction offers an open permit feed, and falls back to the correct municipal portal link everywhere else.

Coverage today: 🟢 20/39 cities live (status + history) · 🟠 19/39 indexed (issued-permit history from the King County Assessor; current status needs the city portal, which next_step names) · plus unincorporated King County. See the coverage scorecard below for the per-city breakdown.

python3 lookup.py "27927 E Main St"           # by address

python3 lookup.py "7222000353" # by parcel number python3 lookup.py "B25000947" # by permit number python3 lookup.py "23-127651-LP" # Bellevue permit number python3 lookup.py "6145915-CN" # Seattle SDCI permit number python3 lookup.py --pipe "27927 E Main St" # agent pipeline mode python3 lookup.py --limit 10 --since 2020-01-01 --type electrical "27927 E Main St" # shape: newest 10 electrical since 2020 python3 lookup.py --all "27927 E Main St" # every permit (default is the 50 newest + a summary of all) python3 lookup.py --schema # print tool definition

Hosted API + MCP (no install)

The same lookup is served read-only, no auth, from permits-api.secondlandings.ai (server.py, zero dependencies; see deploy/README.md):

Results are live; the server caches each query for 15 minutes and rate-limits per client (30/min) to protect the municipal portals. Known hosted-only gap: Tyler's hosted Civic Access (Redmond) returns 403 to datacenter IPs, so from the hosted endpoint a Redmond lookup carries the Assessor index plus a next_step with reason: source_blocked instead of live Redmond records; run lookup.py locally for those. Every other source answers from the droplet. Run it yourself with python3 server.py or docker compose up — server.json is the MCP Registry manifest.

Parcel-number searches query every supported MyBuildingPermit and live city portal because a bare parcel number does not identify its city jurisdiction.

Address searches are routed by geometry, not the mailing city: the address is geocoded with King County's four-county locator and the point is tested against the city-limits polygons. A "Kent, WA" address that sits in unincorporated King County is searched as county, not Kent; an address with no city in it is routed correctly instead of fanning out to every jurisdiction; and Pierce-side addresses of Milton/Pacific/Auburn get a pierce: parcel id. The mailing city is only used when geocoding fails (jurisdiction.basis says which).

What you get

{

"action": "found", "permit_count": 2, "searched": ["Renton (EnerGov)"], "permits": [ { "permit_number": "E26000458", "type": "Residential Electrical Permit", "status": "Issued", "description": "Electrical Work (Garage & Garage Exterior): ...", "address": "1817 Morris Ave S Renton WA 98055", "jurisdiction": "Renton", "applied_date": "2026-01-28", "issued_date": "2026-01-28", "finaled_date": null, "expires_date": "2027-07-27", "portal": "https://permitting.rentonwa.gov", "record_url": null, "is_open": true } ], "trust_level": "live", "fetched_at": "2026-10-08T19:02:11+00:00", "parcel_id": "king:7222000353", "cite_as": "King County Permit Status (github.com/chaoz23/king-county-permit-status), queried 2026-10-08 via Renton (EnerGov)" }

Per permit: permit_number, type, status, is_open (heuristic, census-tested weekly; null when the source exposes no status) with is_open_basis (finaled_date = certain, status-vocabulary = regex over the vendor's status word, null = unknown), description, address, jurisdiction, applied_date, issued_date, finaled_date, expires_date, portal, record_url (the specific record's URL when the source exposes one).

Multi-jurisdiction coverage

Coverage scorecard

Auto-generated from routing_data.json (python3 scripts/gen_scorecard.py --write). One row per King County city.

Legend — ✅ live (status + history) · 🗂️ index (valuation-reported building history · the number after ✅/🗂️ in Building is the record count at the city's QC address (see qc_addresses.json) — how much is really behind the row from the King County Assessor's parcel index — no status, no sub-permits, dense since ~2023) · ➖ L&I electrical only (2020+) · ⚠️ gap (city self-runs electrical, not yet integrated)

Health = last weekly live probe of the city's source (scripts/source_health.py, 2026-11-02): ✅ answered with records · ⚪ answered, zero rows for a known-good query · ⛔ blocked (403) · ❌ down · ❔ unchecked · — no live source