For a specific City of Cincinnati property, ask Buildings & Inspections about its street-address file of permits, plans, orders and related records. For a question about building-permit activity in a particular year, ask for the annual report instead. The City’s Building Department Records handout says those two collections are organized differently. The permit, approved plan or inspection file for one address lives in the address file.
Choose the collection before asking staff to search
The handout describes permits, plans, orders and related documents as filed by street address. A property-file request should therefore start with the exact address used when the work occurred, an approximate period and the item you need. If the building has changed numbering or has more than one unit, give the old and current address forms you know; ask staff which address file applies rather than assuming an online match represents the same structure.
Building-permit activity reports are filed by year. Use them to identify activity in a year or to narrow a possible period. A report entry shows activity in that year; whether a particular plan, inspection card or certificate survives is a question for the address file. Likewise, a report search that misses your address leaves the address file unsearched. This split is the main decision: property-specific document → address file; year-level activity → annual report.
The City’s current Buildings FAQ says building-permit records are available for public inspection. Its older residential permit guide adds a useful practical warning: records about one address can be intermingled, and staff will pull the file for the requester to review rather than scrutinize every item for a specific answer. Bring a short list of the document titles you seek, such as issued permit, plan, housing order, inspection or certificate of occupancy. Record the permit number and date when you find the right sheet. Our certificate-versus-permit guide explains why those two documents answer different questions.
What Cincinnati’s 2017 records handout says about coverage dates
The official handout was revised in May 2017. It says microfilming began in 1975, with earlier available documents filmed retrospectively. It describes plans as generally reaching back to 1968, and other permits or orders as normally reaching the early 1960s. Annual reports are also described as reaching the early 1960s. These are collection-level descriptions from 2017; ask staff whether a legible plan exists for your address and whether retention or access has changed since.
If the project predates the described ranges, ask whether another City record series or custodian may help. Do not conclude that work was unpermitted just because this archive may not hold its paperwork. Likewise, a filmed plan can show what was submitted or approved without proving that the work was built as drawn. Pair the plan with the permit, later inspection and any occupancy evidence when the question is completion. Our old-permit lookup guide offers ways to organize that older-file inquiry.
Take an address-based request to the current Permit Center
The City still lists the handout among its current applications and forms. Its current Permit Center page identifies 805 Central Avenue, Suite 500 as the service location. The Buildings contact page lists 513-352-3271, option 9 for Customer Service. Confirm hours, copy availability and any charges with staff before a visit; treat the 2017 handout’s printed fees as dated.
Give Customer Service a compact request for the address file or an annual report:
- Document: the issued permit, approved plan, inspection, order or certificate you need; say whether you want to inspect the file or obtain a copy.
- Property: the City street address, including any former numbering or unit you know.
- Time and identifier: the approximate work year and permit number, if known; say whether a year-level annual report would also help.
The FAQ also points to ezTrak for permit status; a status screen is a different source from a historical plan or paper file. For the archive, use the handout’s address key; ezTrak may ask for different inputs. If you need to understand whether an issued permit was later closed, follow its inspection evidence rather than the issue date alone; see our final-inspection guide.
For enforcement orders rather than permits, our Cincinnati code enforcement lookup explains how to read case statuses in ezTrak and the City’s open data.
City of Cincinnati Buildings & Inspections pages and the May 2017 records handout checked September 28, 2026.